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King’s Head Pub Luxor
By Daniel Lanier
It is hard to imagine that tourists come to
Luxor to spend all night dancing and partying in discotheques and
bars. They want to see the temples and tombs rather than listening
and dancing to the latest tunes. Sightseeing tours to the West
Bank/Theban monuments, Karnak and Luxor temples start early in the
morning, very early, therefore most of the tourists apparently
prefer to listen after sunset to the soft sound of their pillows
rather than to any DJ somewhere in the warm Luxor night.
 But
nightlife does exist; as most of the hotels and Nile cruise boats
offer a wide range of entertaining events, from disco to belly
dancing, from Pharaonic costume festivals to karaoke shows. If you
don’t want to sip your beer together with the tourist couple
from the room or the cabin next to yours, those with whom you have
already attended the potato dance competition last night, then you
should head to places like the King’s Head Pub.
The only real English Pub in town, where you can meet
interesting people from all over the world as well as locals, is
open 24 hours per day, every day, throughout the whole year. The
manager, Gomaa Abu Al-Fadl, has created a very authentic looking
pub, with Billiards, Darts, wooden chairs and paneled walls, TV
sets for live soccer broadcasts and lots of culinary specials, to
intensify the pub atmosphere. For example, a so-called Bangers’n’Mash
dish, sausages, mashed potatoes with fried onions and peas for LE
20 ($ 5) or the weekly Sunday Lunch of Roast Beef and Yorkshire
Pudding, which starts at 12:00 am and costs LE 20, too.
His guests, Gomaa says, come from the cruises boats as well as
from the hotels and are mainly Dutch people and Englishmen, with
only a few Germans, although he offers five German television
channels and a German beer, Löwenbräu for LE 13 ($ 3.30) per
bottle. The atmosphere is relaxed and ‘chatty’ with many of
the clientele returning again and again – as long as their
cruise boat is docked in Luxor. They have the choice between 26
cocktails and long drinks, all of them, except one, for LE 12 ($
3), among plenty of other beverages, aperitifs, spirits, cognac,
liqueurs, soft drinks, juices, tea and coffee. To fight hunger,
one simply chooses between Egyptian, Italian and Indian food,
soups, mezze, as well as sandwiches and main course beef,
fish or chicken dishes! And every Thursday, between 12 am to 3 pm
(for lunch) and 7 pm to 10 pm (for dinner) the King Head’s Pub
offers a rich Indian buffet – all you can eat for LE 25 ($
6.30).
King’s Head Pub. 1, Khaled Ibn Al-Walid Street, Luxor.
Telephone: (095) 37 12 49. Open 24 hours.
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