photographs of fez
couscous!!
how happy my italian friends must be these days...
remember the restored riad? yeah there were like three beautiful, beautiful bedrooms, four storeys of spaces, narrow staircases, spotless white walls, brilliant tile-works, two living rooms, etc. that night all of us had our choice of which room/bed/leather sofa/floor to sleep in/on, anywhere. it was quiet and cool.
fez - with the famous tannery. you could smell it before you spot it, and the leather slippers you buy (S$5 a pair) would stink of piss and dubious 'chemicals' for about a month before you could wear them proper. our new local friends mentioned pigeon's guano and camel's urine. think again before you hug that leather bag to your chest!
I saw japanese tourists. but this is as real as it gets... I wondered how life is like. and why was this old man sitting by the shade? was he tending to the drying leather in the sun? it was a place full of mystery even as my lonely planet rambled on.
the streets ran blue from the dyes. and the boys were extremely enterprising: even before my shutter went off they were already stretching out their hands.
fez is undeniably quite a moroccan city. although I have only been to three cities, I like fez a whole lot.
in any case I bid farewell (sadly) to the italian boys, ciao to the italian girls, BYE to the greek, received wise parting words from the two moroccans, and boarded the bus with michel. we headed to meknes.
the bus system in morocco is very strange, but I shall leave that to the next post.