ADVENTURES IN VACI STREET; BUDAPEST, HUNGARY AUGUST 2011

Rain can do things to a person.

It can soothe you into a soporific slumber, it can cool a hot temper.

Too much of it can begin to have a depressing effect.

But for me, sitting in my apartment in downtown Pest, I was experiencing boredom on a grand scale.

After 6 days, there had been but one very short fine afternoon. Every morning and evening it had rained. It had rained softly, gently, like snow falls slowly here in winter. It had rained hard and long; one night I was caught in it and absolutely drenched within what seemed seconds. And then you have the guerilla type rainstorm, where you think it has passed, and you go out in it. It then hits you in short sharp bursts, just like some of the snipers that hid in these buildings in times gone by.

Boredom is not a good state for me to be in. But, I’d slept and slept, and then slept some more. I was fully recovered from the semi-emaciated state I found myself in when I returned to England from Morocco. I read all the books I could find. I spoke to friends and got this blog up-to-date. But I had very little to write about Budapest once some history and general impressions were out of the way.

I walked across the green bridge every day and climbed the Gellert hill in the rain. I went to Marguerite Island and ran on the synthetic 5k track with other fanatics and tore my left hip muscle again. I just found myself feeling a little antsy, a little stir crazy. Too much energy, and nothing to do with it.

The city itself was very quiet. This was the height of summer, the tourist season, but there was little evidence of it. The Formula One Grand Prix was here in a week, so perhaps that would pick things up.

But the Rain!

Normally, I’m a very disciplined person. I watch what I eat, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink very much or often (things can change though!). I am scrupulous in my fitness, and I try and keep a balanced view of things, I don’t get over- emotional or lose my temper. But Boredom drives me nuts, and it causes me to think a little irrationally at times and take on risks that I normally wouldn’t. It’s the kind of state, for me, where you could make a life-changing decision that you live to regret, something that could possibly change your life forever, for the worst. The reason you remember these bad events is because you overlook the times it all works out well, and you feel like a hero or the smartest guy on the block.

I was reaching that stage now, and it was the rain, the damned rain.

I had done some research on scams and con jobs that were run regularly in Budapest. Many people had stories of taxi drivers, and tram conductors, sometimes police, and the odd pick-pocket or two. Of course there were also the gypsies and the ubiquitous ladies of the night.

Most nights after I had eaten, I would go for a wander down Vaci Street. It was the next street over from where I was staying, and it was the main area tourists would go. There were plenty of Italian restaurants, fashion stores and Hungarian souvenir shops with women dressed in the traditional way standing outside with pained expressions on their faces. It was a mall, and at night the cobblestones glistened wet in the artificial lights. There was rarely anyone else walking around; it was wet, and cool without being cold. Of course when you reached the area close to the strip clubs, the mainly female touts would do their best to persuade you to enter their club. It was the only way these women were paid; heads through the door. And every night as I made my way back to my apartment, a street girl would run across the street to me from the corner where she plied her wares. At first she was almost friendly;

“Hello, darlink. I can keep you company tonight. Do you want me”?

It was probably the wrong question to ask, you generally get a ”No” from a stranger, it’s a trust thing. But as the nights wore on, and we developed our relationship around my indifference and her frustration, her tone changed.

“What’s the matter with me? You not vant me? Am I not beautiful”?

If it was a ploy to make me feel guilty about my lack of interest in her, it didn’t work. But I felt sorry enough for her to assure her that she was certainly beautiful, and that if I wasn’t married I would certainly go with her. Well, you should all know I’m not married, but it was either that or play the “gay” card. I feared she might try and set me up with a guy in that case, for a “referral fee” of course.

“When zee wife’s away, the husband can play” was her answer to that one.

I pondered on delivering a lecture about Sexual Morality in the 21^st century to her on that lonely street. But as there doesn’t seem to be much of it going around these days, I said “szia” and walked on.

I mentioned the street-girl to a friend of mine back home.

“She’ll get you eventually” he said.

“If that rain doesn’t stop one night she’ll catch you out, I’ll bet”

I could see what he was getting at. I was jumping out of my skin looking for some kind of stimulation.

I emailed Luke, an Australian who owned an apartment in Budapest which I was going to rent for a while, a couple of kilometers from where I was currently staying.

He said “Go to some Folk Dances, they’re fun, and you’ll meet people”

I actually looked into it. But it seemed they were all closed for the summer. Just my luck.

So, things were getting desperate. If I didn’t do something, make something happen, the hooker was probably going to get me, it seemed.

And it was then that I came across the Vaci Street Music Bar scam.

I’ve told you that boredom is a dangerous state for me, but I must say I felt anything but bored as I strode down the Vaci Street mall.

I had a plan, I had a purpose.

I had a risky adventure in mind.

It was getting late, a little after 11pm. It was cool without being cold. It was quiet on the River Danube, all of the dinner-dance-buffet boats seemed to have docked early, it was that kind of night.

Literally, no-one was out but the same strip club touts. They eyed me up and gave me the usual lines, but I didn’t even stop to converse tonight, I had a big fish to catch.

And it didn’t take long.

I was wandering rather aimlessly it must have looked to the untrained eye. Walking slowly, dressed rather smartly I might say in black, dress trousers, a white shirt with blue, vertical stripes, and a black leather jacket, I looked at women’s fashions in Gucci windows and gave the occasional tuneless whistle. Just another middle-aged guy out on his own, probably on a business trip, and ripe for the plucking.

I saw them come out of one of the side alleys that run off the mall, about a hundred metres away.

Two blondes.

I tried my best nonchalant, I’m not aware of you look.

I could hear them approach as I intently studied a t-shirt in the store window which had “I Love Budapest” emblazoned across the chest.

“Ezzuse Me, we are looking for the Bacchus Bar, do you know vere it is”?

“mmm..not bad English”, I thought.

It was the slightly taller one of the two that spoke. She was also the better looking of the two, with a straight posture and a good physique, but a kind of vacant look in her eyes, that when you looked intently there was really nothing there.

She smiled, and she was Elly. The other woman looked a little stressed, with a furrowed brow which said she was a little worried about something, but still, she smiled and put on a friendly face.

She was Vera.

They were two thirty-somethings in Budapest to celebrate a friend’s birthday on the weekend. They came from Lake Balaton, some 80 kilometres away and were not familiar with Budapest. They were out looking for this “Bacchus Bar” as supposedly they were live music fans.

Their dress fitted the situation. Jeans, casual tops, flat shoes. Elly even wore a cardigan.

Nothing flashy, just a couple of country girls looking to kill some time in the big city.

“No, I haven’t seen any live music pubs down this way” I replied,” but I do know of one at the other end of the street that’s ok”.

This was obviously the wrong answer.

“Oh, we just passed one back there, maybe we go to that one” Vera said.

“Do you want to come with us”?

Bang.

I felt like I had just hooked a shark.

Now I had to keep my wits about me and be very, very sharp.

“Sure” I replied “Let’s go!”

As we walked they took turns asking me about myself, where I was from, was I married, what was I doing here, the general sort of things I suppose you’d ask a stranger.

But I had my own questions.

“What is your job”? I asked.

Well, Elly was a beautician in a salon in a big hotel, and Vera had just lost her job, poor dear.

There was something about these two.

If you looked really closely, it was a worn look, like a faded, almost jaded beauty.

They both had breast implants.

They laughed in all the right places at any lame joke I attempted.

If I didn’t know better, I might have begun to have wild sexual fantasies about having both of them back to my room to do some chandelier swinging after a couple of drinks to loosen everybody up. They walked either side of me and casually rubbed shoulders with me and smiled.

We turned a corner and they made for a strange lift, which stood completely on its own surrounded by pavement. It looked to go about 3 stories up, and attach to a cantilevered extension from the building that was 25 metres away.

“Nice” I said to no-one in particular.

“What is this?”

“Oh, it’s the bar”

“How did you manage to walk past this and hear live music?”

It was obviously a question that hadn’t been prepared for. They looked at each other for a second.

Vera smiled, “Oh, we were walking in the shopping mall up there this afternoon and heard the music. Let’s go up, it’s good.”

Nice comeback Vera.

So the 3 of us squeezed into the lift, and when the doors opened, there was a red carpet that led across a concrete patio to a door. Inside the door was a woman at a coat check counter. She didn’t smile and avoided my eyes.

Inside the “pub”, it was all red carpet and red leather booths and a dark mahogany bar.

There was a guy with a swathe of Roland keyboards punching out a one finger melody over the canned, recorded backing music to “Girl from Ipanema”.

“Let’s cha-cha” I said.

They looked at each other as if to say “who is this guy”, recovered composure, gave a nervous laugh and motioned to a booth where we all sat down, with me between them.

A humourless, plain Drink Frau came over to take our orders.

The girls ordered big.

Energy drinks and big cocktails.

“Vat vood you like, sir?”

“I want, a beer thanks, in a bottle, and can you please open it at the table”.

She looked at me as if I was a cockroach who had just crawled out from under the table; the girls looked at me too.

“Oh, sorry, I just have a bit of a germ phobia, and I like to open beers myself. I hope it’s not too much trouble.” I said.

She grunted and went away. The girls rattled on a bit about how far away Australia is, and kangaroos and such.

The drinks came and my beer was surprisingly good.

The girls sculled their drinks before I’d barely taken a sip, and the waitress was back again.

This time, more cocktails, and fancy Irish whisky cappuccinos.

“You’d better be careful with those” I said. With the energy drink and the coffee, I don’t see you getting much sleep tonight”.

They laughed heartily at that one, as if it were a dirty joke and made sure to give me plenty of encouraging eye contact.

A Fat girl singer in a tight fitting silk pantsuit that emphasized her lack of physical discipline had joined her Father on the bandstand and was unenthusiastically trying to pump out “Three Times a Lady”. She looked bored. She sang so badly, only a Father could have liked it.

“Great music, you girls really know how to show a stranger a good time.” I said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

And then the Drink Frau was back.

“Any more drinks”?

Given the amount of liquid these girls had put away already I was surprised they hadn’t paid the toilet a visit half-a-dozen times. But, they’d had enough.

With that and a theatrical flourish, the bill was presented to me.

The End Game.

“Ah, eight thousand Florints” I said “Gee that’s expensive”. It’s about $40 US or Australian.

“No”, she thundered, “Seventy-Eight thousand Florints”

I looked again. Hungarians do a funny “seven” with a stroke through the body, to me it looked like a backward “f” or florint sign.

So this was it.

This was the scam.

About $400 or 300 Euros.

The girls had had 4 drinks each, and I had had one beer.

I looked at each of them.

“What’s going on?”

Vera put her head in her hands and started to cry.

Elly was as cool as a cucumber.

“I don’t know, I don’t know anything” she said.

“You must pay”! thundered the Drink Frau.

“OK” I said, “let me look at the bill. It’s outrageously expensive, don’t you think’?

“You should have checked the prices when you came in, they are available at the door”

“Oh, I see. I should have checked them”.

“Ya, and you must pay”.

“OK, so” and I ran my finger down the drinks list till I found my beer. 4,000 Florints. About 20 bucks.

Expensive, but it was a good beer all the same.

I pulled out 4000 florints.

“There you go, that’s my beer”.

They all looked at each other. This wasn’t the knight in shining armour they’d been expecting.

There was an embarrassed silence.

“Well, you girls did insist on this bar, and I’ve got to say the music was terrible”.

The Drink Frau stood there, she didn’t know what to do.

“Now, I think you’d better leave us so that we can discuss this bill together” I said.

“No, it must be paid”.

I raised my voice.

“If you don’t leave us right now so that we can discuss this confidentially, I will call my American friend in the Tourist Police and get him to come down here now!”

It had the desired effect. She left and went to the other side of the room where she gestured towards us with two other women bar workers.

One of them came over to us.

“The bill must be paid” she said.

I had to tell her in no uncertain terms to leave us. I had noticed that the only other man in the room was the keyboard player, and he didn’t look like he was up for anything very physical tonight.

“What’s going on girls? Anything you want to tell me?”

They both looked at each other, Vera said “They will get the police if the bill isn’t paid”.

“Well, you guys had better find some money because I’ve paid for my drink” I said, “and if anyone gives me any hassles, I will call the police myself and report this scam”.

They looked at each other.

Elly pulled out 38,000 florints from her purse.

The drinks Frau came over.

“You can go” she said to me.

“I had wanted to stay and hear the next bossanova set” I said “Perhaps we could have danced”.

She just stared. I know when I’m not wanted.

So I left the girls and walked the red carpet to the lift.

While I was waiting Elly came out.

“What’s going on” I asked.

“I have to go home to get the money, and my friend stays till I bring it”.

In the lift she made a call, and spoke in Hungarian to a man with a very deep voice.

Fortunately, he wasn’t waiting when the doors opened.

I went home.

The street-girl was chatting up someone else when I walked past.

She saw me and left him and ran to catch up with me.

“You have nice night? You take me with you now?”

I just shook my head, “You have a customer there, go with him”.

“He just a friend”.

“Sorry Darling, not tonight”.

I walked off into the misty darkness and left the seediness that is a dark spot on Budapest’s soul behind me.

I had satisfied my urge for some excitement to break the bored funk that I was in.

I was lucky.

There were no goons in sight when we entered the bar. It was a quiet night. So I didn’t have to run or fight, and I didn’t get my neck broken.

And don’t feel sorry for the girls.

As you have probably worked out by now, the whole thing is a scam.

The girls go out in twos looking for likely pickups. They split the bar tab with the bar. Most men pay it to be manly and to save themselves from trouble. Because I convinced them I knew someone in the tourist police, and made a fuss, they played along with it and wanted me to think they had to get the money. I don’t even know if they have tourist police in Budapest.

But next Saturday night Vaci Street is busy with men in red Ferrari jackets who have drunk too much at the Grand Prix. I spot perhaps six groups of two girls working the street. Two ask me if I know “Bacchus Bar”.

And I see Elly and Vera with three Italian looking men in tow, leading them to the lift that stands on its own in the street.

This rain needs to end.

Soon.

Let it Rain; Budapest, Hungary August 2011

”Hungary is the best place in the world” she said.

“It has the most beautiful city; Budapest. It has the most beautiful language. It has the most beautiful music and the best culture of any place in the world”.

“Yes, but what about the weather”? I ask.

Maria is a proud Hungarian. Born in Slovakia, she is one of the 5 million Hungarians that found themselves outside of Hungary as a result of the carving up of Europe by the Allies and Russia after World War 11. Well, probably her grandparents, as Maria is in her late 20’s.

Maria is well travelled. She has studied in Milan as well as Hungary. She has a degree in Landscape Architecture and a passion for design.

But there are no jobs in Hungary for Landscape Architects.

Maria moved to Vienna to find work, but she got so homesick for her beloved Hungary she moved back to Budapest. Now she works for Tibor, who runs the suite of apartments that I am staying in, in downtown Pest.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that the country that has produced more Nobel Prize winners per capita than any other country has a massive underemployment problem.

Wages are low, taxes are high.

VAT is 25%, the highest in Europe. Income tax is 46%.

A doctor working in a hospital takes home around 600 Euros per month. Not much by other first world standards. Other workers average 350 Euros take home pay.

I decide to patronise the “free communist walk” of Budapest.

Our tour guide talks about having her two children in Hungary’s public hospital system.

“The first time, I think, I am not going to pay bribes to the Doctor and hospital staff to look after me with the hospital equipment I have paid taxes to buy. So, no one looks after me or comes to see me and I have terrible labour. The second time I decide to pay. Each visit to the gynaecologist I pay him an extra 40 Euros cash, and for the birth I pay him and the mid-wife an extra 200 Euros each, and I have the best of care and a very good labour”.

Low wages and lack of work have many effects here. The trained and educated work in other countries where they are paid very well compared to Hungary.

There is a large homeless problem here. People are sleeping in doorways out of the rain, or next to air-conditioning outlets which provide some heat. Luckily it is quite warm; it is the height of summer. I can’t imagine how you would survive outside during the harsh winter.

Every time the garbage bins are put out in the street for next-day collection, the street below my window is a constant night industry of rubbish rifling. One person will go through a bin then move to the next, and then another goes through the bin that has just been looked at, hoping something’s been missed.

There’s a paradox here though. Hungarians are a well dressed, sartorially splendid nation, from my observations. It’s actually a little unsettling when I walk outside my apartment to find a well-dressed and coiffed woman in her mid-30’s going through a bin. She is wearing heels and makeup and I can only deduce that Budapest has the best dressed homeless people going around.

You can still see bullet holes in some Budapest buildings from the Nazi occupation, the Soviet occupation and the 1956 uprising put down by the Soviets. This city is often used as a Word War II set for Hollywood films, and it is so cheap to film here. In fact, Brad Pitt is due here next month, my guide informs us.

The 50 years of Communism were the dark years in Hungary. The Terror Museum sets it all out in the actual building that was used as the headquarters of the ruling party, which includes prison cells, and torture or “information extraction rooms”. Neighbour spied on neighbour. You could be arrested and sent to a forced labour camp just because you were suspected of having thoughts that were anti-regime.

These years of suppression seem to be foremost on the minds of many Hungarians. Invariably, it is brought up in most conversations I have with them. But, one thing I know for sure; to move on you have to leave the past behind.

Never forget, but move on.

If you keep re-living the past, that is exactly what you do; relive it, and you can’t escape the misery that was wrought on Hungary in those years.

But Hungary is a young Democracy. The last Soviet soldier left Hungary in 1991. So, many of them categorise the nation as a “post-communist democracy”; meaning they haven’t quite got there yet.

Every day, I walk across the River Danube to the Buda side, across the green Franz Josef ll bridge, and climb the maze of interwoven paths on the steep Gellert Hill, keeping the arms of the Libertie Statue in view so I don’t get lost like many of the tourists who ask me for directions.

The view from the top is stunning. I can’t think of another city that has a view quite like this actually in the city. You can see a 270 degree panorama of Budapest from up here, and perhaps 100 kilometres into the distance. It’s no wonder their  Austrian Haspburg masters built a citadel here back in the 1500’s, which contained a garrison and a prison.  Now, it contains a restaurant and a museum, and some old Nazi artillery guns. The Soviets “donated” the Libertie statue to Hungary, and there used to be several other statues showing muscular women and men fighting the dirty proletariat and playing the roles of working-class heroes in factories and in the fields. However, as soon as the Soviets left, the Hungarians tore down the statues along with other Stalanistic reminders around the city. They now live in a tourist park somewhere outside Budapest; I can’t imagine there are many visitors to it.

Budapest is a low-rise city; there is not much over 10-12 stories high, and certainly no high-rise. It gives it the feeling of livability; high-rise may be practical but rarely is it a thing of beauty. It blocks out a sun that rarely shines in many places, and has a tendency to make humans feel insignificant.

It is my first Saturday night here, and, in between showers I walk the green bridge to the Buda side in search of some non-tourist nightlife. It is on Bela Bartok Utca, I enter a lounge bar and strike up a conversation with Ferenc and David. A lawyer and a teacher, they are waiting for Adam, an architect, and his girlfriend Vicki, an economist to join them. They are around their late 20’s to early 30’s. We drink beer and they introduce me to palinka, the fruit vodka-like rocket fuel that Hungarians chase down their beer with, and keep warm in winter with. They say you should wait for half an hour before having another shot, as the alcohol content varies from 50-75%, and two strong ones in quick succession may completely knock you out . I ask Ferenc his thoughts, as a lawyer, on Hungary.

“It is shit” he says. “There are no opportunities and there is very little work. The city is nice, but you go outside it and it is shit that the communists built.”

Vicki asks me why I have chosen Budapest to come to, “you don’t come for the sex, do you”? She says with an edge to her voice.

“Well, if I have I haven’t found any!” I reply.

She is referring to the reputation that Hungary has gained for porn movies and strip clubs. English and German men come here for weekend Bucks parties.....they wear t-shirts saying “The  Hungarian Triathalon; Eating, Drinking and Fucking”.

Adam asks me some deep and meaningful questions about my motivation for writing about my travels and what I am trying to achieve. But, it is too happy an evening, and all my answers are pretty shallow and not well formed; I blame the palinka.

We have a great time, a lot of laughs, a few drinks and I think “maybe Hungarians aren’t all that bad”. Most of the Hungarians I have met have had few good things to say about their fellow countrymen. “Hungarians are fucking rude!” is a sentiment I would get used to hearing during my month long stay.

David leaves first, as he has a young family at home. The rest of us stay till the bar staff kick us out at 2am. We resolve to meet up again. The guys want to take me cycling on road bikes. Ferenc is a little unsteady on his feet and his bike. They ride off into Buda, I walk off to Pest.

We never see each other again.

Travel can be like that.

A Note to the Reader

If you have enjoyed reading my blog, can you please take a moment and click on my sponsor's ads at the top of the page? It will give me some small income to cover the cost of running the blog, and even perhaps my travels.

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Lost and Found August 2011 Looking for Lost German Friends; Anja, Aleks, Andrea and Stefan.

It is completely against my sense of blogging order to post something before it should be posted, but I find myself nursing a sense of guilt here. I will write ad-infinitum about the amazing Sziget Music Festival in Budapest soon, but I must send out a message to some new friends I failed to meet on the last night there.

On Saturday night, we five drank a lot of beer, and if I recall correctly, palinka shots.... that may  or may not have been with this lot, it could well have been with some Hungarians..it’s all a little fuzzy now.

Anyway, Stefan must shoulder most of the blame, I feel, as he kept insisting we stay and drink more beer, and more beer; such is the German way, he assured me. And I do have some German ancestry. But in order to leave Sziget by 4.30am, I promised, as leverage to a 106kg German drinking machine, to meet this quartet on Sunday night and buy Stefan 10 beers!

Believe me, it was the only way to get out of there before daybreak.

But that night I was sneezing a lot, you may recall. The dust hanging in the night air from the daily 100,000 music lover’s trail tramping from stage to stage (and there’s 48 of them), coupled with the smoke from the circus’ heavy oil fuelled torches triggered a massive allergy attack by the time I returned to my lodgings. Black gunk flowed like oil from my sinuses in the hot steam of the shower, and of course, I ended up with sinus and throat infections.

That’s why I didn’t turn up on Sunday night and I had no way of letting anyone know.

“Soft” I hear you say.

I completely agree, but this allergy turned viral infection would not be denied.

So, I owe you 10 beers Stefan. And I intend to get them to you somehow, whether it’s Oktoberfest or a local pub in Stuttgart.

And if Anja, Aleks, Andrea or Stefan read this, could you please leave your contact email as a comment to this post, and I will be in touch with you.

Hungry in Budapest ; Late July 2011

 The Easyjet flight was about to take off; the captain said so.

We just had to wait for the fuel re-fill to complete, get clearance, and we were off to Budapest, Hungary.

Thankfully, someone noticed a leak in the Hydraulic System.

So we sat on the tarmac for an hour, while a new plane and crew were organised. Then we walked through the rain back to the Luton Terminal, and sat there for another 2 hours.

Vacant seats were sparse. But I found one at the end of a row, sat down and promptly fell asleep. It is a new skill I have recently acquired; the ability to sleep on planes, trains and in airports.

Gone are the days of 14 hour flights LA to Melbourne and eyeballs that feel like someone’s sandpapered them down to the nerve-endings.

Now, when I’m in that vacuum of space-time-continuum in between destinations, and stimulating conversation is non-existent or has just run dry, I turn off, tune out, and drop in to a dreamless sleep.

We waited near 40 minutes for the luggage to appear on the carousel at Budapest Terminal 1. The advertisement on the column holding up the roof of the place said a lot in a strange language I took to be Hungarian. There were images of clear glass bottles containing wildly different colours of some kind of fancy liquor; and one sentence in English which said “Pahlinka, you will not ignore the noble fruit”.

It was a statement that was to prove prophetic for the coming month. Oh, how I wish I had taken heed of this sign, given to me by the universal gremlin that exists only to say “I told you so” once the damage has been done.

The couple next to me were fighting; their brats climbing all over the carousel, taking no heed of their Mother’s warnings. He was English, she was Hungarian. He was unperturbed, she was having a meltdown. She said he lost everything and they couldn’t afford his forgetfulness anymore; his wallet last week, his credit card the week before. He said everyone in the airport could hear she was a whinger, and that she always got like this when they came over to visit her parents.

I decided to exit the situation and empty my bursting bladder, would this luggage never come?

So I opened the door to the men’s room which was situated directly behind the baggage carousel, and there were 4 men, percy-in-hand, merrily pissing into the urinals, now in full view of the 200 plus passengers. There was no two door policy here!

Welcome to Hungary!

I shared a shuttle bus with some Spanish women for the drive into Budapest. Every third bill-board seemed to be advertising  a “men’s club” with women so scantily clad that most men not used to this would be putting the car into a ditch. Luckily our driver was used to this, and as he kept his eyes firmly on the road, we passed seamlessly from countryside through suburbs to city.

If I could design a city, like the character in the Leonardo De Caprio movie “Inception”, I think it would be Budapest. Two cities; Buda and Pest, on opposite sides of the River Danube.

Wide, clean streets. Not so many people, not so many cars. A low-rise city with not much above 10 stories high. Neo-Classical, Neo-Gothic, maybe a touch of Art-Deco, but the term “Eclectic” probably sums up the architectural style. The rewards of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire were spent here and in Vienna, and, despite two world wars and a communist occupation that lasted 50 years, thankfully most of it still survives.

I arrive at Veres Palne’ Utca, two streets back from the river on the Pest side. I had booked an apartment here, but it was 6.30pm and I was about 5 hours late, due to the Easyjet fiasco.

It had started to rain heavily as I stared at the 15 foot high ornate wooden doors that guarded the entrance to my new home. I buzzed the number I was given; no answer. A guy came to the door from the street, punched some numbers on a key pad, he pushed open the door and I followed him in. At least I was inside now and could camp in a corridor somewhere till morning if need be.

I took the circular stairs to the second floor, as the wire cage lift, looking like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and enclosed by ornate, black iron-work, had a hand-scrawled cardboard sign which said “meghibasodott” which I took to mean it didn’t work.

I reached the door and buzzed again, but no sign of life.

I dumped my gear on the floor, and pondered my next move.

A woman came walking down the stairs.

“Excuse me, do you speak English”

She looked slightly startled and unsure of the situation she had suddenly found herself in.

She looked at me intently, opened her mouth wide, and stuck her right index finger into her mouth. She shook it in there several times, and I realised she was pointing at something.

So I moved a little closer and thought I could see; a tooth filling!

“You have a filling”?

She nodded her head and pointed her now saliva covered pointer up the stairs.

“Dentist”

She nodded her head violently now. We were really communicating now.

“You just came from the Dentist upstairs and you can’t talk”

She nodded again.

“So you do understand English”?

She nodded again and pointed to her tooth and then again up the now darkened stairway.

She had no idea what I was saying.

I nodded and gave her a Thai wai, slightly bowing forward with the palms of my hands together.

I don’t know why.

She seemed to understand and walked off down the stairs.

There was a door across the landing from this one, and I thought I had nothing to lose by buzzing the people there.

I did. The door opened. And there was Maria.

She was waiting for me, confident I would find her there somehow. And she could let me in.

So, I settled in to my new home in Pest. The rain was tearing down. People rattled through garbage bins on the street below that were waiting for the early morning pickup. The small bars that lined the street both sides filled the street with laughter and yelling and general conversation which drifted up through my open windows.

Maria gave me a map, and said she would be back at work here in the morning, with an offer to help me orientate myself in the land of the Maygars.

The Art of Travel; Marrakech to London to Budapest July 2011

Unless you can step out of your front door and straight on to a luxury cruise ship touring the Mediterranean, you are probably going to suffer physically and mentally when you next travel.

There is nothing easy about travel, except perhaps the thought of the things you have left behind that you are glad to be rid of.

The body is not designed to cope with the rigours of travel well. You are constantly on the move through alien environments whilst every cell in your body is screaming “this is not right”.

The temperature, the noise, the language, the decompression/recompression of the plane, going through customs, the airport food, and the anxiety over whether your luggage will appear on the conveyor belt by the 4^th time around. The time zone changes, the currency changes, the humidity changes and the spare change from your last country.

The sensual assault when you walk out of the airport clutching your bags and looking for the clues given from your Lonely Planet guide and you realise you are hopelessly disorientated, it’s late, you are exhausted from a 10 hour flight and there’s not a friendly face in sight.

But this is why I travel.

This is when I am at my best and my most resourceful.

After two nights of saying “goodbye” and getting a send-off in various ways from my new-found Morroccan friends; I wake at 6.30 am and pack for leaving. The boys that run the Riyadh have had a big night, No-one is stirring and it doesn’t look like I have any chance of getting coffee. So, I leave without saying goodbye to my hosts and head outside for a taxi. After adventures too numerous to mention here, including a near head-on collision with a donkey pulling a cart, I arrive at Marrakech Airport. I don’t realise that it marks the beginning of 20 solid hours of travel before I arrive at my hotel in Luton, England the next day.

So the day goes; taxi to the airport, flight to Gatwick airport, then 3 trains before I arrive at Limehouse station, London. I need to get some clothes from my daughter’s apartment before Budapest, so I trudge with my bulging backpack and my laptop bag through the London summer cool and light rain to visit Kate and Wayne. I can’t stay the night as they have other guests; Wayne’s family is visiting from Australia.

It’s late July and for 160 British Pounds you can get yourself a shoebox or a wardrobe for a night’s accommodation in London. That’s about it. It’s the height of the tourist season and the place is full of palace and cathedral gawkers. So if I bypass London and go to Luton, I can stay near the airport and embark from there for Budapest. It seemed like a really clever idea at the time.

It’s great to see Team KW again. Unfortunately, Wayne has broken his foot after jumping the fence to their apartment one night. I have had one beer in a month in Morocco teetotaller territory, but my exile from alcohol ends exactly now as Wayne hands me what seems like a giant green beer can.

The cold foam hits the back of my throat with a rush, and things start to go a little hazy from herein.

I can remember going to the local pub for traditional English Fish and Chips with Kate, Wayne, Dave and Janet, and Lisa and Simon.

I can remember Dave and I thrashing the lot of them at pub dominos, and also the resident pub German Shepherd coming around for food, not pats.

I can remember tearing myself away around 10pm and, with extra clothes on board, trudging back to the Tube station, again through the rain.

I know I am fading fast; I’m carrying about 28kg which represents my whole life at this stage. I start to ache all over and wonder if I am coming down with the ‘Flu. I take the first train and get to Victoria station. It’s cold, bleak and deserted. I sit down to wait for the train to Luton which arrives at about 12.15am. I can’t fall asleep....I want to...but I must catch this train.

Finally it comes.

I find a seat and can’t help but sleep fitfully, trying to watch the stations, and having the woman sitting in the seat across from me laugh every time my head tumbles onto my lap and I wake, startled, checking that I haven’t slept through my stop.

Finally, Luton appears; nearly there. Through the rain once more. Through the car park. Find a taxi.

15 minutes later I get to the hotel, then check in, then get into the room and collapse.

I wake 13 hours later and feel like I’ve been run over by a freight train.

I look at myself in the mirror.

I can’t believe how much weight I’ve lost, maybe 6 or 7 kilos.

The shorts that fitted so snugly when I bought them in Thailand actually fell off me when I put them on last week in Marrakech.

It’s time to start eating again.

I found the breakfasts I was given in Morocco to be almost completely lacking in nutrition. Based on the French style; croissant and white bread rolls with butter and jam, and Mint Tea and Coffee just didn’t suit me. I resorted to making myself eat half a roast chicken most days, but still most of the muscle I normally carry just disappeared.

Staying healthy and fit is one of my greatest challenges while travelling. I feel that if I lose my fitness, to a great extent I lose my edge. I don’t feel as good, and I’m not as capable when it comes to pushing physical boundaries or getting out of the tricky situations you often find yourself in, if you are up for adventure, that is.

Just the look of a strong, fit physique is enough to give you free passage through most places. The reality is, in most of the places I have been, most of the men are quite soft physically, and they are looking for soft targets if they want to rob, rip-off or cause harm to you.

So, for me, the physical enables the appreciation of the Art of Travel; the emotional, the spiritual, the mental.

I have met so many fellow travellers for whom fear was a constant companion. There were places they wouldn’t go and experiences they wouldn’t have. They travel like a day at the office; 9 to 5, and then hunker down in the hotel looking for a TV channel in their native language, after sloshing down a meal little different to that of home.

I have begun to call it the 2 day syndrome.

Most people only stay in one place for 2 days then move on.

Up early to make the hotel breakfast buffet or the hostel toast and tea.

Get the sneakers on the bus or the pavement.

Experience a cornucopia of visual stimulants created or preserved for the travelling tourist.

And unless your destination is for a specific reason; such as a bull run in Spain or as a stand-in Jesus Christ to be nailed to a cross at Easter in the Philippines; your experience will probably be about Art.

Art Galleries, Architecture, Sculptural Statues, Museums and Music. With the odd day at a Writer’s Festival or a visit to William Shakespeare’s ink pot. The Art of a well-engineered bridge, or the Natural Art of a landscape.

Hell, even if you just lie on a beach you read a book!

Perhaps these are the things we deny ourselves in our normal daily grind. That we feel the need to fill our spirits with images that inspire us with their sheer beauty that we can take away with us in our minds. These things that are so visible and that mostly represent the best of Human creative expression and inspiration. We nibble away at this food for the soul to provide the succour we need to get through the next period of purgatorial penance, the wasteland of our everyday lives, until we have the opportunity and the time to do this again.

But, is this merely a sugar-hit you pick up from a Thomas Cook drive-through?

A new friend who has travelled far more widely than I have, piqued my interest in this subject when she said " I've travelled to so many cities, but to each one, I'm still a stranger".

Is this the Art of Travel?

The Arab Spring; Marrakech Scorecard July 2011-08-12

It was a typical Marrakech evening.

Hot and dry, with a calamity of characters offering taxis, bananas, a horse-drawn cart or hashish, I set out across the Grand Square to the road which leads to where the gates of this walled city once stood, so that I could run outside the walls where the heat was less and the wind vainly tried to clear the air of the acrid diesel fumes which burned your lungs.

All of a sudden I found myself in the midst of a demonstration. There was some scuffling going on which was concerning until I realised it was just some overzealous organiser insisting that the banners be carried in a particular order. I pushed through quickly to the front of the mob. Men and women at the front were carrying large framed photographs of the King. These were older people, and I knew this was one of the “staged” rallies in support of the King, who had been forced to offer the people a referendum, a vote to change the constitution and have free elections. Till now, the King selected the parliament and the Prime Minister. Now he will select the Prime Minister from the winning party.

It occurs to me that at this moment in Syria there are people getting shot by their own security forces for demonstrating for political and economic change. A chill runs through me, it hasn’t happened in Morocco, yet.

Younger people are calling for greater division of Religion, Monarchy and State, but you never hear of it in the media. But I know the movement is gathering momentum and the hunger for change is palpable, you can feel it in the air, spreading across the Middle-East.

I tear a muscle in my left hip, running on the hard, uneven tiles that line the footpath outside the fortress walls, and limp back to the tranquillity of my Azahara Riyad. Ibrahim rushes to me when I enter, and asks if I can take a look at Ali, he is unwell. I walk across the marble courtyard to where Ali sits, his face grimacing in pain and his hand holding the side of his right cheek.

“Salaam, Ali. Votre visage? Qui est de la question?”

“Oh, la dent la dent”

I take his hand away and his cheek is hard and swollen and he is in a lot of pain.

I ask Ibrahim if it has happened before.

“Oui, but this time is the worst”

Ali has a tooth abscess. He needs to see a dentist who will probably just pull the tooth out. That is how they deal with these problems here.

I give him some strong paracetamol tablets with codeine for the pain, and instructions to take them 4 hourly.

It is coming to the end of my time here.

At the end of my first week in Marrakech, I would have been happy to quit and go somewhere else. But now, I feel reluctant to leave. I have made some good friends, and I almost feel a part of this place. I think and speak in French now, and have become accustomed to the pace of life here and the often crazy ways things are done. If I had any issues with what I thought Islam was before I came here, they are now gone. The Moroccans are a pious people, and basically good in their core beings, much like most people, I guess.

So now comes the scorecard for Marrakech/Essaouira as a potential home;

Environment (natural and un-natural)                                                                     5 (out of 10)

Food (ok, but not as good or as spicy as I expected, issues with freshness)     5

Social (friendliness, helpfulness, welcoming, social opportunities)                    8

Security (trustworthy, physical safety)                                                                     6

Weather                                                                                                                         6

Accommodation (quality, comfort, cost)                                                                 8

Value for Money (living costs, entertainment)                                                       7

Visa (availability and cost)                                                                                          6

Total                                                                                                                   5/80    66%

Standard visas are valid for 3 months from entry for most British Commonwealth nation’s citizens. Longer visas can be obtained but you need to show proof of sufficient funds to support yourself.

Obviously, security is a major issue in Morocco. The bombing that occurred just weeks before I arrived was denounced by every person I spoke to. They brought the subject up, as if they felt outsiders need to know how the average Moroccan feels about the subject. I did not encounter anyone I would term as “fundamentalist”, but that does not mean they don’t exist. However, I did not encounter any situations where I was at risk, despite my sensitivities.

If I were to live here, I would divide my time between Marrakech, and a beach city, perhaps Agadir. Marrakech can have poor air quality due to the bowl-like effect the surrounding mountains give. This place has gotten under my skin, and I am reluctant to leave.

But the journey must go on, for my quest to find the best place to live.

Next stop Budapest, Hungary. Home Number 4.

Home to Marrakech July 2011

It was the perfect homecoming.

Crowds milled around groups of musicians and snake charmers just as I remembered.

There was a fire on the sausage barbeque stand again; the fat was spitting out of the broken skins and flames were dancing in the acrid smoke, as the barbeque boy vainly tried to move everything to the side.

The call to prayer from a hundred minarets echoed through the square, and a donkey pulling a cart loaded with watermelons rebelled against the sharp sting of the whip, and bucked and kicked the underside of the cart, and then shat unceremoniously on the concrete as a palpable symbol of protest. A car, then a motorbike ran through the shit almost immediately and spread it like mustard on a kebab. The crowds then filled the space and spread the shit to the four corners of Marrakech.

Yes, it felt like home.

Hot and noisy, smoky and chaotic, pungent and urgent.

Women walked by in tailored silk pantsuits of pastel blues and greens and pinks with matching head-scarves and straight backs and heads held high.

The touts were scanning the crowds for new arrivals; tourists, the most valuable and sort after commodity in Marrakech.

A woman cleaning hotel rooms seven days a week earns 1,000 Dinars or 100 Euros a month. It was relatively easy to pick up 50 or 100 Dinars from a new tourist, before they became immune to the constant stream of beggars and pleaders, before they lost the guilt that most from the first world experience when confronted with the third world.

I walked down the alley off Le Place to Hotel Cecil, and was greeted like a prodigal son returning home.

“Salaam Aliekaam, Bonjour, welcome, welcome”

Everyone wanted to know about Essaouira, and I was given a room for 4 people at 50 dinars less than I previously paid. Most travellers stay only 2 nights, then are never seen again, so I was a rare commodity.

So I caught up with Nouradine, and Houda, and one night at the ginger tea stand I met the Cambridge twins; Robin and Rob.

They had just finished degrees in Mathematical Biology, and apart from being genuine genius’s they were really great guys. Robin is the opening batsman for the Cambridge First 11, and was about to tour India with the team. Rob, who is fluent in French, was taking a year off study and going to French Guiana to teach kids maths. We had a lot of laughs and agreed we would try to meet up when we were all in London again.

I spent a scorchingly hot afternoon looking at the 2 palaces in Marrakech with Eve. She had just completed a post-graduate business degree in Oregon, and was travelling her way through Morocco and Europe on her way back home to Bangkok, where she had previously worked as an accountant. We had an enthusiastic tout offer to take us to see an auction at the spice market, but when we got there it was just a room, and any auctions were long finished. We were then palmed off to the spice shop next door, and my sinuses nearly exploded when I had a bag of pure menthol almost shoved up my nostrils “to try”. Eve then nearly exploded with laughter when I told the tout she was from Siberia. “Velly nice,welcome, we love Sibleerlia”.

I moved to a new Riyadh called Azahara. It was away from the square near the outer walls and was much quieter and like moving back into medieval times. There were woodworking shops where craftsmen painstakingly carved intricate Arabic designs based on sacred geometry into cedar and pine, much as their forefathers had, and shops where women made carpets on looms, or cut out fabric to be hand sewn into shirts and Habibs.

Azahara was sumptuous. A large courtyard of marble tiles and columns, and a marble fountain. Five-pointed brass stars were inlaid in the floor, and under a canopy of intricately painted geometric patterns were heavily cushioned couches where breakfast was served, and mint tea or “Moroccan Whiskey” could be taken during the day. My room was the size of a house, with Berber carpets, a bar, and a ceiling I can only describe as breathtaking. The cornices and ornaments were so finely detailed, I had never stayed anywhere even remotely like this, it was so beautiful.

And I was the only guest.

Ibrahim, Ali and Rasheed ran the small hotel for a Frenchman, who lived in Paris and visited once a year. There didn’t seem to be much marketing going on to fill the other rooms, but I wasn’t complaining!

So the next week passed in a flurry of socialising with my new found Moroccan friends, and a disastrous two day trip to Rabat, the capital of The Kingdom of Morrocco.

More about that in the next post.

The Spy who Loved Me (Almost); Marrakech, Morocco July 2011

I felt like I was a character in a John Le Carre cold war novel.

Every time I entered the ancient souk that surrounds le Place Jmaa El Fna I had the sense that I was being followed.

I could have been Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, hell that’s just down the road! Or an undercover man, maybe even a double agent!

I was entering enemy territory. They knew. I knew it.

If I wasn’t cool, if I didn’t keep my wits about me they could capture and torture me, and draw every important piece of strategic information from me, and I would leave a broken man.

Broken and Broke.

I would probably have a large Berber carpet rug, 3 pairs of goats leather shoes with the toes pointed skywards, a sliver tea service set, a tagine or two, enough spices for the next decade, a camel leather bag to carry it all in, emerging back into the blinding midday sunlight looking like Demis Roussos in a long, white, hooded Arab Jelaba.

They would use underhanded tactics to confuse and entrap me.

Like suddenly a swarthy man would materialise next to me, and holding out his hand (for a handshake) say “bonjour Monsieur , comment ca’ va’? If I responded “ca’ va’ bien” he would say “ah francais” if I refused to speak or said something like “non parlez francais” he would say “Espana, Non, English?  “Where are you from” “Auslalia?” Welcome, to Maroc. Auslalia is beautiful, no?

And if I returned his handshake he would invite me to come and meet his family and take mint tea with them “as fliend” and watch a berber rug being made on a loom in the traditional way.

Then he would lead me into the darkened depths of the labyrinth, through archways and laneways, up stairs and down stairs, till we would come to a non-descript hole in the wall.

He was just the go-between, paid to deliver me to a team of super-salesmen in a Marrakech market megastore who were probably the direct descendants of Ali Baba’s forty thieves!

So, a strategy was needed.

Firstly, never shake their hand.

The swarthy sales man would get agitated and offended but I was not their “effendi” or friend. Their hand was usually pretty dirty anyway.

Secondly, have some fun with them.

Go round a corner and duck into the shadows of a deep, dark doorway, and watch the panic as they run after your ghost down the alley.

Or, when you are asked where you are from, just say “Siberia”.

“Sibeerlia, we love your country”!

Welcome to Morocco, Welcome to Marrakech.

Essaouira, Morocco ; July 2011

...sssooiira

The Berber woman purses her lips, she breathes it like a sigh, like cool air that comes from the north to tame the heat that bears down from the Sahara.

It sounds like an ancient lost breeze that comes with the sea mist that blankets the town and blurs the shapes of the white walled Kasbah and the blue of the window shutters that frame women leaning out to hang their washing, or men propped on their elbows smoking thoughtfully and watching the maelstrom of the markets below.

In 1506, the King of Portugal ordered the building of a fortress here. It lasted only 4 years before local Berbers overran the garrison and took control of what was then called Mogador. It was important for the exporting of sugar and molasses and also was a safe haven for pirates. Essaouira was a strategic port, the closest to Marrakech, and control of it was much desired by Spain, England, The Netherlands and France. All were unsuccessful in gaining territory, or favourable trade terms until the French signed a treaty with the Sultan of Marrakech in 1631. It was during this time that Christian slaves were used to build more fortifications around the bay.

The present city was built during the 18^th century by Mohammed 111, and became the principal port of Morocco. The caravan trade offered their goods to the world through this harbour. From Sub-Saharan Africa to Timbuktu, through the desert and over the Atlas Mountains to Marrakech, and then down to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast, caravans of Tuaregs and Berbers and Arabs on camels and donkeys brought cloth and spices, rock salt , dried fruits, and slaves to be traded with the world.

Initially it was called “Souira” or small fortress, but it was changed after the rebuilding to “Essaouira” or “the beautifully designed”. 18^th century Dutch cannon still line the walls and battlements as if time has stood still and a wooden Portuguese warship is lying off the coast in the mist.

I had booked a week at “Les Coins Des Artistes”, a small 8 roomed hotel or Riyadh in the centre of the Kasbah. Air-conditioners aren’t needed here and windows are opened to greet the breeze. There is a central courtyard that all rooms face into, and breakfast is taken here in the mornings.

A Dutch woman came in with a Morrocan man, who went straight into the kitchen. She sat down at the table next to mine and smiled at me with her eyes. She started a conversation and asked if I wanted to go down the coast to a beach called Cidi Kagi. My appointment book wasn’t full at that stage, so we ran in the dust for the local bus, and an hour later we walked off into a hot dry easterly wind, and a long beach, with beginners trying to surf waves which held up in the off-shore wind, but were never going to be powerful enough to propel a board to the shore.

Getting a drink from a local store a fight erupted between the owner and 2 Moroccan customers. The owner was going off his nut and pushing and threatening the 2 guys who seemed to have no idea what was going on. As usual, the faithful rushed in and calmed him, kissed him, tried to lead him back into the shop, but it was a full 20 minutes before he calmed down again. I was getting used to this volatile over-emotional behaviour.

There wasn’t much to do so we decided to get a grande taxi back to Essaouira, as the next bus wasn’t for hours. We shared it with Aziza, who was in Cidi Kagi checking on her Belguim bosses house. We had a great chat about life for women in Morocco, and the fact that there is no separation of church and state, and she kindly invited us back to her house to meet her family. Life is tough economically for most people here; wages are low and expenses high and good jobs difficult to get. We agreed to catch up again, said our goodbyes and returned to the Kasbah.

In Marrakech, I found it difficult to do any running; it was really hot with diesel fumes that burned your lungs as the concrete burned your feet, and this was at 9pm in the evening. So, it was great to be able to get out every afternoon and run down the beach, with the wind in my back past the camels and the furtive lovers holding hands and each other, several kilometres down the beach where no-one could see them.

The countryside is not fertile, but the sea is. A sea current that runs past the Canary Islands dredges up nutrients and makes the sea here brim full of conga-eels, small sharks and massive schools  of sardines. The fish market could be a major tourist attraction, with the music festival over most of the tourists had left, but the fishermen were in the habit of cleaning their catch on the wharf, and throwing the guts and blood on the rocks and on the road that led through the fish market. It stunk, it was disgusting to walk through, and it attracted thousands of albatross who dive bombed any onlookers with shit as local boys dived off pontoons into putrid brown water and fisherman greedily tried to overcharge any non-Morrocan fish-buyer. The fish are expensive, there is no refrigeration, and I found the whole situation puzzling, whilst being on guard for any “new friend” who would offer to take a photo of me with my camera, and then obstinately demand money for doing it.

So the week rolled on. I met Younnis, a local musician and surfer. He brought a couple of guitars into the hotel, and we played for an audience of 4 people. I found his style hard to follow, as he is left-handed and learnt to play a right-handed guitar upside down! Only the third person I have ever seen do this. Younnis met a French girl on holiday here a couple of years ago. They fell in love, and when it was time for her to leave, they went to the airport together. She never got out of that taxi, and they returned to Essaouira, got married in a Muslim ceremony, and she fell pregnant. 3 months later she had to leave to go back home and continue her university studies in medicine. He sees them occasionally on a Skype call. He says “Inshallah” one day they will be re-united. So in the meantime, Younnis surfs when there is surf, plays guitar in a restaurant when there is work, and unceasingly smokes hashish, going through the ritual of rolling the joints and burning the hash block to make it dryer and easily crumbled.

The Dutch lady wanted me to come along to a dinner she had been invited to by her Moroccan friend, at the family house of one of his friends. I thought that finally, I would get to experience some real home cooked Moroccan food, however, when we got to the 3^rd floor dingy room, we found 6 Moroccan men, no family, and the money I had, with reservations, contributed to purchasing the food, had actually bought all the food. The Dutch girl’s money had gone missing again. Every time something had to be paid for it seemed she didn’t have enough, or she just forgot to contribute. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was just getting too routine, for me anyway. The kitchen was dirty and dingy and the food was just put out on a large platter from which everyone ate with their hands. I felt a little uneasy, and scoped out an escape route out of the window if we needed it, but there was nothing to be concerned about. Out came our host with the biggest lump of hashish this side of Afghanistan, and he placed it on top of a large, glowing coal and into a shisha   apparatus. The guys then all grabbed a hose and started happily puffing away, and we left.

Now I knew why Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley were here. It wasn’t to take in the sea air. It was just to get wasted. There were some sad people around the Kasbah alleyways, begging, and  talking to imaginary friends. Some were ex-pats who had stayed too long and perhaps couldn’t go home, like a modern Brideshead Revisited, where Charles goes to Morocco and finds Sebastian in an appalling state.

The woman I had walked away from in the square the day I first travelled here had become a nuisance. Every day, it seemed she would find me somewhere in the souk, the square, or even at the beach. I was in the habit of saying “oh, it’s you again” or “oh, c’est encore vous”. She was persistent, if nothing else.

Essaouira was beautiful but flawed. After 5 days I ran out of things to do as the waves never got big enough to surf, and the days I wanted to kite surf the wind didn’t co-operate. I would like to be here in the winter and experience some of the epic surf swells that roll in from the Atlantic. But, unfortunately, a week was too long and it was time to return to Marrakech and the heat.

My last night in Essaouria, I went out to dinner with Aziza and her boyfriend Abdul.  We ate some fish and I drank my first Moroccan beer. They left to go home and I walked across the square to where the cannon still pointed out to sea. It was cold, the wind was strong and cold and the mist was rolling in to once again blur and blanket the Kasbah. The families that had promenaded through the square and up and down the beachside road had all gone home too, and I could just hear the hint of a guitar playing through the sound of the crashing waves, and I wondered what would have happened if Bob and Jimi had met here, in Essaouira? 

Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and Essaouira, Morocco July 2011

I had been advised by my friend Dominic to have a look at Essaouira, some 4 hours away from Marrakech, on the south Atlantic coast of Morocco. So, it was on a fine Saturday morning at 7.30am in the grand square Jmaa El Fna, awaiting my minibus, I observed an old woman collecting and rinsing out water bottles left empty by thirsty drinkers the day before. I had read that some unscrupulous operators refilled spring or distilled water bottles and sold them as unused. So, it was true.

I had booked a day tour of some valleys in the Atlas Mountains, ending up at Essaouira. But an hour into the drive it became obvious, when we drove straight past the turnoff to the Atlas Mountains that we weren’t going there. In fact, this was a return trip to Essaouira only.

I was becoming a little used to these things happening; either oversight, undersight or the booking I desired actually wasn’t available today. “Oh, we’ll just book him in for this one then”.

We passed through semi-arid country with small rolling hills, olive groves with stone-washed walls to keep out the drying winds, and the occasional vineyard. The country became dryer and hot, and more sand and stone and less olives. The ones that did exist struggled to hold on to life with many of their former fellows just greying timber, like driftwood in the sands.

This country is very reminiscent of the mid-north of South Australia. Harsh, dry and hot, it is a place of death and broken dreams. And in Morocco, buzzards, which can be clearly seen circling in the distant sky most days.

A scrubby, bushy, small tree began to appear in abundance, the Argan tree; this is the only place in the world it is found. Soon we stopped at “Le Argan Co-operatives La Femmes”, a small factory in this desertscape, where women picked and processed the latest “wonder oil” to hit the world scene; Argan Oil.

Cold-pressed, it is in great demand for cosmetics and hair treatments. This is the “Moroccan Oil” that everyone is talking about. Hot-pressed it is used as a health-aid, with supposed healing qualities, or just as salad dressing. It is expensive at around 75 Euros for 500ml of pure oil.

The process of extraction is almost medieval. Goats are encouraged to climb in the wild trees and prune the tips back, thus stimulating growth and the amount of fruit. The fruit looks similar to a small apricot, and it is the kernel inside the shell of the fruit that contains the oil. The fruit is picked, the shells are cracked and broken and set aside as cooking fuel, and the kernels are then ground by hand in a circular motion, by a wizened old crow of a woman, who sits in the same spot for 10 hours a day.

Oil is not plentiful, in fact 60 kg of fruit gives 1 precious litre of the stuff, I was told. Any oil left in the ground kernels are squeezed out by hand, and the remaining paste is used as stock feed. Only women perform the work, it is not considered fit for men. I had heard that China is planting thousands of acres of Argan trees. I suspect in a decade they will probably control the world supply of this magic stuff, and another opportunity will have passed these poor, hardworking Moroccan women by.

Essaouira appeared in the distance and we stopped at a lookout and took photos with a couple of camels for company. On the mini-bus with me were Shaz and Aziz; two young guys from London taking a week’s holiday in Morocco. It turned out Shaz worked for the same bank as Wayne, and Aziz was a doctor about to move into General Practice. We had a lively discussion and a few laughs which made the journey pass more quickly.

Stepping out of the bus at the sea wall which separates Essaouira from the cold Atlantic Ocean, was like breathing for the first time. The air was cool and fresh and salt. It was like getting an instant energy boost after the hot, dry and dusty Marrakech environment. The beach was more brown than white, different to what I had expected. Close to the town it was thronged with children and young people enjoying the sun and the water. The island of Mogador lay perhaps a kilometre out to sea, and sheltered the bay from Atlantic swells. The French-built forts were clearly visible from the beach; this was once the major port in these parts, and the closest to Marrakech.

Both Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix had come here in the 60’s. It was when I came here to stay two days later I discovered why.

But this day I walked through the crumbling stone archway into the walled town, through the square, and into the Kasbah. This place seemed so ancient that I half expected Ali Baba to materialise at any moment. The main street or laneway was filled with people shopping at the markets. Men were chopping up carcases of goats and sheep by hand, and vainly flicking away the flies they were attracting. There were watermelon, cherries and plums, and cartloads of pain; flat bread that women would sort through by hand until they found the one that felt the freshest or least stale.

This is where the Arabic world begins to meet the African world. There were large black men dressed in amazingly bright blue and green and yellow fabric, and Tuareg men from the Sahara Desert with their distinctive blue turbans and long robe-like outfits. They sold silver jewellery, jelabas, scarves and curved daggers in carved wood and silver sheaths. It was noisy and bustling and smelly, with storeowners singing the praises of their produce to the crowds, and customers arguing and haggling with them. I wound my way through alleys and eventually found a small hotel or Riyad which was the right price with wi-fi and breakfast included, and booked it for a week.

This happened to be the last day of the annual Gnaoua Music festival, dubbed the “Moroccan Woodstock”. It is an African and Arabic mix of artists, mainly, and many were familiar to me, having appeared at Womadelaide in my home town. The concerts were free, with a large stage in the town square and then another a kilometre away at the beach. I saw a West African band play a set and felt a pang of homesickness; I was half-way around the world but I had been here before.

I was determined to get to the beach and walk to a strange small island I could see in the distance, at the water’s edge.  So I set off through the town square. The square is surrounded by a wall with ramparts and battlements, and brass cannon still sit there pointing out to sea, perhaps expecting Sinbad the sailor or Blackbeard the Pirate to attack the town some time soon. I was in a bit of a dream I suppose, taking all of this in when I was stopped by a woman, a Moroccan woman, probably in her late 20’s.

“Bonjour Monsieur, comment ca va”?

 I was completely surprised at her boldness. Women just don’t approach strange men here.

“Ca va bien, tu est?”

I was struck by three things. Firstly, she was smoking; I don’t think I had seen a local woman smoke. Secondly, her head was uncovered. And thirdly, she had bad teeth, stained and decayed, which is unfortunately the norm with most of the people I had met here. Dental hygiene is not the priority here that it is in the West.

My initial French conversational skills had picked up to a point I could fool most Moroccans I was French. For about a minute, that is. Then my vocabulary and comprehension ran out rapidly. But, it was fun for me!

It didn’t take long to get to the part where I confess not to be French, and request the conversation now take place in English, of which she turned out to be completely fluent.

“Would you like to take a coffee with me, and we could talk and enjoy the view” she asked.

Well, paint me as sarcastic but I had the feeling coffee was not what she was after. I know I’m an attractive man, but even at home women (in a completely sober state) don’t hit on me randomly as I’m walking down the street!

“I really want to go to the beach” I said, “I don’t have much time as my bus leaves at 5 to go back to Marrakech”.

“I understand then” she said, “I have a hotel room, let’s just go there”

I was completely stunned and speechless, this was so out of character for a local woman. Plus it is against the law for an unmarried woman to be in a hotel with a man.

She opened up her purse and took out a card. It was a hotel card. She handed it me.

“Here, see, we can go here, what do you think?”

“You’re right, it’s a hotel card” I replied, “but I think I’m just going to go on to the beach”.

She looked completely devastated.

“But why, why go to the beach?”

“I guess I’ve got my reasons. Au revoir et bon chance” and with that I walked off and left her standing there, mouth agape, in the middle of the small square that precedes the Kasbah.

There was a cool, northerly breeze blowing at my back, and lines of small surf pushed their way across the bay onto the brown sand. This place was painted in soft pastels of blue and white and brown in contrast to the sharp reds, yellows and browns of Marrakech.

I walked past camels carrying tourists, and came to a large group of locals gathered around 50 or so men on magnificent white and grey and black Arabian horses wearing red turbans and carrying lances with flags of different colours. They put the horses in a rough,moving line across the beach and a cannon exploded and belched a smoky boom and they were off, racing down the beach, neck to neck. They turned perhaps 400 metres away throwing plumes of brown sand into the air and each other, and galloped back to the finish and a rapturous roar from the crowd. I kept walking south, I never found out what the horses were doing there, and I never saw them again. When I came back to stay 2 days later, no-one knew anything about them.

They just looked at me rather strangely.

In and Around Jmaa El Fna: Marrakech, Morocco June 2011

Around Le Place Jmaa El Fna, or Grand Square, rooftop cafes provide a safe haven for tourists. La Bohemia, Le Glacier Cafe, Le Grande Vieux and others are packed at night with onlookers who order pizza and water minerale and are spared the hassle of the professional beggars, the touts and the motor cycles and cars which catch the unwary or the unknowing in their headlights as they create their own pathways through the crowds.

The Cafe Argana was one of these havens, until a man walks up the stairs on a warm April day, places a brief case at a table, and leaves. Each day the scaffold that supports the damaged rooftop structure grows a little, things are added; today it is a kind of hessian cloth that attempts to camouflage the damage wrought by the bomb. I thought long and hard before travelling to Marrakech, and I must say the reports of the deployment of Army personnel throughout the square gave me some comfort. But I rarely see anyone in uniform here.

I understand now why my booking at Hotel Cecil kept coming back to me as one night, rather than the seven I was trying to book. Visitors generally spend only one or two nights here, then move on to other places. They visit Marrakech, the Sahara Desert, the Atlas Mountains, perhaps Casablanca, Tangiers and Fez and then go home. They tour Morocco for one to two weeks; see the souks, the mosques, the palaces and the Roman ruins, but all the time on the move. Many I meet are here for a long weekend, having flown from a cool summer in Europe to this North African swelter.

Greg and Brit are American college students involved in a Spanish language exchange program in Barcelona. They are here for three days. I meet them over a lunch of chiche kebab and fries at an outdoor cafe. They are from cold states; Oregon and Philadelphia, and are melting in the 40 plus heat. However, they have a swimming pool at their hotel, and spend their time cooling off there.

Ornella is a photographer from Rome. She is an animal lover extraordinaire, here to rescue a dog from the local pound. Her dog of 17 years has recently passed away; she emotionally shows me a photo of a medium-sized long haired dog of indeterminate breed. We communicate in my broken French and her limited English, plus the small amount of Italian I possess. Ornella is appalled at the treatment of animals here; the cart-pulling donkeys that buck and kick at the sharp sting of the driver’s whip, the street dogs that are poisoned, the starving litters of kittens that abound. She has found a small dog, and is in the process of completing the paperwork to get him back to Rome and her family of 2 dogs, 3 cats and a husband.

I can feel my fitness fading, a combination of the after effects of the flu I had in London and the heat here in Marrakech, which makes it difficult to keep up my running regime. When I can, I walk outside the Medina and run the perimeter of the city and the ancient rose-coloured terracotta walls, past unsuspecting couples sitting on park benches, holding hands and savouring rare private moments.

 It’s getting late for dinner, around 10 pm. The light has faded with the heat. My favourite chiche kebab restaurant is filled with diners, but I am treated like a regular and they greet me with a “Bonjour mon ami, comment ca va”? and a gentle handshake. Table space is limited, so chairs are rearranged and diners moved to accommodate new arrivals. I am seated at a table with a French couple on one side, and 3 young Moroccan women on the other. The French are not inclined to chat, so I strike up a conversation with the girls who have come into the Medina from the suburbs for Saturday night,  Houda, her friend and a younger sister. They are interested in Australia, and I am interested in understanding Moroccan culture from their point of view. They are fashionably dressed in jeans, close fitting tops, heels and jewellery, much the same as young women in their mid-twenties in any European city, but in a tastefully understated way, not glam or garish.

They head off home to beat their 12pm curfew, and Houda offers to show me through the Medina tomorrow night, my last for the moment in Marrakech, as I’m off to the southern coastal town of Essaouira for a week. We swap phone numbers and agree to meet Sunday night.

Nouradine has become a good friend to me since I have arrived. A native Moroccan, he has lived in France and Spain, and has a good grasp of English. He is married with children and works in hospitality. Through him I begin to get some kind of understanding of this place. It is so confronting and in your face that after my first 4 days I feel I may have made a mistake in coming here. How can I possibly stay for a month?

Surprisingly though, on the 5^th day everything begins to click into place. It’s like I a revelation; my eyes are opened and suddenly I begin to understand. I realise I have been in a kind of denial since I have landed here, trying to view this country through my sanitised western Christian-based logic.  It is a trap that travellers commonly fall into. I don’t agree with the way many things are done here, but I don’t have to. I just have to accept and embrace and go with the flow of life.

It is Sunday night. Houda arrives at the square and we walk through the crowds to eat at an open-air restaurant. We are sat opposite to each other, and down the other end of the long bench table sits a pasty-faced, lanky American. He seems a little disorientated with the heat and the surrounding hustle and bustle and noise. He asks for the bill and a swarthy man who looks like the fat comptroller spits out “fifty”.

“oh, fifty euros” he says compliantly in a nasal accent that would be recognisable anywhere in the world as New Yorkian.

The hint of a smile appears on the dark cheeks, and he nods.

He pulls out a wad of euros and is about to hand them over. The man’s eyes glitter gleefully.

“Sorry mate” I interject. “He means fifty dirhams not euros”, and I help him count out the notes and coins that amount to 10% of what he was about to fork out.

He has just arrived here today from Berlin. Bryan has gambled everything and relocated from New York to the edgy ex-German capital to live and pursue his dream of a career as a painter. He is in Marrakech for the weekend “to check it out”.

We swap stories and he leaves for the relief of an air-conditioned room.

The fat-comptroller and I laugh when he leaves.

“fifty” he says, “fifty euros”. The scoundrel  would have taken it too.

We finish dinner, and Houda leads me through the darkened alleyways of the ancient souk, which some say is the most famous of all in the Arab world. We pass stalls of spice and perfume, leather and brass. She links her arm through mine; it is not socially acceptable for a woman to walk with a man she is not connected to. Customs and appearances are everything here. I ask her about head coverings and scarves, and she says she is not compelled to cover herself, she is a modern young woman, but if she marries she will wear the habib out of respect for her husband.

Inside the souk is exotic chaos as locals crowd the lanes and alleys, and motorcycles roar through the centre of the crowds, which split and then close again behind the exhaust fumes. For the first time here, I’m not constantly harassed, as the company of Houda offers me some protection from the tenacious traders and touts.

I thank Houda, and return to Hotel Cecil. It’s late, but still hundreds crowd the square, and the smoke drifts from charcoal sausage grills in the light breeze. Tomorrow I leave at 8am for the 4 hour journey to the coastal town of Essaouira, my home for the next week.