Travel costs and information for Egypt - Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Aswan

Note that all information in here was valid at the time (early 2009) - it may well have changed since.  It's also possible that I was ripped off, that I did some exceptional haggling, or that I accepted a price that I should have haggled over :-)  Currency indicators are £ (British pound), $ (US dollar), and L (Egyptian pound).  At the time, the official exchange rates were roughly L5.5=$1 and L7.9=£1.  Note that prices given in $ for accommodation are because I booked them on Hostelworld (or something similar), though I still had to settle up in L. 

Egypt

• There are ATMs all over the place so accessing money isn't a problem.  If you'll subsequently be heading into Sudan, where there are no ATMs for international cards, make sure you have enough cash with you ($ are best).  If you'll then be heading into Ethiopia, make sure you also have some money for there, as the only reliable ATMs are in Addis - I saw one in Gonder but it was broken.
• I found that there aren't many shops/cafes with English writing on their signs, though most people can speak at least some English.  This is a contrast with, say, Southeast Asia, where English is plastered all over everything but not so many people speak it.
• If you wish to extend your stay in a hostel/hotel, it's best to book it online - my experience was that receptions were unwilling/unable to accept bookings in person.
  
• With the exception of Alexandria, all the places I visited in Egypt had stratospheric levels of tourist hassle - the worst I've experienced anywhere in the world.  Stay calm, be polite but firm, and be aware that accepting even the most trivial "services" (e.g. being shown a good photo angle) from ostensibly trustworthy people (e.g. the tourist police) may result in a (persistent) request for baksheesh.  Even if you don't like to encourage such behaviour, it's worth carrying a bunch of low denomination bills, to help resolve the situation if it starts to encroach on the enjoyment of your visit.
• For shops with no marked prices (which can include not just the obvious souvenir shops but also food/drink shops), haggle.
• I bought all my train tickets a day or two in advance.

Cairo

Cairo can be a little difficult to navigate due to not all streets having street signs (in any language).  Plus it's large and full of traffic.  This makes Friday (the Islamic Sunday) a good day for pottering, as there's much less traffic around, though obviously many businesses will be closed then. 
31st January 2009 £246.2 Flight (one-way) from Heathrow to Cairo on British Midland, taking about 4 hours 30 minutes.
31st January 2009 $15 Visa on arrival (for a British citizen)
31st January 2009 $16 Nightly rate for a private ensuite room in the New Palace Hotel.  Free airport pick-up.  Free breakfast (tea, bread, jam, boiled egg).  No towel or top sheet in room.  A/C.  Hot shower but low pressure and randomly ran cool.  Free wifi but slow and unreliable.  At least two cats - one ugly but friendly, the other better-looking but skittish.  Staff constantly plugging their tours.  
1st February 2009 L5 Internet (1 hour)
2nd February 2009 L1 Metro journey.

3rd February 2009 L25 Entry to Sultan Hassan madrassa

4th February 2009 L230 (!) Letter of introduction required for Sudan visa application.  Obtainable from the British Embassy.  This is a simple print-out of a template letter, so I've no idea why it's so expensive.  I put down the address of my hotel as my address in Egypt.  It took me less then half an hour to get hold of the letter.

4th February 2009 $100 Sudan visa.  Note that the visa application office is at the back of the Sudanese Embassy (your guidebook will probably show the road that the front entrance is on).  To apply for the visa (for a British citizen), you need the application form, a photocopy of the application form and visa/details pages from your passport (which can be done at the Sudanese embassy for L2), 2 passport photos, a letter of introduction from the British Embassy (see above) and $100.  The form is available from a guy sitting behind a desk.  I left the sponsor section blank (though I did sign and date it).  After filling in the form, the desk guy will staple everything together and tell you to hand it in (except the money) at the counter marked "Pasport section" (sic).  Note that the "queue" is more like a scrum, so you will need to be assertive in defending your place.  After handing the stuff in, I waited 20 minutes, then someone came out waving my stuff (in order to find me) and told me to go to the cashier to pay the money.  I returned at 2PM the following day to pick up the passport.

5th February 2009 L60 Entry to Egyptian Museum (entry to special exhibitions is extra, e.g. the Mummy Room is L100).  No photos allowed inside.  For such amazing source material, the presentation and descriptions of the exhibits are dire.

6th February 2009 L120 Car and driver to Memphis, Sakkara, and Giza.  I booked this through the hotel, supposedly at a discounted price because I'd stayed for 5 nights.  They threw in a guide (even though I'd explicitly said I didn't want one), we stopped (against my wishes) at a carpet shop and a papyrus shop, and I had to repeat multiple times that I had no desire to see the Pyramids on a camel.  The guide didn't come into Giza - I wasn't sure if he wasn't allowed to or if he couldn't be bothered - and also gave an incorrect closing time (I suspect because he didn't want to be waiting around longer).  If I'd realised that this was going to be just one big sales pitch from start to finish, I'd instead have found a random driver on the street and negotiated a price conditional on visiting nowhere but the historical sites.  Lesson learned.

6th February 2009 L35 Entry to Memphis (plus L2 for a car)

6th February 2009 L60 Entry to Sakkara (plus L2 for a car)
6th February 2009 L60 Entry to Giza (entry to individual pyramids is extra, e.g. L100 for the Great Pyramid of Khufu).  For good pictures of the Sphinx, you'd probably want to be there in the morning - in the afternoon, its face will be in shade.
7th February 2009 L37 1st class train ticket from Cairo to Alexandria, taking 2 hours 40 minutes.

Alexandria

Free wifi in Delices Patisserie as well as (I think) McDonald's.
7th February 2009 L60 Nightly rate for a private room in the Triomphe Hotel.  Room contained a sink, but bathrooms were shared.  No towel.  Shower pressure not great but temperature fine.
8th February 2009 L3 Internet (1 hour) 
9th February 2009 L35 Entry to Catacombs.  No cameras allowed.

11th February 2009 L25 Entry to Fort Qaitbey
12th February 2009 L47 1st class train ticket from Alexandria to Cairo - this was supposed to be 30 minutes faster than the one I'd taken to get here (hence presumably the higher price) but it still took 2 hours 40 minutes. 


Cairo (again) 
12th February 2009 $12.5 Nightly rate for a private room with shared bathroom in African House Hotel.  Fan.  Free wifi and free breakfast.  Superlow pressure and variable temperature shower.  Laundry available, but my stuff came back looking rather battered.

12th February 2009 L91 1st class (day) train ticket from Cairo to Luxor, taking 7 hours 15 minutes.  Note that the ticket office for trains going south is on platform 11, which requires going through a security check.  You need to go to the section for sleeper reservations, even if you want a ticket for a day train - I'm assuming this is something to do with being a foreigner (another thing being that foreigners are only allowed on certain train services).


Luxor

• Note that many (most?) hotels in Luxor make their money predominantly from tours, meaning the room rates are extremely reasonable in order to attract tourists.  However if, like me, you aren't interested in any tours then you will increasingly become persona non grata - I found this when I tried to extend my stay at the Nefertiti and was told there was no availability, even though that clearly wasn't true based on the availability showing on Hostelworld.
• Note that there's one ticket office for everything on the West Bank (except for the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and Deir Al-Bahari (Hatshepsut's Tomb), which have their own dedicated ones), so you need to know in advance what you want to see.  Pretty much everything on the West Bank closes at 5PM.
• It's worth getting up early one morning to catch sunrise over the Nile (plus the hordes of hot air balloons over the West Bank).
• Each tomb has one or more guards, who will follow you around and give a little spiel, for which they will expect baksheesh - the best way to avoid that is to go in when there's a group of other people there.  Photography is banned in the tombs though of course you can get round that via baksheesh.
• Most of the tombs are warm and stuffy, plus you may not be able to stand upright in them.

14th February 2009 $10.83 Nightly rate for a private ensuite room in the Nefertiti Hotel.  Towel, A/C, free wifi, toilet roll, excellent shower, free breakfast.  Friendly cat.  Though see above. 
15th February 2009 L50 Entry to Museum of Mummification

15th February 2009 L50 Entry to Luxor Temple.  Best to visit in the evening, so that you can see it lit up.  If you want to see it in full daylight as well, you'll either have to stay in for several hours or buy separate tickets.

16th February 2009 L65 Entry to Karnak Temple

16th February 2009 L25 Entry to Open-air Museum (within Karnak Temple)
17th February 2009 L80 Nightly rate for a private ensuite room in the Sant Cathrine (sic) Hotel.  Dark, TV, good shower, no wifi, free breakfast.  The management tried to kick me out when I was breakfasting at 8AM as the next guests had arrived - I pointed out that checkout was at midday, so this was hardly my problem.
17th February 2009 L2 Ferry across the Nile (return).

17th February 2009 L30 Entry to Medinet Habu (mortuary temple of Ramesses III)
18th February 2009 L45 Nightly rate for a private ensuite room in the New Everest Hotel.  Fan, free wifi.  Low water pressure, no breakfast.  Bedlinen made of polyester.  The staff tried to make me promise that I'd leave a good review on Hostelworld.
18th February 2009 L60 Entry to Luxor Museum 
18th February 2009 L15 Taxi from West Bank ferry dock to Valley of the Kings

18th February 2009 L80 Entry to Valley of the Kings (though some tombs cost extra, e.g. Tutankhamun's is L100).  The ticket gives you entry to 3 tombs of your choice, so you should do some advance research to determine which you want to see - bear in mind that some may be closed for renovation.  If you come up here by taxi and haven't asked the guy to wait, don't necessarily expect there to be taxis available to take you back, however there may well be a shared pickup if the ~11km walk to the ferry doesn't appeal.
18th February 2009 L4 Return ticket on miniature "train" from the visitor centre to the actual tombs in the Valley of the Kings.  It's only ~400m, so don't bother unless you're an invalid. 
19th February 2009 L15 Bicycle hire for a day from near the West Bank ferry dock.  I was supposed to leave some kind of ID as security, but I didn't have any on me so the guy eventually relented.  The bike had 1 gear, so I was glad I hadn't hired one yesterday for the (long, uphill) haul to the Valley of the Kings.

19th February 2009 L30 Entry to Deir El-Medina (Valley of the Workers).  You have to leave your camera with a guard at the entrance to the tombs here - both he and the guard inside will expect baksheesh.  Note that one tomb here (that of Pashedo) is NOT included in the ticket price - you need a separate ticket, only obtainable from the main ticket office (though the pricing board gives no indication that the tomb is in Deir El-Medina).

19th February 2009 L30 Entry to Ramesseum (Mortuary Temple of Ramesses II)  This contains the fallen statue that supposedly inspired Shelley's "Ozymandias", though he took some fairly hefty poetic licence in his description.

19th February 2009 L25 Entry to the tombs of Sennefer and Rekhmire in the Valley of the Nobles (your other options at the main ticket office are the tombs of Nakht and Menna (L25), and Ramose, Userhet and Khaemhet (L30)). A policeman here insisted on looking after my bike while I wandered around, and I was stalked by an extremely persistent chap who wanted to see my ticket and said he'd tell me where the tombs were for L5 (there are few signs, and the tombs are within a modern-day village so it's difficult to see where they are).

19th February 2009 L30 Entry to Hatshepsut's Tomb (at Deir Al-Bahari)
20th February 2009 L43 1st class train ticket from Luxor to Aswan, taking 3 hours 15 minutes

Aswan

20th February 2009 $15 Nightly rate for a private ensuite room in the Keylany Hotel.  TV, towel, soap, toilet roll, A/C, fridge, safe, free fast wifi, free breakfast.
22nd February 2009 L70 Transport in a minibus to/from Abu Simbel, including a small packed breakfast, arranged by the hotel.  There are two days in the year when the rising sun shines down the entrance corridor to the main temple at Abu Simbel and illuminates three statues - I happened to be there for one of them.  Since there is a celebration on both these days, the transport leaves Aswan at 12:30AM (instead of 3:30AM on any other day).  The minibus will be jam-packed, including the fold-down aisle seats, which isn't necessarily the most comfortable for a 3 hour 30 minutes journey.  For safety, you travel in a convoy with umpteen other minibuses plus police and army vehicles.  Note that it is cold at Abu Simbel until the sun has risen!  The minibus started its return journey at 8:45AM.  For preference, you might want to find a transport company that uses a bus rather than a minibus.
22nd February 2009 L90 Entry to Abu Simbel.  No photos are allowed in the temples, but everyone seemed to be taking them with impunity, not to mention touching the walls and the columns.

22nd February 2009 L2 Postcard (this is just to give an idea of how much you can expect to pay)

22nd February 2009 L1.5 Stamp for postcard to Europe or the US
23rd February 2009 L30 Taxi from hotel to ferry terminal (alternatively you can get a train, as there is a stop right next to the terminal)
23rd February 2009 L2 Passport exit stamp

23rd February 2009 L484 Berth on ferry from Aswan to Wadi Halfa in Sudan (including dinner and a 7-Up nightcap) - there are 2 berths in a cabin (i.e. a bunkbed).  You can also get a hard seat below deck (L306) or a space on deck (don't know the price, but it's the cheapest option).  I bought this a couple of days in advance from the office in the town - I believe you can buy tickets in Cairo too.  The ferry leaves on Mondays and very occasionally on Fridays too.  Boarding begins at about 10AM, and (white) foreigners are let through first, though departure isn't until 5PM at the earliest due to having to load all the passengers and cargo.  The following morning, you'll need to hand in your passport to the immigration room (i.e. through the dining room, turn right, first room on the right).  In theory, you should also have a yellow fever certificate to enter Sudan by this route but you can say you left it at home and no-one will kick up a fuss.  The ferry will pass Abu Simbel in the morning so make sure you're on deck for that.  You can retrieve your passport later in the morning (and will have to fill in another couple of forms).  The ferry arrives in Wadi Halfa around lunchtime, though it may take you another hour or more to disembark due to the scrum of passengers and their luggage all trying to do the same.  Remember to put all your clocks forward an hour for the change in time zone.