Our names are now Ping and Tung

We’ve been in Morocco for only a day and we’ve already decided to change our names.  We are staying at a beautiful riad (a traditional Moroccan house with an interior garden) in the medina (the old walled city) on top of the kasbah (the walled fortress) called La Tangerina. That’s your quick lesson on how these North African cities are set up.  Most travellers/tourists live inside the medina because all of the souqs (markets) and historic mosques are inside.  Most business travellers and locals live outside the medina in the ville-nouvelle (new city) which is pretty much like any other city with high-rises and malls and fast food joints etc etc.  Anyways, our riad is definitely an oasis for whenever we want to get out of the action.  As the picture above shows it’s got an amazing view of the Mediterranean, and the interior is fitting to its character and gorgeous.  The owner was obviously passionate about this place.

Inside the medina it can be sensory overload; children running around, aromas from food vendors, bright lights and colours from the clothing stalls, and lots and lots and lots of sound.  Some of the noise is from vendors, some from cars, some from friendly conversations among locals.  However, the most consistent racket is from the mouths of touts and hustlers.  Everyone that tries to talk to us has a ‘brother’ or ‘uncle’ or ‘father’ who has the best shop or the best restaurant and they are persistent in following us and trying to get us to go there.  It’s kind of unfortunate that unemployment runs so high here that a lot of these young men need to resort to this, because a lot of them actually speak pretty decent English, French, Spanish, and even a little Japanese.  If there were more opportunity for them they could probably do well in the hotel industry.  They always approach us, being Asian, with Konichiwa!  They are smart to, because every single other Asian we’ve seen in the medina has been Japanese.  I have to give it to the Japanese people though; they have an amazing amount of patience for these guys.  They smile and nod their heads and gently wave ‘no’ for about 10 blocks!  I on the other hand, don’t want to waste these guys’ time or get their hopes up, and believe me I’m not being altruistic.  I find them super annoying.  So we’ve found a strategy that works really well.  They approach us with Konichiwa, Japan!  And we nod no and say ‘China’.  They inevitably then start following us and speaking English thinking we’d at least understand that.  We respond in mandarin to them and shrug, and then keep speaking more mandarin.  The conversation never lasts longer than 10 seconds.  I guess they don’t see any China tourists here so they have no idea how to converse.  I tell them my name is Ping (just cuz I think that’s awesome) when they introduce themselves, and Di wants to call herself Tung cuz Ping Tung is the town her grandparents are from in Taiwan.  We wandered virtually hassle free for the rest of the day!

One very cool thing happened at the end of the day here.  The lonely planet guide book and the taxi driver both recommended this restaurant called Hamadi for Moroccan food, so we decided to check it out.  We had an amazing meal of couscous, pastillo and kefta and other Moroccan delights.  When the bill came I gave the waiter my Visa (I’m trying to use that more since I’m trying to carry less cash…Portugal story).  The manager came by and told me the connection for the Visa payment was down, and that if I had no money I could return tomorrow and pay him.  He didn’t ask me to leave anything with him (like my Visa or a piece of ID).  How many places in Canada would let you do that??