After breakfast a South African family approached us to enquire where we were from after seeing the T shirts we were wearing. It turned out that they have families in Malaysia who have been persuading them to make a visit. They were told that language would be a problem but as they speak English we pacified their concern. We promised them that we will contact them when we get to South Africa.

We then headed for Remises III station after being given a rough direction by the porter. At one of the bridges we stopped to take a photo of Tuah with the Cairo tower in the background and left our hazard light on, when suddenly we saw this car reversing towards us. It turned out to be the Malaysian ambassador’s driver with a guest of the ambassador. When told that we were looking for the station, he told us to follow him and showed us the way.

We were quite upbeat about things until the crunch came when Alison was told at the Nile transportation company that there are no places for the vehicle next Monday and that the earliest one would be 12^th January 2009. Even then we needed to call the Aswan office on Monday 5^th January to confirm. We left greatly disappointed but the next disappointment was even greater.

When Alison wanted to take out the Garmin she found it wasn’t in the glove compartment and she was certain she had left it there, nor were her powered sunglasses. Then she spotted that the back seat had been tempered with. I couldn’t believe it at first but decided to go back to Hor Moheb Hotel to complain. The manager Mr. Mohsen was very helpful and even took me to the police station nearby who told us to go to Europa Hotel as it was not within their jurisdiction. Just before that I discovered that my HD video camera was also taken. As the car was not broken into it can only be one explanation, that it was the work of the staff at the garage next to Europa Hotel.

I had to wait over 3 hours at the Europa Hotel for the one of the big honchos of the police to come and he immediately started the questioning. The three guys from the garage were told that I would not press charges if the things missing were returned otherwise someone would have to take the rap. One of the hotel employees a Mr. Karim became a translator and was rather concerned that anyone should be arrested as it means long jail sentence for the latter. Then the garage owner and his lawyer tuned up but had to remain quiet after being shouted at by the Police Chief.

I was told by the Police Chief that if I made a statement to say that the items were missing without accusing anyone then no one needed to be arrested. He asked if the items were insured to which my answer was no, and also asked if I was compensated by someone on behalf of the garage staff would I accept it.  They don’t seem to understand that my recordings over half the journey cannot be compensated but I told them that I would accept the full amount claimed which was USD1100.

I had to stand firm on my decision to accuse the garage staff as one of them knew I am sure, who took the items. The obvious things were not taken and that convinced me that the thief knew that we would not discover the things that were missing until we were too far away to return or make a fuss about it not knowing that we were just down the road at the Hor Moheb Hotel. I was given a slip of paper with just the date and tourist police  written on it without any reference number which when asked for, was told that it would be given in a couple of days time. I was to hand the piece of paper to my lawyer or the Embassy for follow up on the case. Then I asked for the Police Chief’s name and he had to give it together with his mobile phone. I was free to go while one of the garage employees who last handled the key was handcuffed and arrested.

I was starving by the time I got back to the Hotel, after having only chocolate biscuits for lunch. We thought for a change we could go to a local café but only realized that the café was full of water pipe smokers and didn’t look as though they served food at all. The nearest place to eat was Pizza Hut and we took a tuk-tuk there as I was freezing probably due to an empty stomach.

The saddest part was seeing everyone beginning to celebrate the coming of the New Year and we were not in the mood whatsoever. The hotel was full of people all dressed up and wishing each other Happy New Year as we passed by them to get to our room. We bid each other Happy New Year as midnight came and went to sleep.