Marrakech is a short three hour flight away from Paris yet it is a completely different world. Cathie and I went to there on Sunday and stayed by Jemaa el Fna, the main square in the old city. Jemaa el Fna is like a circus--men play instruments and dance, leashed monkeys jump around, hypnotized cobras sway to the vibrations from the sound of the flute, women offer henna tattoos, men shout at you to buy orange juice, old men sell teeth and offer to pull out your tooth with a plier, and motorcycles and cabs kick up dirt and pollute the air with smog spewing out of the exhaust pipes.
The people in Marrakech are a mix of young and old, traditional and modern, friendly and douchebags. Most speak French and greeted us in French or in Japanese because they think all Asian tourists come from Japan.
We stayed in a riad located in an alley by the square. All riads have an indoor courtyard, traditionally where family members gather, and where we had breakfast. When we were searching for our riad on a map, a man volunteered to point us in the right direction. He was eager to take us there so we followed him but kept a safe distance in case he would lead us somewhere sketchy. We made several turns through some alleys and he took us to the wrong address so we turned around to leave. He got angry and said "F*** you!" and wanted a tip. A shop worker nearby told him to calm down and had a kid take us to the riad.
For lunch we went to Mechoui (lamb) Alley.
A whole lamb is slow roasted underground and then served with bread and salt and cumin.
We ate with our hands and used paper as napkins.
One of my favorite parts about the square is the line of orange juice carts. We always came back to Abdul because he didn't shout at us to come to his stand.
The Koutoubia is the largest mosque in Marrakech.
The minaret has a speaker system that reminds people to pray five times a day.
Cats are everywhere in Morocco. They're a lot smaller than the cats in the states, probably because they're starving.
The souks by the square sell traditional Moroccan items like babouches, handmade leather slip-on shoes.
We only saw men work at the stores. If they knew English, they would greet us and tell us to come inside to take a look. At first we replied to everyone because it would be rude to ignore them. Eventually we just ignored them because if we talked to them, they'd continue talking to us and some got offended if we didn't look at their items.
Everyone 30 seconds or so when we walked through the souks and on the street, someone would scream out, "Japan? China? No? What is your origin?" We tried explaining that not all Asians are Japanese or Chinese but it was futile. Some people would bust out Japanese words like arigato, mushi mushi, Kawasaki, and Mitsubishi. They must not get many Asian tourists because we barely saw any around us.
Ben Youssef Madrasa is the largest Islamic school in Morocco.
The walls are designed with engraved stucco, marble and cedar.
The school contains 130 student dorm rooms.
At night the square is filled with food stalls and annoying guys who shove menus in your face.
For dinner we tried snail (doesn't taste as good without butter) and soup.
The next day we went to Bahia Palace which belonged to the Grand Vizier Si Moussa in the 1860s.
The palace has 150 rooms and is adorned with painted and gilded woodwork and ceilings and carved stucco.
Jardin Majorelle was created by Jacques Majorelle and later Yves Saint Laurent acquired the property to preserve it.
The garden is full of cacti.
We had lemon chicken tagine for lunch, followed by a scrub and a massage at a spa. Originally we wanted to go to a hammam, a traditional Moroccan spa where you get scrubbed and bathed by a woman, but we couldn't find this one hammam because some streets don't have signs and locals don't use street names. So we went to a random modern hammam and clothed women scrubbed us, rubbed savon noir (black jelly-like soap) all over our bodies, and washed us off. Cathie and I were shy so we tried to cover our chest the entire time. Two other older women from Holland were in the room with us and they just let it hang loose.
For dinner we went back to the stalls but went straight to the stall we wanted in order to avoid the guys with menus.
We had a sandwich with Laughing Cow cheese, smashed potatoes and egg, olive oil, lemony red onions, chili sauce and cumin salt. A local guy sitting next to us started talking to us. His name was Simo and he was 24 years old. He had nothing else to do so he hung out with us afterwards.
As we ate lamb sausage, he talked to us about his life (he's going to school for hospitality and he wants to go to school in Los Angeles since his school has a campus there) and his view on Americans (he thinks that they're "naughty" because they're free to cheat and sleep around). We asked what gave him that impression of Americans and he said he watches a lot of Dr. Phil. I explained to him that American tv is for entertainment purposes and not an accurate reflection of Americans. I also told him that the Kardashians are stupid and that not all Americans are like them.
Simo (on the far left) walked around the souks with us and helped get us better prices. The men at the stores didn't talk to us at all. Such a big difference when a male is with us. Later we bumped into the food stall guys from the previous night who served us. I told them that the souk vendors didn't bother us and one guy said that it's because men will respect the guy who's with us and not bother us. In other words, men don't respect women, especially female tourists.
I was glad that we met Simo because my experience with the souk vendors and men screaming out Japanese words was ruining my time in Marrakesh.
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