Started the Sunday feeling fresh from good sleep. Breakfast from the riad consisted of bread, prata-lookalike and crepe that went with either butter, strawberry jam, honey or marmalade. Bread was always serve prior to the start of every meal as an appetizer and mint tea was their main local beverage. Breakfast this morning was served at the lobby area and was abruptly interrupted when a French man with a big tummy walked out of his room that was right in front of the breakfast area in his black square underwear and greeted us with a “Bonjour!” and a smile. And then his wife in her nighties followed behind as well. What a morning greeting. Ha...So, while I thought we should be pretty ok here with English, it turned out that they understand and read French better.
Riad Amin. Looks ordinary from the outside, but amazingly beautiful inside.
Zara, Moroccan style.
The day’s itinerary started with a guided morning tour that took us to the Saadian Tombs, the Bahia Palace and then a brief walk around Jemaa el-Fnaa, which was a Unesco Heritage site city square of Marrakech.
4 things that left me deep impressions of Marrakech:
1) The architecture of the buildings, the arcs, symmetrical lines and patterns of the tiles, the vibrant colors of the insides of the buildings despite the normal looking to the point of run down facade on the outside.
2) When we told people that we were not Japanese but Singaporeans, they immediately said "Oh, welcome to Morocco!" in a very proud and welcoming way. But I guess most of them didn't know where Singapore was. I could see their question marks popping off their heads. Most people were friendly to each other.
3) Bread (usually home made) all looked alike and in the shape of a flat piece of round dough, mint tea tasted better in Morocco than back at home, tagines were amazing cuisine, couscous were usually enough to feed a cow and meat skewers were not that great in Morocco. Who said skewed Moroccan lamb was any good??
4) Everybody in the bazaar just wanted to slaughter tourists with exorbitant prices. And every direction or question you asked required you to pay a "gift". FML.
The best tip that the local guide gave us this morning was to avoid looking or taking pictures of the snake charmers or the monkey tamers because they would come up to you, put their animals on you and make you pay. Other than that, the only other thing I remembered about him was that he liked bringing us to shops that he probably would get a cut from. Alv described him as "piece of shit".
Jemaa el-Fnaa on the background
So here's the most memorable part of Marrakech Day 2:
During our own exploring of the bazaar in Jemaa el-Fnaa, we were approached by a stranger who said that he could take us to the tanneries that were outside of the medina. Being tempted by the word "tanneries", I agreed to follow the man and persuaded the hub that it would be ok. So after a good 15min to 20 min walk, we finally reached the tanneries and were introduced to the place by a big bellied man who was like the supervisor of the place. We were given mint leaves to cover the smell of the pits that were filled with pigeon shit that used to soften the animal skin and were briefly walked around the place. After a couple of photos, we were taken to the leather shop that was part of the tanneries and one of the shop sales person then persuaded us to take a seat and look around. We pointed out a leather cushion for the house, only to be aghast by the 1250 Dirham (SGD$360) he quoted. We eventually marked it down to 350 Dirham (SGD$53) after much unhappy negotiations that left the guy sitting on the floor acting sad. He then shamelessly requested for gifts from us for his kids. And stupidly, I pulled out my newly bought SGD$7 camera pouch for him, after which he kept going on for more gifts. Bloody extortion! We kept repeating that there was nothing left for him and I pulled out my worn socks to show him there was nothing more. He then shamelessly put his hands out to ask for my worn socks and then continued looking down on the ground in sadness after taking them. We left right after that, only to be stopped at the entrance by the supervisor and the stranger who brought us there, asking us to pay 400 dirham for the tanneries tour but we refused to. After much argument, I eventually gave him a 70 dirham to the dismay of an already annoyed hub. As soon as the supervisor walked off, the stranger who walked us there then asked us for gifts for walking us to the tanneries. Wth. In the end, we gave him the remaining coins that we had and he gave us a random direction saying that it'll bring us back to the square. Zzz. In the end, we took about 30 min to finally get back to the main square by following a London gay couple whom we thought knew their way and a Spanish couple who had thought we knew our way. By now, I was disgusted and pissed off by the people of Marrakech and just wanted to hide in the Riad. I had enough of Marrakech! Get me out of here.
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