Save With Bus From Israel to Egypt : Even with departure taxes, the cost is a fraction of air fare.

CAIRO, Egypt —  “Why,” a curious passenger asked our tour guide, “since the moment we crossed the border from Israel to Egypt, have all the tourist buses been bunched together into a convoy with an armed military escort?”

“Sandstorms,” Mohammed said with a big toothy smile. Convinced or not, the passenger settled back into his seat and gazed at the Bedouin children scrambling across sand dunes in pursuit of their sheep.

Traveling by bus between Israel and Egypt makes a lot of sense--and cents --for budget travelers. As one couple pointed out: “The return air fare for the two of us between Tel Aviv and Cairo was going to cost about $600 (U.S.). To make the daylong trip by bus, the total fare was less than $75.”

Visitors can arrange bus transportation to Egypt at travel agencies throughout Israel. The student travel service, ISSTA, gives some small discounts to students and young travelers.

I traveled on Egged Tours, which is Israel’s national bus company. The regular fare from Tel Aviv to Cairo was $23 one way, $36 round trip. But there’s a catch: Israel charges a sizable departure tax of about $25 (subject to change monthly) when leaving the country by bus at the popular Rafah border point. The fee was collected just after we boarded. Thus, the total one-way fare actually came to $48. At the other popular border-crossing point, at Eilat in southern Israel, the current bus departure tax is $15.50.

Remember, too, that whenever you make a purchase in Israel (including a hotel/hostel room, a tour or a bus fare), paying in a foreign currency means you are exempt from an 18% value-added tax.

If you are planning to return from Egypt by bus later, then you’ll also have to pay $15 when departing Egypt. By comparison with the bus departure tax, all international air departures from Israel require a $15 “airport” (i.e., departure) tax. (The fee to Egypt is $10.)

The buses usually meet passengers in the early morning near major hotels in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. My agent asked me to be there for a 6:45 a.m. departure. Bleary-eyed, I arrived to find that the correct departure time was 7:30 a.m. On the brighter side, we were supposed to make it to Cairo by 7:30 p.m.; in fact, we were there by 5:45.

The bus I traveled on was air-conditioned, but did not have washrooms. Travelers should ask at the time of booking what, if any, amenities their bus could be expected to have.

For 2 1/2 hours we traveled south through Israel. Then, as the military presence increased, we guessed that we were nearing the border. A rest stop was made where passengers could pick up food and large bottles of drinking water, and spend their last shekels.

A double row of barbed-wire fencing and watchtowers led to the border. Here we got off the bus, unloaded our luggage and presented our passports. (The customs officers obliged tourists who did not want an Israeli exit stamp in their passport.)

We moved across to the Egyptian waiting area, where we exchanged money, then handed over our passports to our new guide, Mohammed. The passports were returned with stamps showing that we had entered Egypt at an Israeli border, upsetting a number of passengers who believed that the stamp showing travel within Israel could limit them from traveling in some other Arab countries.

Because all the buses travel together from this point on, seven busloads of passengers had to go through the customs formalities before any can move on.

Plowing down the highway, between sea-front homes, we caught glimpses of the Mediterranean surf pounding against the palm-fringed beach, before moving back into the desert, where women in flowing black robes with baskets of dates lined the roadside. Crouching under small wooden sun shelters, they were waiting for motorists to stop and buy their wares. Around us we saw vivid evidence of the desert as a great shifting sea. In one spot, a dune had half-consumed an abandoned home, while farther down the road another dune had conquered a section of the old highway.

At the famous 984-foot-wide Suez Canal, the buses were loaded on a ferry that slipped through the line of mighty ships cruising up the canal. After a short rest stop, we continued driving toward Cairo, passing six-story housing developments in the center of the desert.

As we headed into Cairo, our driver dodged traffic while playing his multi-note horn like a frustrated musician. Further confusion ensued. It seemed that the bus was only going to make two stops, one near the Nile Hilton, another near the Giza Sheraton. Passengers who were told by their travel agents that they would be delivered to their hotels were informed that the driver wanted $1.25 extra, per person, for that “service.”

I was lucky because I planned to get off the bus at the Sheraton. But the bus didn’t actually stop at the Sheraton, it stopped in the middle of four lanes of traffic and unloaded me--and my luggage--in the middle of the road.