How to visit Aswan Abu Simbel temple
We did a day tour to temples of Abu Simbel. It took 3 hours on road from Aswan to Abu Simbel with a stop in between for sunrise and quick tea/ coffee. The temples are on the shore of artificial lake Nasser
The temples are dedicated to king Ramesses II and his wife Nefertari, along with Ptah, Amun, Ra-Horakty. He loved his queen so much that he dedicated a temple to her and kept her statue at a similar size as his own. There were bird nests inside the main temple in one of the rooms making it an interesting sight
The temples are gigantic, with a very interesting history of being assembled at the current place after being transport from their original site to avoid being submerged in the waters after building of Aswan dam. There is a centre showing a documentary of how this was done
Every year, there are 2 days on 22nd in February and October called Sun alignment days where sunrays falls directly into the main statues inside. Frankly, we avoided this day since it is too crowded and more expensive. Entry 615 LE/ 12.5 USD
Temple of Philae
We got dropped off here after our visit from Abu Simbel around 3 PM. You need to take a boat from the pier. The temple entrance ticket needs to be taken before the boat ticket, you can’t enter the pier without one which was different compared to what we read earlier on other blogs
The boat fare is 350 LE per boat as per the board at the entrance. The asking rate started from 700-800 LE. We negotiated it down to 400 LE, by when 2 other travellers joined us. He took it up to 500 LE for 5 of us which was a win-win as we thought about per person rate
The ferry ride lasted 5 minutes and was very scenic. There are many islands around with hotels that you can see/ pass by. The island is known for its cats and we found some of them in a not so healthy state, mostly due to infighting
The temple itself was not very unique, probably we were templed out by then.
Elephantine island
The island has colorful Nubian houses, orchards, markets and small villages. A 10 LE public ferry can take you from mainland to island. We walked around a bit but couldn’t find the colorful houses we had seen online. The road were narrow and almost non-existent. It felt like walking inside people’s houses so we tracked back quickly. There are many hotels on the island but it is a bit of hassle to get into and out on ferries carrying your luggage, coupled with non-existent roads
We took a Careem back to hotel on our way back from the pier
How we travelled around
All travel within Aswan was through Careem/ inDrive including airport drop. Abu Simbel visit was through a day tour from Emo tours. Private tour was similarly priced as group tours when we booked. We wanted the option to be dropped off near Philae temple marina on the way back, so preferred a private tour option. Most hotels will be able to arrange a seat in a group tour for $20-$25. They have set schedule from 4:30 AM- 3 PM with 2-3 hour visiting time at the temple
Where we stayed
We chose Go Inn Backpackers given it’s location next to the Nile. The rooms were clean and spacious. We skipped breakfast on both days since we started early at 4 AM
It had shared bathrooms, no lift and an incorrect route path on google maps with a non-existent road, which was partly known but not fully clear while booking.
Most 3 star hotel had ratings of below 8 and usually did not include breakfast which is why we ended up choosing this place. If you have the budget, we recommend staying at hotels since service quality and amenities are quite varied in smaller hostels