To me Morocco has always had some sort of romantic allure when compared to the rest of North Africa.  I think this has largely to do with the beat generation and the hippies after them.  The most well-worn book on my shelf is On The Road by Jack Kerouac, and his group of counter-culture writers from the 50’s (the beat generation) spent significant time in Morocco, especially Tangier.  The hippies then came after in the 60’s (think Kate Hudson’s final scene in Almost Famous) and a large number of them including Jimi Hendrix came to Essaouira, where we are right now, to chill.  Essaouira is a smaller, more laid-back town on the Atlantic, and it’s definitely our favourite place in Morocco.  It’s quite different than the circus-like atmosphere of Marrakesh and that’s what we were looking for.  This is an old walled city like the others, but it was designed by a French architect in the 1700’s so the layout is infinitely more orderly than the previous medinas.  However, the town is still distinctly Moroccon with its architecture, markets, aromas, spice shops, and daily minaret calls.  It’s a fusion in design that comes together nicely for its visitors and inhabitants.

We’ve been enjoying the food in Morocco so we decided to take a cooking class at L’atelier Madada.  It was a fun and educational experience.  We learnt about the plethora of Moroccan spices used and we cooked (or attempted to) a chicken tajine and some Moroccan pastries.  After eating they took us to the market to learn how to buy cookware and spices, pretty cool.  We met an American couple at the class who are currently living in the Netherlands, and we all decided to grab a few drinks on a terrace overlooking the ocean after.  She was an artist who loves Bikrams yoga, great match for Di.  He was a lawyer working at the Hague who likes martial arts and doesn’t like Bikrams yoga, similar thought process to me.  They both also love food and travel and are one year younger than us.  A few drinks turned into 4 bottles of wine and 5 hours of conversation.  We had a good time.

Di and I also tried a hammam here.  A hammam is basically a public Turkish bathhouse with a sauna and a massage.  The men and women go at different times to keep it segregated.  I’ll sum up my awesome experience here for those of you who don’t know how this works.  First you get down to your ginch and go into a sort of steam room where a bunch of the other patrons are sitting.  The lights are dim and the temperature is pretty damn hot.  One by one the bath attendants get you to lay down on the floor as they scrub all of you down (called the gommage) with a scouring pad and some sort of paste for exfoliation, it was painful.  Then they literally douse you with buckets of hot water to rinse it off.  After that they give you a massage with some sort of oil.  Lucky me, I had a massive 250 pound attendant (also in just his ginch) scrub me down and massage me.  He seriously was the biggest guy I’ve seen in all of Morocco.  After that, one by one you stand up in front of everyone while a different dude rubs bar soap all over you.  And then he douses you with a few more buckets of hot water to rinse.  You’re allowed to then sit in this steam room as long as you’d like to relax and watch other dudes get soaped.  I was outta there before the water from the last bucket thrown at me even touched the floor.  I could have sworn that while the hippo-sized attendant was looming over me and scrubbing, his sweat was dripping down on me.  It could have been condensation from the roof, but I had my eyes shut in fear the whole time so I can’t confirm where the drips came from.  In the back of my mind I could hear my buddy John Fenton advising me NOT to do the Turkish bath thing cuz he was sure I wouldn’t like it.  I should have listened.  Due to the behemoth’s dripping sweat, this was the only bath I’ve ever taken in my life where I felt dirtier after.  I ran home and took a shower, and that will be the last Turkish bath or hammam I will ever go to.

Here the wind (or alizee in local Berber language) is supremely strong, which attracts kite and windsurfers alike from all over the world.  The beach is long and wide, and there are innumerable soccer games being played on its sands once the sun begins to appear.  The port still hustles with the daily activity of fishermen, and you can buy your favourite part of his catch and grill it right there with a salad and some bread for a simple yet satisfying lunch.  The waves still smash against the cities’ ramparts as a multitude of seagulls circle above.  You take this in while overlooking the Atlantic and think, the hippies had it right coming here.  Though I don’t see any remnants of their being here, sometimes, when the wind rolls over your face at the right angle, you can still feel the peace and love they’ve left behind.

While we were in Fes we decided to do a private day excursion to Meknes, Volubilis, and Moulay Idriss.  Meknes is another imperial city with more history than sights.  The Roman ruins of Volubilis had some decent mosaics, and Moulay Idriss is a holy town and an important pilgrimage site for Muslims.  The sights were pleasant but in no means mind-blowing.  The best part about the trip was talking to the driver/guide himself. 

He was quite learned and was eager to share Morocco’s history and current social, religious, and political situation.  He had no problem discussing how tyrannical and ruthless Sultan Moulay Ismail (1672-1727), the leader at the helm of Meknes heyday, was.  He relayed a story of how the sultan murdered the slave who saved him from drowning because he did not want to be indebted to a slave.   He talked endearingly of the current king and has high hopes for Morocco’s future and the future of his daughter because of this king’s new leadership and direction.  We also talked a lot about the current world situation, especially with US/Arabic country relations.  He hates how his country has through association and propaganda been linked to Muslim extremists.  The discussion was lengthy yet provocative and stimulating.  It’s nice to get a view that’s different and far less radical than that of Fox News.

He was also very curious about us.  He wanted to know how we ended up in Canada, and about the Chinese immigrant experience there.  He was also keen to learn about the Taiwan/China/Hong Kong political situation.  However, what got him the most excited in our cumulative 4 hours of driving, was Jacky Chan movies.  He knew all of them, and he says he’s watched many of them multiple times.  If you walk through the medinas and check out the bootlegged DVD’s, tons of them are Jacky Chan movies.  He says Moroccans love him “because of his action and his comedy”.  He went on to discuss movies like Drunken Master, and how he remembers the first Jacky Chan movie he saw dubbed in French when he was young called Le Chinois (I don’t know which one that was).  He got especially animated when he talked about the hilarious yet tough, fat sidekick (Sammo Hung).  Who would have known, that all the way in Morocco, Jacky Chan would have a legion of fans.

The above picture is my tribute to Jacky Chan in Morocco.  I thought it’d be funny to do an air punch in front of the gate of Bab el-Mansour in Meknes.  This gate is supposed to be the grandest in Morocco, but I think due to infrequent upkeep it looks really faded and not grand at all.  I thought I’d spice up the picture by jumping and punching, when instead I awkwardly tripped when jumping forward (my jeans are too tight and low and I couldn’t get full extension when leaping forward!) and rolled on the ground.  This was hugely hilarious to the throngs of teenagers waiting at the bus stop, and they then came to take pics with us after with their cell phone cameras.  They asked me if I was Japanese, I nodded yes haha

It’s been almost a month, and like a crouching tiger patiently waiting before striking, Di’s former princess personality erupted this morning in fury.  Ok it wasn’t that bad, but she definitely wasn’t happy.  We’re currently in Rabat because the Canadian embassy is here, not because it was originally on our list of places to go.  To be honest, Rabat is a nice change from the hectic atmosphere of Tangier and Fes.  It’s the capital city, and you can tell it’s a more educated, civilized, and modern.  The older Moroccans are all in suits and many speak perfect French as well as Arabic to each other.  A lot of them seem to be diplomats.  The hijab (headscarf worn by women) is definitely not the norm.  The streets are generally pleasant, nice and relatively clean compared to the rest of Morocco.  Since Rabat is not on the tourist map as there really are no sights here, there are no hustlers or touts.  You are blissfully ignored in the medina by shopkeepers and kids alike.  Anyways, we are staying in the medina again in another riad that’s pretty nice.  The unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on the kind of experience you want) thing about the riads is that a lot of them are in the heart of the medina, which means you have to remember your way through the maze of narrow alleyways to find your way home.  Not an easy undertaking, and I’d leave breadcrumbs if I could.  It’s enjoyable when you’re not in a rush because sometimes you can wander into a different but cool section of the medina as you get lost.  However when you are in a hurry, it is maddening.

Anyways, we talked to the consulate this morning, and our passports are not here.  ARGH.  They only get a diplomatic bag from Canada once a week on Tuesdays, so they emailed us to come expecting it to arrive today, but it didn’t.  That means we have to return next Tuesday which is super annoying because we fly out of Casablanca, not here.  There are no flights from Rabat to Tunisia.  After hearing that bit of disappointing news we went to the train station (about a 15 minute walk) to buy tickets to Marrakesh.  We only had an hour before the first train was to leave and 3 hours before the next.  We had no reason to stay here so we bought tickets for the first one leaving.  Instead of walking back to the riad we decided to hail a cab to save some time.  One thing about cabs here is that they pick up multiple passengers on the way, that is the norm.  So we had to drive way out of the way to drop this other lady off before we were dropped off.  Walking there would have been at least 10 minutes faster!  After the cab driver dropped us off at the medina entrance we basically sprinted through the labyrinth to get back to our place.  You should have seen the looks of bewilderment from shop owners and the like.  We packed as quickly as possible and ran back out of the medina to get a cab to the station and made it with literally 2 minutes to spare before the ticket departure time.  In hindsight I actually have no idea why we ran, because not one train or bus or ferry we’ve taken here has been on time.  So about 45 minutes later when it arrived we got on the train, which is where I’m writing this entry.  In that 45 minutes, Di let loose about the embassy and the medinas and alleys and riads and the taxi ride and the inefficiencies of this country etc etc etc.  She also went off on how we rode 2^nd class on the train and how it was hot and some old dude was staring at her V-neck T-shirt the whole time.  Needless to say, we’re now in a first class air conditioned cabin where this picture was taken (she would have murdered me if I bought 2^nd class again), and we’re going to be checking into a 5 star hotel in Marrakesh outside the walls of the medina tonight, even though Marrakesh is supposed to have the nicest riads in Morocco.  I don’t want to imagine what would happen if we got lost looking for a riad in the medina there.  One session of the wrath of Princess Di is enough for today.

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??