Two Ferries--Tourist and Worker and other Luxor, Egypt Transportation Tips

'Mode': AROUND
Category: Ship/Boat
Getting TO/AROUND: Several blocks south of Luxor Temple there's a landing for the tourist ferry, a place that's convenient for many hotels in the area. It costs about $2- to cross the Nile. The ship is clean and safe, but it lands in a place that is actually a bit upstream from most direct route to the West Bank ruins, as I recall. The landing on the West Bank side is a taxi driver's haven in the morning, as tourists scramble to bargain for transport to Valley of the Kings. Most individuals want to beat the bus loads of tour groups that will easily overwhelm and fill Valley of the Kings tombs by 9am. In the late afternoon, we had already watched the sun set as we approached the river and had missed the last tourist ferry back to Luxor. Therefore, we had to take the lilting worker ferry. It was a relative rust bucket that threatened to sink, but it cost only a $1- to cross. Also, it landed just north of Luxor Temple, a better access point for the center of Luxor town. Preferring the relaxed company of the locals, to the manic tourist boatload, we took the local ferry the next morning back to the West Bank.

Leave a Comment

Website: http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/beyond/luxor.htm

'Mode': TO
Category: Train
Getting TO/AROUND: We took the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan, which takes 16 hours. The 1st class service provides very wide swivel seating and plenty of leg room, so we saved ourselves a significant sum over tickets for the "sleeper" service. I tied my shoe laces to my luggage, but casual survey of the other passengers showed little to be worried about--families and businessmen who could care less about our luggage. The tracks were in good repair and the train wasted little time in moving between stations.

Luxor is roughly half-way between Cairo and Aswan, so we returned north from Aswan by way of local vans that make quick work of the short run visits to temples at Esna and Idfu along the way. And, on the trip from Luxor back to Cairo, all train tickets for 1st class were sold out, so we purchased 2nd class seats. As it turned out, 2nd class was somewhat more entertaining in terms of conversations with fellow passengers, and the seats while a bit more confining than 1st were really quite adequate for the shorter run. The great thing about train travel is that if the seat makes the bottom sore, a passenger can get up and walk around to ease the discomfort.

The Luxor Train station is a long walk through the center of Luxor from the waterfront hotel area, but is still close enough for backpackers or even those like ourselves who pull wheeled luggage.

Leave a Comment