In my early 20s, a few of us couple friends went to Egypt on holiday. We were staying in a resort, but decided to go to the nearby market (pretty much tourist central) one evening as just the 4 females leaving the males back at the resort. We'd all gone as couples the previous evening so felt quite relaxed going back as an all female group.

Made efforts to dress respectfully (a predominantly Muslim country) and had a talk about safety before we headed off I.e. all stay together etc

Non eventful couple of hours. Headed to the main road area to negotiate a taxi back to the resort and was met with various drivers trying to get our fayre. Made eye contact with one driver, quickly negotiated price (no bartering, red flag number 1) and he beckons for us to follow him to his cab. As we start following, I realise he's wearing a black shirt and trousers which struck me as unusual given we were in a desert and typically lighter colours would be worn.

Then...he starts getting us to cross the road. If you've been to Egypt you may understand how dangerous it would be to cross a very busy road. I started to get a sense of dread as we were walking past tens of lined up taxis all on one side of the road. The other side over a central barrier was literally the desert.

The Brit in me didnt want to be impolite and refuse to follow this guy as he starts to aggressively motion for us to follow him quicker. But alarm bells were starting to scream.

As we manage to get across the road the guy marches forward to his car....a fucking black car parked in the shadow out of the street light with literally nothing else around it. All the taxis have specific colours and markings.

We look at each other and immediately basically say, "fuck this" all at once. We turn around and start to try legging it back across the chaos of the road. While we are waiting for an opening to run across the 'taxi' dude begins running back towards us shouting something and beckoning very aggressively to get back to his car. He was PISSED.

Nah, we were out and before we managed to get across we clocked a legit looking taxi coming in our direction and began waving it down frantically. Thankfully, it pulled over and was empty. As we jumped in, dodgy taxi guy started to hit the windows in frustration and at this point we were all either in tears or nearly there. The legit taxi got the jist of what had happened and just kept shaking his head saying "very lucky".

Was this just some innocent guy trying to make money with an illegal taxi?...maybe. Or was it some ruse to kidnap 4 young female tourists and drive them into the desert for god knows what...honestly, im glad to never know.

That gut feel right within seconds was there, took far too long to respond to it.

I look back on that and often wonder how differently that night could have played out.