天堂與地獄之旅 (7) - 19天自由行 自駕遊埃及和阿布扎比/杜拜 (Car issues in Egypt; Hotel and passport issues in Abu Dhabi)

Travel period : 7 Nov 2017 to 25 Nov 2017, total 19 days

Hong Kong > (flight duration 9.5 hours)  Abu Dhabi (4 hours behind HKT) > (flight duration 4.1 hours) Cairo (6 hours behind HKT)
Plane (1N) > Cairo (1N) > Bahariya Oasis White Desert (1N) > Cairo (3N) > Car Crashed in Asyut - delayed 12 hours - Highway 75 (1N) > Luxor (1N) > Aswan (1N) > Abu Simbel (1N) > Luxor (1N) > Hurghada (3N) > Cairo 
Cairo > Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi (3N) > Dubai > Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi > Hong Kong
Plane (1N)

Exchange Rate

• USD1 = HKD7.95 (百年找換)
• USD1 = EGP17.6 (Bank in Cairo)[approx. EGP1 = HKD0.45]
• USD1 = AED3.59 (Travelex)+ service charge [approx. AED1 = HKD2.28]

Car issues in Egypt; Hotel and passport issues in Abu Dhabi

Car

• Car issues on the West Bank highway from Luxor to Aswan (Day 7).
• Our car was returned to Helnan Aswan Hotel (East Bank) after repairing at noon on the next day when we returned from Abu Simbel (Day 9).
• We noticed the front middle mirror had not yet fixed to the new windshield, then the service man tried to fix it and told us there was a problem with it and need to fix it at their repair centre.
• The service man drove our car to pick up an engineer then towards the repair centre that was 30 minutes away from Aswan hotel.
• The service man told us the process would take 10 minutes but eventually it took 60 minutes.
• Fortunately we had cup noodle for lunch when we knew it's gonna to take long for the whole process.

• We asked the service man drove us to the nearest gas station of Aswan hotel to refill petrol and we started our journey to Luxor at 3:30pm.
• Oh My God!!! When we were on the West bank highway from Aswan to Luxor, the yellow engine alarm appeared on the display AGAIN.  The drop happened again so we called the service man and told him the issue and he told us to switch off the air-conditioner which was not turned on actually.
• He told us it's not safe to continue driving and asked us to pull over right away on the highway and waited for him to pick up our car to repair again, however we rejected and insisted to drive to Luxor slowly.
• After a few times of stopping the car to turn off and re-start the engine, we discovered the drop didn't happen when the speed was below 80km, thereafter we kept that speed until we arrived Jolie Ville Kings Island Luxor (East Bank) at 8:30pm (cancelled formal lunch and behind schedule 2.5 hours).
• Again, many thanks to Universe that both of us had 0% injury
• We called the car rental company about the car issue and the staff told us a service man from repair centre in Luxor would pick up our car at the hotel the next morning at 9am (Day 10).
• The staff told us same car after repaired or a replacement car would be sent to the hotel before noon on the next day.
• However, the service man didn't appear until 9:30am, so I called the car rental company and he asked me to wait while he called the service man.  Another 15 minutes gone, 30 minutes gone, the service man still not yet appeared; the staff told me to wait 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes during 5 calls between us.
• Eventually, at 10:45am we decided to take taxi to Hurghada and brought along the car key with us.  The staff still asking us to wait another 15 minutes and we should understand the "TIME" with Egyptian is different from other people in the world.  We dropped his call and went to arrange taxi with hotel reception, in the meantime the Manager of car rental company called us and asked us to leave the car key at the hotel reception.
• We passed the phone to the hotel Manager and after their communication, the hotel Manager accepted we leave the car key at the hotel reception and kept it until the service man arrived.
• At 11:10am, a taxi was arranged to transfer us from Luxor to Hurghada for EPG900; right at the time, the service man eventually arrived 2 hours behind.
• We arrived Hurghada Marriott Red Sea Beach Resort at 3:45pm (cancelled lunch and behind schedule 2.75 hours) to celebrate our 27th Anniversary.
• The 2nd replacement car was sent to Marriott Hotel at 8pm by Hurghada branch of car rental company.

Hotel

•  Victims in the conflict between Etihad Airways stopover (hala abu dhabi) promotion and Holiday Inn Abu Dhabi Hotel.

Passport

• When we were passing the Abu Dhabi departure customs, both of our passports were not recognised by machine; so we went to staff counter.
• The staff tried over 10 times to recognised my passport by machine but unsuccessful; then he phoned to someone for assistance.  Afterwards, he tried 10 more times to recognised my passport by machine but still failed, then he checked my boarding pass, stamped on my passport and finally let me go through the gate.
• I have been waiting for about 30 minutes to pass the customs and then I saw "Final Call" on the noticeboard.
• Again, the staff tried over 10 times to recognised my husband's passport by machine but unsuccessful.
• Then I shouted loudly "Final Call" to my husband and tried to go back through the gate.  A loud alarm sounded and the staff eventually checked my husband's boarding pass, then stamped on his passport and let him go through the gate.
• The whole process took 45 minutes and we were in a hurry without tiding up our belts and shoelaces, and ran to the boarding gate before it closed.

Go back to (6) Feel the warmth / People in non-tourist district try their best to help you as much as possible

Let's go to (8) Introduction of accommodation