Ferry, Luxor

The Local Ferry is an exciting and adventurous way to cross the Nile, not to mention the cheapest. For 1LE you can cross from the West Bank to the East or vice versa. You get a real cross section of everyday Egyptian life - business men in suits, mothers with children, felucca captains and city workers.

Rush hour is a mad dash of people and you must keep your wits about you. Think the subway in New York is bad when the train pulls up and the doors open? You haven't seen Luxor men try to get off the ferry en masse the second the ferry touches the dock. It would be comical if you weren't at risk of being swept off your feet (and not in an exotic foreign romance kind of way :-).

For a more laid back experience, try the ferry during off peak hours. Practice your Arabic on the kids or have your shoes shined by one of the boys on the boat. Don't be alarmed if he takes your shoes and disappears. He always gets the right shoes back to the right person before the boat gets to the other side.

Many tourists don't take the local ferry so step out of your cocoon and be the one to 'travel like a local'. It's fun! And it'll earn you some brownie points with the locals.

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During my 1 week stay at the Luxor Pyramisa Isis I learnt to know Captin Ruby. He is operating his motor craft from the hotel landing. I had him organize some day trips for me. He brought me e. g. in the morning to the West bank, organized a taxi to the sights over there. I spent some hours walking in the surroundings, then I called him on his mobile and told him the place where the taxi should pick me up. He was waiting at the West bank landing and brought me back. I enjoyed this independence greatly. He will organize any trip you might want, Nile theme cruise etc., just you name it. His English is really good, and you will find it easy to speak with him. He is very reliable. Fix a price beforehand and you will have no problems.
Go help the locals by using their services. Round Luxor tourism is all they have to earn their living.

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For crossing the Nile from east to west bank (and vice-versa), there are two options: (a) a more expensive, private ferry ride that would set you back by around EGP 5 (depending on your haggling skills); or (b) local ferry that costs EGP 1/pax for foreigners (EGP 0.20 for locals). You may have to wait for the ferry to be filled, but it doesn't take more than a couple of minutes. You also get opportunities to mingle with locals other than touts.

I was told local ferries run for 24 hours, so you could have a late night out at the west bank and still not worry about getting a cheap ride back to your hotel on the east bank. Some of Luxor's more atmospheric restaurants (e.g. Africa Restaurant) are at the west bank.

The ferry terminal is located at the Corniche across the ticket office of Luxor Temple.

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Although there is a bridge about 15 minutes south of Luxor, nearly all of the human traffic between the two banks of the Nile goes by ferry. Anyone could charter a private ferry, as boats are abundant, but for a more authentic experience, one must take the local ferry. It shuttles between the two banks frequently and costs LE 1 (1 Egyptian Pound ~ US$0.20) per person each way. Beware, the boat driver will attempt to charge you for the return, or sometimes a higher fare, don't give in!

You can cross the Nile to the West Bank either by ferry or motorboat.

The ferry costs 1 LE and the boats run throughout the day. I didn't notice whether they adhered to any schedule, but I never had to wait very long before the boat cast off.

The motor boats - aggressivly touted even when you are obviously heading towards the ferry - cost 5 LE and up.

Don't believe what the motorboat touts might tell you. The public ferry that runs between the East Bank (the terminal is near the mummification museam) and the West Bank runs reguarly 24 hours a day, every day. It's only 50pt per trip, or 1 LE for a round trip. You will probably be asked if you want a round trip. If you do, you'll get a hand-written note, scrawled on whatever scrap of paper they have on hand, to hand over for your return trip.

There are two ferries. Generally, one will wait until the other is pulling in behind it before it leaves. You never have to wait long, even at 4am.

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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.

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Staying at the Novotel, I could see the ferry a little way from the gardens, running back and forth across the Nile with its load of cars, animals and people and so had no trouble locating it, accompanied by my bicycle, on the days I planned to visit the mortuary temples on the west bank of the Nile.

I went up to the top deck, as the boat turned slowly around and began to progress slowly across the river. From here I could watch, as the boats large steering wheel was controlled by the expert feet of the ferry man, who sat cross legged on a ledge in his small cabin with his assistant, who collected the miniscule fares we were charged for using the service. I asked if I could take a photo and they both smiled and posed for it; I'm sure they've been asked many times! (I was later rather embarrassed, showing the pictures to my parents, to find I'd taken a picture of some less than charming English graffiti on the painted side of the cabin so I'd better crop that picture before adding it here!)

I was surprised not to see any other tourists on the ferry but was told that a rather smarter tourist ferry runs a different route a little way to the north, so the older public ferry I was using gets little custom from overseas visitors. I was lucky with my timing on the way across in the morning but in the evening I discovered I had just missed one, although who could complain, when waiting for its return simply means half an hour spent on the banks of the Nile in the evening sun, watching the feluccas drift past and chatting to the other passengers?