A WRONG turn can bring you to a dead end, but in my case, it almost killed me and my colleagues from the Media Prima group on Thursday. It happened when our taxi driver decided to take a short route to our hotel, without consulting us.
By doing that he passed through small roads near Tahrir Square, where most of the protesters had gathered and clashes between rival groups were reported every day.
Our team -- three reporters, a photographer and a cameraman from New Straits Times, Berita Harian and TV3 -- had earlier covered the evacuation of Malaysian students at the Cairo International Airport, about 30km from our hotel.
We had to rush back to our hotel about noon as it was already 6pm in Malaysia.
Our taxi driver convinced us to take his vehicle when he claimed that he knew the safest and fastest route to our hotel.
"Trust me; this is my city and God-willing, you will reach your hotel by 12.30pm," said the driver in his 40s, who identified himself only as Shohib. He looked pious and kept reciting Quranic verses while driving.
We were happy with his assurance as all of us desperately wanted to take a shower and answer the call of nature as we found out it was very difficult to find a public toilet here.
The first sign of trouble was after we exited the Solah Salim underground tunnel on our way to the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Roda Island, along the Corniche of the Nile River.
About 100 metres from the tunnel, we were suddenly stopped at a roadblock mounted by civilians.
We were allowed to proceed after we said that we were from the Malaysian embassy.
"Don't worry, they just want to confirm that you are not from the rival group," said the taxi driver,
We were not sure who these people were, but there had been reports that they were the supporters of embattled President Hosni Mubarak. They called themselves pro-Egyptians or the pro-development group.
About 100 metres from the first roadblock, our taxi was again stopped by a group which had set up a roadblock near a military tank.
This group was rowdier, with many of its 30 members, including young boys, armed with knives, baseball bats and machetes.
"Man anta? (who are you?)," they continuously asked us while banging on the windscreen and taxi's windows.
Mohd Nazmi Yaakub, a Berita Harian journalist and an Al-Azhar University graduate, tried to explain to them in Arabic that we were just staff at the Malaysian embassy but they did not seem to buy what he was saying.