The Suez Canal is an artificial water channel that allows transportation of goods between Europe and Asia without having to enter Africa. This canal was not made in a year, it took more than a decade of tough labours and thousands lost their lives in the construction of one of the major seaports in the world.

                           Historical picture of Gurkhas at Suez Canal

The canal has a close connection with Nepal in that many young boys and men from villages across Nepal laid their lives fighting for Suez Canal for Western allies during the First World War and Second war. There are numerous graves of these men through out the war cemeteries around Cairo suburb.

Today, the canal remains the key short-cut to sail all the way around the world. The canal directly links the Red Sea to the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The modern canal planned by a French engineer was officially opened in 1869 after a decade long construction. After numerous enlargements, the canal is 193.30km long, 24m deep and 205m wide. The canal is owned and maintained by the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) of the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The canal has faced quite a few crisis which has caused the canal to be closed to the public in 1956 and was reopened in April, 1957. The canal was again closed during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and remained inoperative until June 1975. Today under international treaty, it may be used “in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.”

The canal has been a major transportation passage for the world. Every month, the Suez Canal has at least an average of 1455 ships passing through. The canal is living up to its visions of being the first choice for most shipping companies and shipping owners.

Sadly I could not cycle through the entire stretch of the very long canal. I only visited the site of Ismailia, about two and a half hours away from Cairo.