Alexandria where art thou?
My Wikimania 2008 experience in Egypt so far in two words: not fun.
My problem perhaps was thinking there was a reasonable way of getting from Cairo airport directly to Alexandria by some means of conveyance. The Cairo airport isn’t very welcoming from the outset. Note to CAI airport: cramming both departing and arriving passengersthrough one small doorway is not a smart idea.
After exiting the airport immigration/baggage area, I’m hounded by scores of limo and taxi drivers trying to scam visitors into a hotel or a cab ride. I try to lose these hangers on and head right to the Information counter. The one guy with a computer screen of flight info knew nothing about buses and trains to Alexandria, and it seemed like he barely understood my English question. After seeing my failure to get anything useful from INFORMATION the limo drivers slapped the “clueless fresh meat” label on my forehead, and again swirled around me giving dubious information and trying to ply their wares. Even when I said no, they trailed along like Pikmin asking to “help.” I’ve travelled to too many sketchy places in Asia to fall for that trap.
I do a lap around the airport terminal and there is no tourist information booth or other helpers, only paid services counters who I never trust for general info.
I finally found a security guard who points to a location in the distance saying buses to Alexandria are out there. Walk across the sky bridge to an adjacent modern mall, drag luggage up steps, down steps, through sand, under a railing and across broken pavement. Along the way two drivers insist they can drive me to Alexandria for 400 LE. After tailing me for a while, they realize they’re not going to get me. They turn tail and give up.
I stumble around the parking lot asking a few folks about the mythical bus to Alexandria, who keep pointing out on the horizon. Maybe they were saying, “Walk to Wikimania.”
After finding two different sets of buses, neither the ones I’m looking for, I got to a covered depot with no English destination signs, only Arabic. One person said a bus to Alexandria leaves at 7am, one said 730am, one said ticket was 35 Egyptian pounds (LE) another said it was 10 LE (hard to believe for a four hour bus ride). Buses looked rickety and rusty. Couldn’t find anything for the life of me. Went back to fellow who pointed it out, and said, “I can’t find anything there.” He laughed in annoyance, held out his hand to grab mine, and dragged me to one white shack, among many, that had only an Arabic sign and coach bus photo. Walked to the back, cracked open the door to find some attendant sleeping on a makeshift cot. “Hey, this guy want Alexandrina.” Laconic attendant rises slowly, insists the bus was coming in 5 minutes. “How long it would take to get to the destination?” He said four hours. Ouch. “Doesn’t train take two and a half hours?” I said, optimistically. “Yes, but you have to go to downtown Cairo to take that, by that time might was well take four hour bus.” He has a point. If it’s true.
So I wait, in the hot open air depot with the snarl of rusty diesel buses, all of the commuter type — no air conditioning, open windows, plastic fiberglas chairs. The only “coaches” look worn and aren’t going where I’m going. Twenty minutes later of a “five minute” wait, I knock on the shack again and ask, what about the 5 minutes. He says bus should be there at 730 for the ride. Wait a bit with him, and nothing shows. He said one comes every hour. But I’m not convinced.
I figure it’s all too risky. My time is better spent doing the book edits I owe New York, something I thought I could do later that night in cozy Alexandria in a hotel by the beach. I’m not even sure nightfall is practical on this supposed four hour bus ride. (It might actually be more like 6-8 hours, as my friend who visited Egypt/Alexandria recently said she endured because of traffic and closed roads.)
So instead, I wimped out and opted for a “first world” solution. Remembering the beacon of hope, the Novotel sign out in the distance, I dragged my luggage across the parking lot to the police station, asked for the Novotel airport hotel. Took three tries to find a police guy in white military outfit who spoke enough English to understand what I was talking about. Doing sign language for “sleepytime” (hands clasped together, head cocked left, eyes closed and snoring sound) helped.
Walking across the auto toll lanes that don’t have a crosswalk, I ambled to the airport hotel at 8 am. Realize I’m going to have to pay full rack rate for a room at 116 euros, but that sounded much less painful than hypothetical bus arriving “real soon now” to who knows where arriving hopefully some time before sunset.
Asked the hotel checkin guy, “Is Internet included in the price?”
He chuckled and said, “No no no…” What a dense idiot I am, an Accor business airport hotel *giving* you Internet?
OK, lay it on me you scam artists. What was the Internet pricing. He looks it up and quotes 147 LE.
That’s around US $27.75 for 24 hours of Internet access.
Yes, for the price of nearly two months of broadband Internet access in China, give me 24 hours in an Accor hotel. Why not. I’ve got no fight left in me. It’s already 20 hours of travel into this endeavour, and I’ve been foiled at every turn to get to Alexandria — no English language help, no clear signage, conflicting reports and waiting at a hot smelly bus depot. (And I haven’t even mentioned the obscenely high price for 3G web surfing while roaming that zapped nearly US $20 from my phone card when accessing just a handful of web sites.)
So I’m tired and defenseless. Am I going to argue? I slap down the Amex. Just throw it all on there. At least they’ll check me in this early in the morning.
I’m in the Novotel lobby awaiting my room. Just ticking the minutes down when the formal Wikimania bus arrives tomorrow to get me to the conference, when I get to see some friendly faces, and don’t have to deal with this whole slog.
I get up to check to see if the room’s ready.
“Not yet. Five minutes, sir.”
July 15th, 2008 00:26
Holy cow, what a mess. There wasn’t detailed info on how to get from CAI to Alexandria? Wow.
July 15th, 2008 01:26
To be fair, for the day right before the conference there is a charter bus that the organizers put together. So it is possible to have a more smooth experience.
But if your sched doesn’t fit into that, there’s a sea of unmetered taxis, trains, buses, non-English signs, etc. to deal with which can be daunting.
July 15th, 2008 02:44
[...] Nachdem ich die Wikimania 2008 nächstes Wochenende hoffentlich überstanden habe (ich sitze noch immer an den Vorbereitungen – mein Poster ist natürlich noch nicht fertig, die Tasche nur halb gepackt; der Flug geht heute Abend), muss ich erstmal Urlaub machen. Am Sonntag geht es zunächst von Alexandria zum obligatorischen Besuch der Pyramiden nach Cairo. Am Mittwoch fliege ich dann morgens mit dem Flugzeug in einer Stunden (statt im Bus in sieben) nach Sharm El Sheik. Über Holidaycheck.de habe ich das New Tiran Hotel gefunden, welches mit 50 USD pro Nacht vergleichsweise günstig ist – vor allem, da es direkt in der Na’ama Bay liegt. Dort verbringe ich drei Tagen mit dem Sinai Dive Club, den mir meine Tauchschule empfohlen hat. Danach geht es irgendwie mit dem Bus durch die Wüste nach Taba, um bei Eilat die Grenze zu Israel zu überqueren (ohne Tunnel). Was ich im einzigen vor Antisemitismus Schutz bietenden Land (und der einzigen Demokratie im Nahen Osten) und im Rest des Urlaubs unternehme, weiß ich noch noch nicht. [...]
July 15th, 2008 03:18
You’re traveling to a developing country in the Arab world, expecting “some means of conveyance” will magically, comfortably and cheaply transport you to a nice hotel by the beach where you will relax with free, reliable high-speed Internet access. I’m sorry, but I find this baffling: Do you know anything at all about the country you’ve chosen to travel to? The Wikimania website has offered transportation shuttles from Cairo; if you want to arrange your own transport, well, then you have to do some research. It’s not exactly hard, given that the detailed Wikitravel articles are linked conveniently from the Wikimania website. Or, you could have pre-arranged a hotel in Cairo and done the transportation research on location. Or, you could have haggled with a driver to negotiate a decent rate (yes, haggling is expected, as virtually every travel brochure will tell you). Even without haggling, 400 LE (75 USD) is hardly terrible for a long distance cab ride. Or, you could have taken a plane to one of Alexandria’s airports. All these options are laid out in the various documents providing background on travel, which you’ve apparently not read.
I’m sure that as the conference plays out, as always, there will be all kinds of things worth criticizing, but not being taken to the conference location in a golden carriage at any point and time of arrival is not one of them.
Here you have a passionate team in a developing country, working together with a prestigious institutional partner to make an amazing event happen: an international conference about free knowledge, taking place in a nation where cell phones and other means of Internet access are just becoming popular enough for something like Wikipedia to become relevant. If Wikimedia is a social movement to bring about transformative change through free education, then I can hardly think of a better location to hold a conference like this. If the inconveniences of traveling the developing world are too much for you — well, then don’t go there. It shouldn’t be too hard to put together alternative events or meetups in places with cozy hotels and cheap Internet.
I understand if you’re cranky, but people can only be hand-holded so much: If you’re stepping on a plane to another country, it’s your responsibility to do the necessary research and make preparations beforehand.
Greetings from Cairo,
Erik
July 15th, 2008 05:31
Never left Peking and go to a small province town in China?
July 15th, 2008 09:10
Andrew, your story beats my wife’s travails in attempting to get a bereavement flight from United. But by a much smaller difference than you might think.
Erik, so everyone should have expect this kind of difficulty in getting from Cairo to Alexandria? You don’t think that the Wikimedia Foundation should have made an effort to research solutions & provide them to the attendees? Calling an account of these problems “hand-holding” is inexcusably condescending — especially since this may be the first some attendees have heard of this challenge.
Geoff
July 15th, 2008 09:11
Good response, Erik. You show a remarkable understanding of cultures and norms in developing nations (they are primitive, but we are there to save them). Or is that just for a “developing country in the ‘Arab’ world”?
As for Andrew, I enjoyed your post. It reminded me a bit of Eric Hansen (check out his book “Motoring with Mohammed”) for some great travel writing in the Middle East.
July 15th, 2008 09:51
You lost me completely at “drag luggage up steps”. Take a cab, that’s the normal way of getting to and from an airport in most cities in the world. 400 is not even that bad of an opening bid. If you are there on business (e.g. book research) you can probably even deduct it.
July 15th, 2008 13:13
I wonder how Jimbo will get himself to Alexandria? Considering his $100,000-per-engagement speaker’s fee, perhaps he actually can arrange for the “golden carriage” that Erik Möller speaks of. I’m surprised Erik has taken the time and effort to write this screed against you, Andrew — I’d have thought he’d be keeping a lower profile, what with the recent illumination of his past writings supporting pro-pedophilia positions.
Tsk, tsk. Let’s face it: Alexandria is a bone-headed Wikimania site selection, for an organization that gets 90% of its revenue from the Euro-American front, and the majority of whose project participants are native English speakers. And considering the recent flap about the English Wikipedia insisting on publishing images of the Muslim prophet, I hope your time at this Wikimania isn’t punctuated by anything more “explosive” than your treatment by Erik.
July 15th, 2008 13:39
This is an utterly ridiculous post. If you think that 75 USD is overpriced for a two-and-a-half hour cab ride, you haven’t been reading the papers. Next time, try reading up on a city before you land there like the rest of us.
July 15th, 2008 14:35
Actually MS, I laughed out loud at Andrew’s post, it reminded me of many of my travels around the world. I took the entire post as being funny and can’t believe that anybody blasted him from poking fun at the situation. LIGHTEN UP PEOPLE … THIS IS FUNNY!
July 15th, 2008 23:28
Isn’t this just like everything else about Wikipedia … the triumph of a cool but shallow idea over any modicum of practicality?
The BIG IDEA, of course — “Let’s have a conference at the site of a Great Library! That would be cool!” Never mind that it is in, as Erik puts is “a developing country in the Arab world” (read: “everything there hates us, except to the extent they can take our money, being gay or female is more-or-less against the law, and every few years they decide to shoot a bunch of foreigners”).
Utterly forgotten in this naive rush to the cool idea is the almost entire lack of an indigenous base of Wikipedia supporters (meaning *everyone* needs to travel a great distance to attend), and the extreme logistical details (and costs!) of running a conference is such a location.
One thing you’ve gotta grant — they’re consistent! (Consistently bone-headed.)
July 20th, 2008 09:55
So transportation in Egypt sucks, Erik’s a racist, the WMF is hands-off, and Andrew doesn’t plan his trips very well. One of those four things is new information to me.
July 21st, 2008 09:42
My, my Anthony. Have you become the Foundation’s newest attack dog? Have you taken over GerardM’s role? Congratulations! Just remember, you must foam at the mouth each time you attack anybody that would dare speak ill of the Foundation and whatever stupid, idiotic, immoral or other questionable antic they undertake. Again, congratulations on your new job!
July 30th, 2008 10:25
Wow. That so echoes the exact experience I had at Cairo Airport. Considering I was going to take the free bus, I still had a great few hours struggling to find it (it was a few hours late). I had the same problems with the pesky taxi drivers. I wrote a longer rant on this on the mailing list here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2008-July/001185.html
I still struggle to understand how Egypt was chosen. I’m baffled. I hope for somewhere more civilised in 2010.
July 30th, 2008 14:59
Excuse me, Herr Möller! Not everyone can fit around the Wikimedia Foundation’s plans. When planning a conference, you have to anticipate the most screwed up of scenarios, and that involves people arriving at different times. One charter bus round trip for everyone, and that’s it?
Give me a damn break. Don’t give a random African villager a piece of bread and say you’re a humanitarian. If you’re going to hold these things in intentionally far-off locations, at least make it convenient for the foreigners (which will constitute 99% of the attendees).
I call shenanigans. The Wikimania location committee should be policed for the ineptitude until they reform.