It's been one of those days. It all started out so well, we drove out of Luxor around 7am and passed through a police check point about every 50km.We hit the desert and drove until it was time to have lunch. Then the real fun started. We stopped for lunch near an old Roman fort and I realised that the police had been following us for some time. After we had eaten a few of us climbed up to the fort. While up there another car materialised and a tall stocky man, who looked like my high school maths teacher got out and started questioning us.

We were slightly confused and he said, we needed a permit from Cairo to be here and that our names weren't on his list. I wanted to point out that his list was in Arabic, which none of us can read and that he didn't know our names, but somehow managed to keep my mouth shut. In the end it was me that spoke up, I said "You need to go down there and talk to our tour leaders" pointing at the truck. At that moment Sarah materialised and I wandered back down to the truck.

Sarah and Dave argued with the new arrivals for about half an hour before we were all escorted to the police station, at least that's what they told us it was. It was just a small, pokey white building with some Arabic scrawl over the doorway.

We pulled up in el Kharga and we immediately surrounded by six armed guards with machine guns, who stood around the truck. We got off and Sarah went to go into the police station, before she went in, I offered to call Ramez and see if what they were doing to us was actually legal. She told me to do it.

I took Guy with me and walked off down the street. Ramez, as usual was very helpful and told me we should have told the tourist police where we were going before we left Luxor, but there was no need to register in Cairo. We waited for Sarah and Dave to come out of the police station for over an hour. They came out and Sarah used my phone to call her boss and while we waited for her verdict, we were taken to the Bagawat Necropolis. Only a handful of people actually paid to get in, the rest of us were too pissed off to give the people here any money. Which I think actually surprised our entourage, which was now up to three cars.

We sat at the coffee shop there and I pulled out one of my cigars, not just because I really felt like one, but because I thought everyone else could use a laugh. It worked. Once everyone was back Sarah told us we were going to drive straight up the Nile to Asyut and then onto Alexandria the next day. My immediate reaction was, Oh s***! Not there! I hate that place. I immediately asked Sarah if I could be dropped off in Cairo on the way through.

We got back in the truck and drove through the desert between el Kharga and Asyut, somewhere I guarantee no tourists ever go. It was an amazing desert and it was wonderful to see this part of Egypt. The original car followed us all the way to the outskirts of Asyut. Once we were there, a police car with flashing lights took over."What's this?" Dave exclaimed."They're the real police" I said and laughed. We were escorted around the city looking for a hotel, but none were suitable and we were all exhausted. We ended up camping in the soccer field in the police club, locked in there like caged animals.

At least there was a café and Siobhan and I went and had a coke and I thought more about the prospect of jumping off in Cairo. We had dinner and then went on the dodgem cars that were in the complex, a bit random, but we really needed a laugh after today. It was war between me and Dave. After the ride ended I said, "You know what? That just made it all worth it."Everyone laughed.

We went to bed and were woken several times, once by this bratty kid yelling "Wake Up! Wake up!" at 2am and then again by the call to prayer, which seemed unusually loud at 4am.