Left with Su Kuen from Bankside to Victoria. Arranged time to meet the rest there, for a coach to Luton airport, Tristan, Weihan, Janice, Yen, Beverly and Guan Sin. We were there early, and it happened that National Express coach to Luton is the same as Greenline. No wonder coach prices are the same. The flight to Marrakesh is largely plagued by sleep. Everyone is sleeping, no doubt due to the lack of it while trying to reach airport on time.
Marrakesh Menera Airport is small, simple, and not much different from Luton. But the ridiculous thing about this airport is its customs. Maybe because it’s a kingdom, but customs are particularly careful, slow and painful to wait. More importantly, with loads of ang mohs in queue with us, our queues just got slowed. Moroccans are stricter with European entry I guess. Beyond the exit, we got our guide to wait for us. And the walk to the coach was starting to bare the teeth of the African climate: hot and dry. Our coach is an 8-seater Ford, with comfortably tinted glass windows to shield us from the sun. Cool. 30 mins to Riad Ghallia.
The city of Marrakesh is backward. Buildings are largely mud built, and our hostel is more like a homestay. It’s a riad, with only 2 stories and a terrace. The 1st thing that struck us is the low door, quite literally. Even the girls have to bend down their heads to enter the building, not to mention guys. The living area of the house is open, with a nice fountain and comfortable sofa. As all Arabic families do, we were served mint tea. It’s actually Chinese green tea with mint leaves, very sweet due to the immerse amount of sugar. We had a little chat with the owner of the riad, Thierry. As the name suggested, he is French. But then again, Morocco used to be a French colony, so people here largely speaks French and Arabic. A fun guy, Thierry literally drew a map for us to navigate around with. Taught us bargaining techniques too. And not to mention things to look out for, what to do in certain situations and the such. Precious information, and useful guidance. He brought us around too, particularly the market square, and certain stalls and restaurants recommended.
As locals in most other countries will do, they immediately treat us as Japanese, especially with all the Jap greetings. But we ignored them largely, and proceed straight to the bank. Morocco uses dirham, and it has a closed currency. Hence we can’t change for the currency elsewhere. But the rates are not too bad in here, a pound sterling for approximately 16 dirhams. Or rather, 1 euro for 10 dirham is the estimate we use for most of our transactions.
A bright distinction between Moroccan market squares and others are the orange juice carts. The entire square had tons of them, all selling orange juice for 3 dirhams. This is dirt cheap, considering if they do not dilute the juice and uses good oranges. Appetizer, dessert, refreshment, they are all of them.
At restaurants, they by and large serves Arabian food. Sometimes, French food is included as well. Tagines and couscous are their mains. Tagine is this stewed meat, be it chicken, beef or mutton, with potatoes and olives, cooked in a claypot like container and has a clay cone for a lid. Its cooked over charcoal fire, and tastes pretty good. Couscous, on the other hand, is meat served with potatoes and carrots and rice too. Come to think of it, I’ve only eaten tagines. Damn, I missed couscous.
In the hot weather of Morocco, it’s hard to miss ice cream. Ice cream here isn’t made locally, but all imported. Well, not too expensive. 6, 9 and 12 dirhams for 1, 2 and 3 scoops respectively seems pretty much cheaper than what’s selling in Singapore. Brandless though, but it doesn’t matter when temperature’s hitting 38 degree centigrade. Another wonderful thing to happen in Morocco are the pastries. Dessert pastries more precisely. Hard to missed, especially the famed pastry shop in Marrakesh. More important to note is that there’s air condition in the shop! A good break, after-meal dessert or even a chilling out is perfect after walking sweatless dry in the hot sun.
The market square itself is a chaos. Random stalls manned by cobra charmers, monkey trainers and hanna tattoo ladies litter the entire place, all of them too eager to rip a couple of tens of dirhams off you. Traffic in Marrakesh is another havoc masterpiece, where donkey and horse carriages roam on almost non-existent roads and infested with motorised bicycles. It’s interesting that while Singapore government kinda restricted the use of motorised bicycles, it’s so rampantly used here in Morocco. I guess fixing up a motor on your bicycle is so much cheaper than getting a motorbike, not to mention the added advantage of paddling should the motor break down. Woot.
Towards evening time, the square starts to be filled with vehicles. These vehicles carry benches and tables, ready to set up stalls and business. By 7pm, the entire square was over-run by food stalls. Our choice for dinner: the stall with the most locals, haha. And guess what, we patronised the shop without exactly knowing what is it gonna serve us. Ha, Moroccan deep fried fish with aubergine, tomato paste for appetizer and loads of chips!
Now Su Kuen is the one who’s adventurous enough to try out the tons of stalls that litter the place. From spicy chocolate cake coupled with tea to stewed snails, there seems to be no end to what you can eat. Eating aside, an interesting stall worth noting is a ‘fishing’ stall. You try looping a circlet over a coke bottle. 5 dirhams for a game and successful tries stand to win 10 dirhams. Boxing stalls, story telling, singing and entertainment stalls. You say it, there’s likely to be one. Traditional medicine stalls are the interesting ones. Full of dried animals, from iguanas to crocodile skin and the sorts. Not to mention live reptiles in cages. Ouch.
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