Luxor

Luxor (Arabic: الأقصر, pronounced in Egyptian Arabic: lo’Sor) is the premier travel destination in Upper (southern) Egypt and the Nile Valley.

Although a relatively small town by Egyptian population standards, Luxor is quite extensive. It divides naturally into the areas on each side of the river Nile.

The dynastic and religious capital of Middle Kingdom (circa 2050-1710 BCE) and New Kingdom (circa 1550-1080 BCE) Egypt, Luxor has much to offer the visitor, from vast temples, to ancient royal tombs, via spectacular desert and river scenery and a bustling modern life.

Thebes, the world heritage listed old capital of Egypt, was on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor. Most of Luxor's ruins and tombs are there.

The modern city of Luxor is on the east bank. This area has the train and bus stations, most of the hotels and restaurants, some museums, tourist shops and so on. Most visitors (and almost all tour groups) stay on the east bank and travel across for the tourist sites but, in recent years, there has been an increase in hotels on the west bank and many independent travellers stay there.

However, Luxor is also known as the hassle capital of Egypt (and therefore a good candidate for the world). Instead, Aswan further south is quite the opposite and much more relaxed. It is a good alternative in case you want to skip the Luxor experience altogether but not miss the beauty of the Nile and the nearby attractive sights.

See also: Egypt#Climate

The weather is generally extremely hot in summer, while in winter it is generally warm, but may get cool at night. The climate is very dry with almost no rain at all and very few cloudy days. The best time to visit is in winter, from November to the beginning of March. The transition from winter to summer is abrupt, so there is no real spring or autumn. The prevailing wind is quite weak, but is persistently northerly. As a result the weather is predictable. By and large, there is little variation day to day. More basic accommodation often will not have reversible air conditioning, nor much insulation. As a result, accommodation can feel decidedly cold in winter, even though outdoors, the daytime temperature might be quite pleasant.

The Luxor district article pages contain detailed information and suggestions for things to see. Highlights include:

East Bank of Luxor:

• The temple complex of Luxor
• The temple complex of Karnak
• Luxor and Mummification museums

West Bank of Luxor:

• The Valley of the Kings
• Medinet Habu
• The Tombs of the Nobles
• The Ramesseum Temple
• Deir el-Bahari of Queen Hatshepsut
• Colossi of Memnon

• Hire a bicycle and ride around Ancient Thebes, which takes less than 15 minutes.
• A local felucca ride just before sunset; shouldn't cost you more than about LE30 (for one person) per hour.
• Take a felucca cruise on the Nile for a 2-day trip to Aswan (the reverse trip is recommended, however, due to river currents).
• Book a cruise ship for 2-3 nights between Luxor and Aswan by tracking down one or several of them along the pier before noon. Most cruise ships have a reception at their entrance and you can just walk in. Do not mind the guards or barriers, they are just there for protection. According to some, prices can start at US$40 per night, and this will be cheaper than when going through an agent or booking online.
• Hire a donkey, horse or camel to ride around Luxor's West Bank.

  * Pharaoh's Stables. +20 10 6324961. They will take you to places where the big coaches can't go. They have horses for beginners to experienced riders. The sunset ride and nile ride seems like a must do.

• Swim in a hotel’s pool after a dusty day of tombs and temples:
  • Iberotel: LE75
  • Sonesta: LE50
  • One next to St Joseph: LE25
• A hot air balloon tour in the morning for sunrise. LE950-1100, when booked with your accommodation. This does generally not include sunset, supposedly depending on the wind, which is what they are used to say every day. It is still an impressive and inexpensive ride, even without sunrise.

  * Magic Horizon Balloons, Badr Street, off TV St, +20 1005688439. Flight starts before dawn: MH staff picks passengers up at their hotel or cruise boat, ferry them across the Nile by Felucca boat (tea, coffee & cakes provided on the boat) and drive them to the take-off point. Guests glide up from the West Bank in an balloon and float over Luxor enjoying a view of all the important landmarks of the West Bank. A unique way to visit the ancient land of the Pharaohs. Each flight lasts at least 40 minutes, weather permitting. LE1,900 according to their website.

Hire a bicycle and ride around Ancient Thebes, which takes less than 15 minutes.

A local felucca ride just before sunset; shouldn't cost you more than about LE30 (for one person) per hour.

Take a [[felucca cruise on the Nile]] for a 2-day trip to Aswan (the reverse trip is recommended, however, due to river currents).

Book a cruise ship for 2-3 nights between Luxor and Aswan by tracking down one or several of them along the pier before noon. Most cruise ships have a reception at their entrance and you can just walk in. Do not mind the guards or barriers, they are just there for protection. According to some, prices can start at US$40 per night, and this will be cheaper than when going through an agent or booking online.

Hire a donkey, horse or camel to ride around Luxor's West Bank.

* Pharaoh's Stables. +20 10 6324961. They will take you to places where the big coaches can't go. They have horses for beginners to experienced riders. The sunset ride and nile ride seems like a must do.

Swim in a hotel’s pool after a dusty day of tombs and temples:

• Iberotel: LE75
• Sonesta: LE50
• One next to St Joseph: LE25

A hot air balloon tour in the morning for sunrise. LE950-1100, when booked with your accommodation. This does generally not include sunset, supposedly depending on the wind, which is what they are used to say every day. It is still an impressive and inexpensive ride, even without sunrise.

* Magic Horizon Balloons, Badr Street, off TV St, +20 1005688439. Flight starts before dawn: MH staff picks passengers up at their hotel or cruise boat, ferry them across the Nile by Felucca boat (tea, coffee & cakes provided on the boat) and drive them to the take-off point. Guests glide up from the West Bank in an balloon and float over Luxor enjoying a view of all the important landmarks of the West Bank. A unique way to visit the ancient land of the Pharaohs. Each flight lasts at least 40 minutes, weather permitting. LE1,900 according to their website.

There are at least two different markets in Luxor. One is located in an air-conditioned hall, with shops located on either side of the hall. This market hall connects two major streets.

The older market takes up several streets near the Luxor temple. It is a joy to walk through, as it is mostly pedestrian and is a welcome respite from the horse and carriages on the main streets. This market really feels like an old souk and the visitor is taken back in time. It is covered with a wooden trellis, shading people from the sun. Many of the shops offer the same items, so the wise buyer shops around and looks for the best price. One can often bargain better after going to several stores.

Once you find a merchant you like, sit down, have some tea and begin the game of bargaining. It can feel like you are becoming a part of the family. Buying something as simple as a cotton galabeya can take hours, as you try on almost every single galabeya in the store, and then move on to items that they think you may want for the rest of your family.

Buying anything may be very frustrating due to constant bargaining if you are not used to it. This trick has proven to work well: usually their first offer for the price can be ten or even a hundred times bigger than a reasonable price. First decide what you are actually willing to pay. Let us say that in this example it is LE20. If you ask for the price, you may get a reply "LE120". Now you offer LE22. You may then be offered something like LE110. Then instead of going up, you start going down with the price, your new offer will be only LE20 (your predefined price limit). If the bargaining continues you continue dropping your offer. Pretty soon he will understand where the bargaining is going and you get a comfortable price, or you get rid of the vendor.

The touting in the main Souq in Luxor is so bad that it is an absolute nightmare walking through it. Any desire you had to buy anything will quickly disappear as dozens of men try every possible catch they have on you. These include: "You look lucky", "you look Egyptian", "come see my shop, no hassle," and guessing your nationality. But if you continue straight forward, you will come to the real Souq, where the locals go shopping, and the atmosphere changes completely.

Luxor is a vegetarian's paradise with lots of fresh seasonal vegetables such as tomato and cucumber.

A meal often begins with pita-bread and mezze such as baba ganoush or taboulé.

Your main course may include meat or poultry, or regional dishes such as pigeon or rabbit. (To avoid an upset stomach, you may prefer to stick with the beef.) As with any heavily touristed area in Egypt, it is never hard to find reasonably well-executed Western food.

Dairy products, such as yoghurt or gibna bayda cheese (like feta but creamier), might accompany your main meal.

Finally, many good vegetarian desserts are available, though some might seem overly sweet to western tastes. (If you can, specify low or medium sweetness.)

While the evening meal is often filling, you may find this does not meet the energy requirements of a busy tourist. It is advisable to eat a hearty breakfast, drink lots of water and snack frequently during the day.

For restaurants by district, see:

• Luxor, East Bank
• Luxor, West Bank

There is something of a social stigma attached to public drunkenness. Although Egyptians themselves sometimes choose to ignore this, for a foreigner to be drunk in public can give a bad impression. Most local pubs tend to be testosterone-filled hard-drinking dens where lone foreigners and especially lone women may feel uncomfortable.

However, there are numerous places in Luxor to buy alcohol. Many restaurants, above the basic on the street places, sell lager and wine. They are generally made obvious by Stella signs outside or by having people drinking inside them.

There are two open-air restaurants opposite the temple about 200 m south of the main entrance which serve Stella lager for LE14 including tax (as of September 2011) and other local beer and wine for fairly reasonable prices. The huge Stella signs outside give them away. If you can not find somewhere convenient serving alcohol, it may be an idea to ask the staff in your hotel for directions. 'Cafeteria' can be the euphemistic name for a pub in Egypt, and pubs can be quite hard to find if you do not know exactly where to go.

There is a duty-free shop close to the north end of the Luxor Temple, slightly to the right across the busy junction. It has plastic see-through shutters at its windows and a guard outside. If you take your passport and go within two days of arriving in Egypt, up to three bottles of main-name spirits and beer, etc. at reduced prices, per person, can be bought. After the two days you can only buy the Egyptian equivalent. They also sell electrical products, and close at 10PM.

Drinking in the street or in parks, although fairly widely done by locals, is not recommended for foreigners as it is illegal and alcohol is generally cheap enough in restaurants anyway.

See the various Luxor district pages for details of telephone, internet and postal services - being a major tourist town, Luxor is extremely well-served with communication facilities.

Most of the best outlets are to be found where the bulk of the local population lives, in the East Bank of Luxor.

Luxor telephone number format is +20 95 2xxx xxx, while on the West Bank +20 95 2060xxx.

Luxor Passport Office. Sa-Th 8AM-4PM. You must submit your passport, 2 pictures, copies of your passport (including entrance stamps), and LE1,100 fee before 11AM. Your passport will be returned at about 2PM the same day. Sometimes they might request additional documents like notarised rental contract and extend waiting time up to a month. At any rate, visa extensions are far easier to acquire at this office than in Cairo; acquiring it in Hurghada would be the easiest of all of them.

• Stay Alert – For those not on fully organised tours, touts can make sight seeing very frustrating. (Although they tend not to stray into the actual temples.) However within temples, one must contend with the government tour guides. The guides are legitimate government workers, but also extremely aggressive about "guiding you" and then demanding a tip. Rule of thumb: If anyone shows you anything, for any amount of time, they will want a tip. It may be worthwhile to give a small tip upfront while asking to "self tour".
• It is wise to know which accommodation you are heading to and where, or just pre-book accommodation. Otherwise, you will have to deal with the touts at the station.
• As tourism is the main source of income in Luxor, and has been for centuries, many people have made scamming into an art form. Some of the older tricks in the book:

  * The "I need a letter translated" opener, used to draw you into a shop

  * The "I need a letter writing to my friend in your country" opener (they show you an address that is in your country), again used to draw you into a shop

  * The alabaster factory. A large percentage of alabaster is imported, and is hardly made on site. The vast majority of other stones such as jade are imported from China and India.

  * "The temple is closed"- Check opening times before you arrive. Find out on your own whether something is open or closed, whether you are walking the right way or not. Ask a local, not taxi or caleche driver. The main temples all maintain the same basic hours and rarely, if ever, have closures, as conservation/excavation work is almost always done while they are open, with just one area sealed off. The tombs in the Valley of the Kings are a different matter, but the main ticket office at the entrance has a sign showing which individual tombs are open and closed on any given day.

  * Papyrus Museum - it is just a papyrus shop, some are good but some are cheap imitations.

  * Scarf seller - person selling usually just one scarf will attempt to use it to hide their hand movements while they pick pocket you.

  * The "I know you from the cruise ship." opener.

  * The "Excuse me, where are you from?" opener.

• Women travelling without company should exercise extreme caution whilst seeking budget accommodation. There have been several reports of sexual assault after women were given spiked drinks by hotel touts and staff. Always check your room to make sure the door has a secure lock that can't be opened from the outside, and check for spy holes (this is actually a thing in some places). Staff in some shops will also on occasion harass or grope women who aren't with a male travel companion. If you are travelling with a male travel companion, consider pretending to be husband and wife, even if you aren't. This will avoid some of these problems.
• Merchants in Luxor are notoriously aggressive and manipulative. If you do not want to be talked into buying anything, it is wise to completely ignore any attempt by a local to strike up conversation, no matter how benign it may seem. In shops and the market, the phrase "No Hassle" can often be used to avoid unwanted attention. If you would like to be polite, it is also appropriate to say "Laa shukran", meaning ‘no thanks’ in Arabic. Being polite will make your life easier, as people will remember you if you were rude and may hassle more later. If problems persist, threaten to call the tourist police with the phrase "You're a hustler!".
• On the streets, you may find it easier to feign ignorance of English: "Non Speakee Engleezee" and/or "Non Parlee Arabee" seems to be the most reliable way to show you are not interested in their offers. This technique can however backfire quite spectacularly as most Egyptians speak several languages, so if pressed claim to speak something obscure like Azerbaijani or Ossetic. If you do speak an uncommon language such as Persian or Albanian or an Eastern European language, make sure you start talking to them in that language. If you do not, practice faking it and do so in their presence. This is the fastest and easiest way to get rid of the touts. Otherwise, just don't engage at all.
• Depending upon the perception your profile creates, you may be asked, sometimes within minutes of exiting your hotel, if you would like to purchase drugs or sex. Remember, prostitution and drug use are not taken lightly by government authorities. For gay visitors, extreme care should be taken when propositioned by a sex worker. Egypt has a well documented record of gay men being caught in entrapment schemes.

Stay Alert – For those not on fully organised tours, touts can make sight seeing very frustrating. (Although they tend not to stray into the actual temples.) However within temples, one must contend with the government tour guides. The guides are legitimate government workers, but also extremely aggressive about "guiding you" and then demanding a tip. Rule of thumb: If anyone shows you anything, for any amount of time, they will want a tip. It may be worthwhile to give a small tip upfront while asking to "self tour".

Women travelling without company should exercise extreme caution whilst seeking budget accommodation. There have been several reports of sexual assault after women were given spiked drinks by hotel touts and staff. Always check your room to make sure the door has a secure lock that can't be opened from the outside, and check for spy holes (this is actually a thing in some places). Staff in some shops will also on occasion harass or grope women who aren't with a male travel companion. If you are travelling with a male travel companion, consider pretending to be husband and wife, even if you aren't. This will avoid some of these problems.

Merchants in Luxor are notoriously aggressive and manipulative. If you do not want to be talked into buying anything, it is wise to completely ignore any attempt by a local to strike up conversation, no matter how benign it may seem. In shops and the market, the phrase "No Hassle" can often be used to avoid unwanted attention. If you would like to be polite, it is also appropriate to say "Laa shukran", meaning ‘no thanks’ in Arabic. Being polite will make your life easier, as people will remember you if you were rude and may hassle more later. If problems persist, threaten to call the tourist police with the phrase "You're a hustler!".

Depending upon the perception your profile creates, you may be asked, sometimes within minutes of exiting your hotel, if you would like to purchase drugs or sex. Remember, prostitution and drug use are not taken lightly by government authorities. For gay visitors, extreme care should be taken when propositioned by a sex worker. Egypt has a well documented record of gay men being caught in entrapment schemes.

• Dendera — Luxor is a good base to visit this site of a fantastically well-preserved Ptolemaic temple of Hathor. A number of hotels organise day-trips, and you don't need to be staying with them to use these services. However, it can also easily be reached by taxi or, even cheaper, by (local) train to Qena and local taxi from there.
• For those with more time on their hands you can add a visit to the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, featuring some of the best relief work in Egypt. This is a lengthy road trip from Luxor, but can be combined with a day trip to Dendera.
• The city is also a good staging post for onward travel through Upper Egypt and on to Aswan and Abu Simbel.

[[Dendera]] — Luxor is a good base to visit this site of a fantastically well-preserved Ptolemaic temple of Hathor. A number of hotels organise day-trips, and you don't need to be staying with them to use these services. However, it can also easily be reached by taxi or, even cheaper, by (local) train to Qena and local taxi from there.

For those with more time on their hands you can add a visit to the Temple of Seti I at [[Abydos]], featuring some of the best relief work in Egypt. This is a lengthy road trip from Luxor, but can be combined with a day trip to [[Dendera]].