Day One. Morocco from a Bus
Arriving at London Luton airport the night before, I decided that obsessive-compulsive health and safety regulations ensured British airport floors were cleaned far too often, and plumped for a spot beside the Burger King entrance, the underlying logic being it HAD to open at 6am, which was when my flight was departing. Technically, as I would be obstructing the entrance, there was no way I was getting the sleep-in I didn't want.
Obviously, Murphy thought differently; I was woken up every hour, at least, by the sudden gusts of cold wind that generally accompany the use of automatic doors, and the corresponding set of idiots who take pleasure in activating their sensors in lieu of, say, getting a good night's rest on an airport floor. Coupled with the fact that my winter jacket, which would have kept me warm (and would not continue doing so for long - but that's another freak tale!) , was doubling up as groundsheet this time, the warmth of Morocco was getting more and more appealing by the minute.
I woke up when the plane was taxiing down the Marrakech runway; 3 hours on a plane and a novel nowhere near completion of Chapter 1.
First Impressions - What, No Sand?
It was GREEN. Granted, nowhere near as lush as landing in KLIA (which, after all, was carved out of palm plantations), but still...the romanticised image of taxiing down a desert in the Sahara was slowly supplanted by the stone-and-bits-of-hardy-plant scene I would soon be accustomed to by the end of it all.
And the buildings. They are ALL the same shade of red. Google Marrakech; nay, google Morocco, for good measure, and only one shade of building colour seems to materialise. Oddly enough, it bears a keen resemblance to the garish red hue Malaysian schools are slowly being repainted in by overzealous government officials; collusion, anyone?
And no, there are no camels ferrying itinerant tourists from aircraft to terminal, in lieu of airport buses. Apparently in most of Africa, it would be a mule that was up to the task. (And, unless our previous desert landing scenario is right, a camel would certainly falter on any surface other than sand; having ridden one for 4 hours, I think I empathise with its predicament)
At this point, I must add that mules are AMAZINGLY adorable, and if my children are to ever have a nice, life-sized animal at home, A MULE IT IS! They are pretty much the ONLY animal in the whole kingdom that still remain cute after growing to full size; those of you that argue the case of orang-utans have obviously only seen tourist (read: baby) pictures before.
But we digress; it is time to head out to Marrakech, and also to purchase a local SIM card; a tradition accompanying every international holiday for reasons best known to the best of you! And before that, of course, money changing; the Moroccan dirham (15 DH per pound, 10 per euro) is a restricted currency, and you cannot exchange it anywhere else but in Morocco. This, naturally, gave rise to fears of the Expensive Airport Moneychanger Scam; and I picked up just enough dirham to get that SIM card, and to catch the bus in town, which, shockingly, had air-con AND plush leather seats AND was driven at speeds not reminiscent of rally cars.
The moment I arrived in Marrakech, however, everything changed.
Marrakech city centre was Africa at its best and boldest. With cars whizzing down every possible lane, a potent cacophany of motorbikes, bicycles, and horse-drawn carriages attempting to squeeze in between all motorized transport, pedestrians have a most miserable time here. Crossing the road seems to involve weaving your way through the traffic, hoping and praying the cars whose paths you have to cross have the decency, or the respect for human life, to at least screech to a halt for you, failing which, it would dodge quickly in front of you so at least it did not hit you. The locals seemed pretty accomplished at achieving the former; no siree, not for me - I think wearing a turban while crossing the road in the future would be advisable.
On the bright side, I crossed said road with a fellow British tourist, and we somehow managed to weasel our way through the deadly traffic, and into a petit taxi (small 4-seater car only operating in towns), where we were immediately overcharged (70 DH) for a 5-minute ride to. The. Bus. Station.
For 50 DH - which is exactly how much My Friend demanded from me after all the help - this place is a (decidedly seedy) tourist attraction in its own class. The moment we were ejected from the petit taxi, five unsavoury-looking characters, all with bandages on various exciting body parts, literally swarmed round us, all claiming to be Our Friend (a theme which would repeat itself every time I got off any form of public transport, to my chagrin). We picked the guy who had a bandage around his hand; at least he couldn't hurt us too much, with 1 out of 4 limbs temporarily out of commission, and wearily stragged into the terminal after him, as everyone, and I MEAN all-200-people-there-everyone, tried to hawk us something.
Be it bus tickets, cigarettes, chewing gum, alcohol (and just when I was starting to believe this was a strict Muslim country!), or a whole series of soft drinks that looked decidedly capitalist-American, EVERYONE in Morocco either wanted to sell you something, or before you had a choice, was already hanging it around your neck (as is the case of the snake-charmers in Djema al Fna, the main square of Marrakech, which can be a rather upsetting experience, whether you have a phobia of creepy-crawlies, or of unnecessarily losing 200 DH).
Top tip - NEVER, EVER talk to ANYONE in Morocco unless you're sure you need his services/product/kitsch tourist souvenir. You will be rewarded with a rather full wallet at the end of it. When hasslers scream at you, just lower your head, look as if you don't comprehend English (or in my case, Japanese - 1 out of 2 hustlers yelled "konnichiwa" at me, and I had to resist the urge to turn my head back in recognition). THIS hustler got his 50 DH, but at least he helped me get the rest of my money changed - and to my utter disbelief, the exchange rates at the airport ARE better than those in town. Turns out the strict currency controls meant that the supply of pounds was, paradoxically, higher at the airport than at random banks in the city centre, thus driving exchange rates down a little. One of those rare situations where theoretical economics ACTUALLY worked out.
Still, by 10am, I was on said bus, with 50 other locals, wondering, miserably, how I was going to survive a reputedly 10-hour journey on a clinker with no aircon, no inhouse movie, and little boys dashing on board trying to hawk junk food to me and only me, the lucrative Japanese tourist.
******
2 hours into said horror journey, I was, literally, awakened with a jolt by the most AMAZING sight you could ever see. (images.google.com photos will have to suffice before my disposable camera photos are developed - YES I don't have a functioning digicam)
Yes, that WAS the route we were on, with the bus teetering precipitously to the edge all the way. He MUST believe in God. Or.
Mid-mountain pass, just when you were under the impression that humanity could not be more punishing to its mountain-dwellers, there materialised a town, literally hanging off the ledges, and the bus...stopped.
The moment I got off the bus, I asked for the toilet, and I suddenly realised I had made my first "friend", one of many whose "friendship" bills began looming.
My "friend" took me to his friend's tajine stall, where I had something that looked exactly like this:
...And only paying 60DH for it, I was starting to fall in love with Moroccan food, or at least, its prices.
Of course, later, payback ensued - the first sign of a concomitant purchase was when he waved off the shopkeeper when I tried to pay him for the meal, explaining "we can pay in one go later." Point taken - purchase required. At his Berber Trinket Stall, the first of at least a few million identical ones in the country, I paid 90 DH for a Berber ring, and quickly slunk back to the bus.
The breathtaking views of the Tiz-al-Tichka mountain pass, at 2800m easily higher than any point in either West Malaysia or the UK, more than made up for the remaining 5 hours, in stony silence, till the bus pulled into Ouarzazate, a desolate French border outpost built in the 1920s and looking exactly that - boring.
A 5-minute stop here ejected ALL the Western tourists on board, leaving me, the gullible camera-toting Japanese, bare for the world to scam.
But scam they did NOT - after a Moroccan guy directed me to the bus driver, where, it transpired, my phone had fallen out of my pocket, he literally began "practising his high school English on me", and I started finding out exactly how crucial body language and jabbings into thin air would be over the next few days. His friend, dressed suspiciously in a Broadway-esque white suit and white bowler hat, had more luck, and excitedly reminded me about all the sights I was missing by staying on the bus. (Yes, sir, I will come back next time, with girlfriend and car in tow.)
With the two of them, me speaking no French or Arabic, and both of them certainly having the English command of a primary school child, we still had a rather animated 4-hour conversation, punctuated by the breathtaking sights all the way:
At one point, we finally got tired of talking to each other, I think; in the small town of Tinerhir, a "friend", once again, attempted to fill the gap by hawking me a 2000 DH direct package tour of the desert. After shooing him away from my aisle with repeated assurances that "I will think about it", Mr Bowler Hat gave me a disgusted look, and I knew all bets were off.
Mr Bowler Hat alighted 30 minutes later, leaving me feeling completely alone for the first time in my entire trip.
I guess that was how I managed to fall for the next scam; straight off the bus in Er-Rachidia 6 hours later (and it was already 9pm - I had spent my first day in exciting Morocco twiddling my thumbs on a bus!), a rather suave young man speaking good English started being "my friend", and this time, I actually successfully walked away, until he literally CAUGHT up with me, blocked my way, and shook my hand, reassuring me "yes I will find you cheap accommodation." At that point, I just caved into the exhaustion and let him.
He took me to a 70 DH hotel, which, as I am fond of pointing out to people, was cheaper than every single souvenir I bought; disgusting indeed. After that, he took me out for dinner, a 35 DH feast of Berber chicken:
And of course, the obligatory mint tea, with which, I happily fell asleep.
Obviously, Murphy thought differently; I was woken up every hour, at least, by the sudden gusts of cold wind that generally accompany the use of automatic doors, and the corresponding set of idiots who take pleasure in activating their sensors in lieu of, say, getting a good night's rest on an airport floor. Coupled with the fact that my winter jacket, which would have kept me warm (and would not continue doing so for long - but that's another freak tale!) , was doubling up as groundsheet this time, the warmth of Morocco was getting more and more appealing by the minute.
I woke up when the plane was taxiing down the Marrakech runway; 3 hours on a plane and a novel nowhere near completion of Chapter 1.
First Impressions - What, No Sand?
It was GREEN. Granted, nowhere near as lush as landing in KLIA (which, after all, was carved out of palm plantations), but still...the romanticised image of taxiing down a desert in the Sahara was slowly supplanted by the stone-and-bits-of-hardy-plant scene I would soon be accustomed to by the end of it all.
And the buildings. They are ALL the same shade of red. Google Marrakech; nay, google Morocco, for good measure, and only one shade of building colour seems to materialise. Oddly enough, it bears a keen resemblance to the garish red hue Malaysian schools are slowly being repainted in by overzealous government officials; collusion, anyone?
And no, there are no camels ferrying itinerant tourists from aircraft to terminal, in lieu of airport buses. Apparently in most of Africa, it would be a mule that was up to the task. (And, unless our previous desert landing scenario is right, a camel would certainly falter on any surface other than sand; having ridden one for 4 hours, I think I empathise with its predicament)
At this point, I must add that mules are AMAZINGLY adorable, and if my children are to ever have a nice, life-sized animal at home, A MULE IT IS! They are pretty much the ONLY animal in the whole kingdom that still remain cute after growing to full size; those of you that argue the case of orang-utans have obviously only seen tourist (read: baby) pictures before.
But we digress; it is time to head out to Marrakech, and also to purchase a local SIM card; a tradition accompanying every international holiday for reasons best known to the best of you! And before that, of course, money changing; the Moroccan dirham (15 DH per pound, 10 per euro) is a restricted currency, and you cannot exchange it anywhere else but in Morocco. This, naturally, gave rise to fears of the Expensive Airport Moneychanger Scam; and I picked up just enough dirham to get that SIM card, and to catch the bus in town, which, shockingly, had air-con AND plush leather seats AND was driven at speeds not reminiscent of rally cars.
The moment I arrived in Marrakech, however, everything changed.
Marrakech city centre was Africa at its best and boldest. With cars whizzing down every possible lane, a potent cacophany of motorbikes, bicycles, and horse-drawn carriages attempting to squeeze in between all motorized transport, pedestrians have a most miserable time here. Crossing the road seems to involve weaving your way through the traffic, hoping and praying the cars whose paths you have to cross have the decency, or the respect for human life, to at least screech to a halt for you, failing which, it would dodge quickly in front of you so at least it did not hit you. The locals seemed pretty accomplished at achieving the former; no siree, not for me - I think wearing a turban while crossing the road in the future would be advisable.
On the bright side, I crossed said road with a fellow British tourist, and we somehow managed to weasel our way through the deadly traffic, and into a petit taxi (small 4-seater car only operating in towns), where we were immediately overcharged (70 DH) for a 5-minute ride to. The. Bus. Station.
For 50 DH - which is exactly how much My Friend demanded from me after all the help - this place is a (decidedly seedy) tourist attraction in its own class. The moment we were ejected from the petit taxi, five unsavoury-looking characters, all with bandages on various exciting body parts, literally swarmed round us, all claiming to be Our Friend (a theme which would repeat itself every time I got off any form of public transport, to my chagrin). We picked the guy who had a bandage around his hand; at least he couldn't hurt us too much, with 1 out of 4 limbs temporarily out of commission, and wearily stragged into the terminal after him, as everyone, and I MEAN all-200-people-there-everyone, tried to hawk us something.
Be it bus tickets, cigarettes, chewing gum, alcohol (and just when I was starting to believe this was a strict Muslim country!), or a whole series of soft drinks that looked decidedly capitalist-American, EVERYONE in Morocco either wanted to sell you something, or before you had a choice, was already hanging it around your neck (as is the case of the snake-charmers in Djema al Fna, the main square of Marrakech, which can be a rather upsetting experience, whether you have a phobia of creepy-crawlies, or of unnecessarily losing 200 DH).
Top tip - NEVER, EVER talk to ANYONE in Morocco unless you're sure you need his services/product/kitsch tourist souvenir. You will be rewarded with a rather full wallet at the end of it. When hasslers scream at you, just lower your head, look as if you don't comprehend English (or in my case, Japanese - 1 out of 2 hustlers yelled "konnichiwa" at me, and I had to resist the urge to turn my head back in recognition). THIS hustler got his 50 DH, but at least he helped me get the rest of my money changed - and to my utter disbelief, the exchange rates at the airport ARE better than those in town. Turns out the strict currency controls meant that the supply of pounds was, paradoxically, higher at the airport than at random banks in the city centre, thus driving exchange rates down a little. One of those rare situations where theoretical economics ACTUALLY worked out.
Still, by 10am, I was on said bus, with 50 other locals, wondering, miserably, how I was going to survive a reputedly 10-hour journey on a clinker with no aircon, no inhouse movie, and little boys dashing on board trying to hawk junk food to me and only me, the lucrative Japanese tourist.
******
2 hours into said horror journey, I was, literally, awakened with a jolt by the most AMAZING sight you could ever see. (images.google.com photos will have to suffice before my disposable camera photos are developed - YES I don't have a functioning digicam)
Yes, that WAS the route we were on, with the bus teetering precipitously to the edge all the way. He MUST believe in God. Or.
Mid-mountain pass, just when you were under the impression that humanity could not be more punishing to its mountain-dwellers, there materialised a town, literally hanging off the ledges, and the bus...stopped.
The moment I got off the bus, I asked for the toilet, and I suddenly realised I had made my first "friend", one of many whose "friendship" bills began looming.
My "friend" took me to his friend's tajine stall, where I had something that looked exactly like this:
...And only paying 60DH for it, I was starting to fall in love with Moroccan food, or at least, its prices.
Of course, later, payback ensued - the first sign of a concomitant purchase was when he waved off the shopkeeper when I tried to pay him for the meal, explaining "we can pay in one go later." Point taken - purchase required. At his Berber Trinket Stall, the first of at least a few million identical ones in the country, I paid 90 DH for a Berber ring, and quickly slunk back to the bus.
The breathtaking views of the Tiz-al-Tichka mountain pass, at 2800m easily higher than any point in either West Malaysia or the UK, more than made up for the remaining 5 hours, in stony silence, till the bus pulled into Ouarzazate, a desolate French border outpost built in the 1920s and looking exactly that - boring.
A 5-minute stop here ejected ALL the Western tourists on board, leaving me, the gullible camera-toting Japanese, bare for the world to scam.
But scam they did NOT - after a Moroccan guy directed me to the bus driver, where, it transpired, my phone had fallen out of my pocket, he literally began "practising his high school English on me", and I started finding out exactly how crucial body language and jabbings into thin air would be over the next few days. His friend, dressed suspiciously in a Broadway-esque white suit and white bowler hat, had more luck, and excitedly reminded me about all the sights I was missing by staying on the bus. (Yes, sir, I will come back next time, with girlfriend and car in tow.)
With the two of them, me speaking no French or Arabic, and both of them certainly having the English command of a primary school child, we still had a rather animated 4-hour conversation, punctuated by the breathtaking sights all the way:
At one point, we finally got tired of talking to each other, I think; in the small town of Tinerhir, a "friend", once again, attempted to fill the gap by hawking me a 2000 DH direct package tour of the desert. After shooing him away from my aisle with repeated assurances that "I will think about it", Mr Bowler Hat gave me a disgusted look, and I knew all bets were off.
Mr Bowler Hat alighted 30 minutes later, leaving me feeling completely alone for the first time in my entire trip.
I guess that was how I managed to fall for the next scam; straight off the bus in Er-Rachidia 6 hours later (and it was already 9pm - I had spent my first day in exciting Morocco twiddling my thumbs on a bus!), a rather suave young man speaking good English started being "my friend", and this time, I actually successfully walked away, until he literally CAUGHT up with me, blocked my way, and shook my hand, reassuring me "yes I will find you cheap accommodation." At that point, I just caved into the exhaustion and let him.
He took me to a 70 DH hotel, which, as I am fond of pointing out to people, was cheaper than every single souvenir I bought; disgusting indeed. After that, he took me out for dinner, a 35 DH feast of Berber chicken:
And of course, the obligatory mint tea, with which, I happily fell asleep.