The Journey: Fabulous Fes, Part 2

Fes somehow reminded me of India, where everything was overwhelming. It's like we were transported to different planet and time zone.

Four hours thirty mins journey by train from Tangier to Fes was okay. We have the compartment (eight seat) to ourselves half of the journey. I have been reminded by my brother to be extra careful and not to buy any carpet in Morocco since its part of the scam.

Then, one guy seat with us and claimed to work with Tourism Morocco. With good spoken English, we chat for a while and then he offered his friend, a tour guide to show us around Fes. Earlier we read from internet that the old medina (where we will be staying) is like a maze. Its difficult to get around and being lost in old medina is a must. Since we only have limited time, being lost will drain our time. As such we agreed to pay his friend, RM 60 per person for half a day walking tour.

Train Station

Upon arrival, his friend Rashid is waiting for us. I was a bit surprise with the people and surrounding. Its so much different from Spain. I was also a bit hesitate in the beginning to see almost all men wearing jubah with hood like this. Macam orang jahat yang kita tengok at movie.

Old men selling biscuits

Its actually men's jubah during winter. Me, too much TV i guess :) We took taxi and heading to our riadh (a Moroccan hotel) in old Medina of Fes el Bali  which also UNESCO world heritage site founded in 793 AD. Yes, its really old and that is why it's interesting :D 

We knocked the riadh door, which is small and without any window. Once we entered... fuyooo, its transform into nice and cozy riadh. Its three story riadh with Moroccan deco. Nice. We were served with mint tea and cookies which a bit too sweet.

Moroccan Riadh

Breakfast was served

After freshen up, we start our tour despite feeling tired of the loong journey from Spain. First stop, Moroccan leather tanneries which existed 500 years ago and basically the same today. They used birds poops which turns into acid to clean the skin. Its smelly but worth a visit.

To see the tanneries process, you have to go through the leather bag shop. The shop owner will try to persuade you to buy the bags which I believe has been mark up more than 500%. If you do not have bargaining skill like myself, tak payah la beli. Tengok je la.

Suka beg ni, tapi mahal sangat deh

Then we continue to the carpet shop. Jeng Jeng Jeng. Tengok je. Cantik bangat. Harganya....isk isk isk.. boleh beli tiket kapal terbang :p

 Then, to silk shop. The silk is made from cactus.

And lastly, we went for dinner which I had a 'great' time laughing myself out loud till tears. Serious. It has been a while, I did not laugh this hard. Yes. I laugh at myself :D

The empty expensive restaurant

The restaurant was empty. We look thru the menu and thought that we wanted to ordered one main course only. The restaurant owner somehow refused our order. He insisted us to order for two. Kenapa la pulak kan. We have difficulties to communicate and finally he gaves us another menu which is a set and allow us to ordered one set.

Upon waiting our food to be served, the realization kicks in. We have been scammed. Suddenly the background music becoming hilarious. Its instrumental Moroccan music and the tone getting higher and higher to the peak. We laugh at ourselves realizing that we have been scammed since inside the train by the so called tourism guy... HAHAHA. 

Since we already paid our tour guide, the restaurant man is supposed to take us back to the riadh. We have no choice but to have dinner there in order to be back home safely. Tidak tahu jalan pulang. We paid RM 160 for one set of menu for the dinner.

The next morning, we decided to walk in the old medina on our own. We make sure we go one straight line and come back for another direction. Hehe. The old medina sangat lah intersting sangat. Cuma the shop owner sedikit mendesak. Tak berani nak sentuh dan tengok lama-lama. Somehow I managed to buy red leather bag to replace my old bag yang tiba-tiba koyak pulak. Saje la kan. The shop owner is a young guy, talk pleasantly and did not pushed to hard to sell. Me happy, he's happy :)

Moroccan Deco..cantek, suka

We had our lunch before taking the train to Casablanca. Morocco is famous for tangia/tanjia where beef, chicken or fish are cook in clay cooking pot. We requested from our riadh to cook for us. It was triple tasty than our dinner yesterday night.

Tanjia - beef cooked with pruns

Lesson learned and the good thing was that we learned that we're able to laugh out loud at our own mistake instead of being moody and stress out :D. Continue with Casablanca in next post.

Laugh at yourself once in a while; give yourself a break   - Greg Evans -