2013 World Trip Part 7

Wandering uphill, we tried entering a museum thinking it was the palace (that being my bright idea, despite multiple signs that clearly explained that the entrance we were at was NOT the entrance we sought). After being turned around and pointed even further up the hill, we marched through a small, grassy area packed densely with other tourists. We spotted a gigantic doorway and combined with the torrential flood of pedestrian traffic surging through it, we deduced it was the entrance we were seeking. Mixing in with the rabble, we made it through the security checkpoint only to be stopped by a mechanical gate that demanded to see our tickets. Flustered, we pushed our way back the way we’d originally come – back tracking becoming something of a habit.

After a brief pit stop to replenish the fluid we were rapidly losing thanks to sweat – it now being the hottest part of the day – we scanned the area for a ticket booth and with a heavy heart, spied an incredibly long, snaking line. The line was populated with at least a hundred other sweaty, annoyed tourists. Those with children seemed to be doing it particularly hard and I did not envy them at all. The line was completely exposed to the sun and the giant ball of gas wasn’t showing anyone any mercy on this particular day. I would have thought that if this was a regular occurrence, a shade cloth or two wouldn’t have gone astray, but that’s just logical thinking to cater for the tourists that were coming in droves.

Regardless of the heat, Ian and I slowly made our way to the front of the line. By the time we had reached the front, my back was trying its hardest to emulate a waterfall. I was not particularly pleased by this, however there was very little I could do about it, so I was forced to let the sweat pour down my spine and into my underpants. If my back was pretending to be a waterfall then my underpants were trying their hardest to become a swamp. By the time I realized I was virtually a walking bio-dome, we were being waved forward by the staff behind the desk at the ticket station. We’d literally walked up to the glass and had begun speaking to her when, from behind the roped off section beside us, a man and his entire brigade of children pushed their way in front of us. And I was having none of it.

Ian’s mouth lay agape as the man looked us in the eye and with a smile waved his entire family to join him.

                ‘Uh yeah, actually NO!’ I yelled at the man, completely disgusted by his sheer disregard for queue etiquette. I mean, I understand that we were from two completely different cultures, but I don’t care where you’re from, a queue’s a queue. You respect the line, man.

                ‘Back of the line’s back there man,’ I gestured, jerking my thumb back in the direction we’d waited for ages. ‘Get back THERE. We were here first.’ The man simply waved my aggravated growls away with a warm smile, as if to thank me for letting him cut in front so generously. In sheer desperation, I turned from the fat, hairy pusher-innerer to the obvious authority figure of the situation, the lady behind the desk. With an uninterested shrug, she turned from me to serve the man. It was the worst injustice I had ever faced. This was horrible. This would not STAND! I swore from that moment on that anyone who tried to cut in fro---- oh, it was our turn.

Tickets acquired for both the palace and the harem that resided within (a fact that excited Ian and I more than it should have), we pushed once more into the fray, working our way past the security checkpoint for a second time. This time, I smiled smugly as we passed through the gate that required a ticket.

                ‘Try and stop me NOW!’ I thought to myself, feeling like a renegade the likes of which had never been seen before. Tales would surely be told about the time the man showed reckless disregard for policy and tried to push through a gate without a ticket. I was disappointed the story hadn’t made the BBC news when I checked later that night.

Without a map or guide of any sort, Ian and I found ourselves wandering aimlessly around the area we had just wasted precious time and money fighting to get into. It was all very pretty but honestly a bit forgettable. It seemed to me like we were visiting a hollowed-out shell of a palace, rather than a place of any importance. Each room we went into was as empty as they were similar. The only thing that seemed to differentiate them were the signs at the doorway for each room, detailing how THIS particular room used to hold the Sultan’s hats! And THIS room was formerly used for circumcisions! Thrilling.

We quickly grew tired of looking at empty rooms with roped off couches and decided to settle for finding some lunch. After a brief look, we literally wandered into a restaurant with a similar view to the café we’d eaten at hours before. After being seated by a very gracious waiter, I realized that we had stumbled into a high-class restaurant and now had to act like we belonged there. It wasn’t hard, the meal was fantastic, though once again I was slapped in the face with the difference of prices between Cambodia and Turkey. Once we’d finished, I felt it only appropriate to wash it all down with the apple tea my sister had suggested on the phone earlier. It was only when we tasted it that I realized how completely unprepared we’d been for this trip. The tea was delicious and yet if I hadn’t touched base with my sister who had alerted me to the drink with a ‘you DIDN’T know about it?!’ attitude, I mostly likely would have left the country never having known about it. For the briefest of moments, I almost found myself thinking that it might have been nice to have my sister along for the ride. Then, I remembered that she would take up space and oxygen and banished the thought to the deepest dungeon of my mind forever.

We left the restaurant with the mindset of getting value for the money we’d paid and set off valiantly to find the harem. We found it after looking for a good thirty minutes. I honestly don’t know how we missed it, there being signs everywhere. Must’ve been a ‘forest through the trees’ situation, I’m sure. Another gate similar to the one we’d passed through after the initial security check confronted us before the harem and I reached into my pockets, fully prepared to swipe my tick---

‘----wait. Where’s my ticket?’ I thought to myself. I spent the next ten minutes patting down my pockets, searching each one thoroughly and searching them again. I shredded the contents of my backpack and yet still remained empty handed. Somehow, during the mindless wandering and the tea drinking, I’d managed to lose my ticket. Luckily, there was a ticket stand for the harem right next to the gate but I was furious at myself for needing it. Ian had paid for the tickets initially and I didn’t like that I’d essentially just wasted his money. I paid for another ticket and we pushed through the gates, though this time I felt defeated rather than reckless.

Almost immediately on entering, I was forced to forget why I was annoyed. The harem was incredible. With its winding corridors and intricate mosaics, it was infinitely more interesting than the actual palace grounds. We made our way through the winding maze after a brief stop in a courtyard that overlooked the palace gardens and the park we’d been in before, we exited the harem knowing nothing more about it than when we had walked in, but agreeing that it was far cooler than the palace.

We bid farewell to the sweaty masses of tourists and left the entire complex. I felt slightly turned around though as we’d somehow managed to exit on the opposite side that we’d entered. It wasn’t long before I recognized a few buildings from the day before when we’d walked back from the river tour and we were back in front of the ‘Blue Mosque’ in no time. Using it as a point of reference, we wandered back up-hill, back to the area we’d had breakfast. Skirting around a few back streets, we took a seat at an honest-looking, shady restaurant. By this point, both Ian and I had sweated more water out than we’d actually consumed throughout the day and as such, had turned into the human equivalent of prunes. With desperation in our voices, we ordered as much water as our bellies could hold and it was after only a few minutes of sitting slumped across our table, trying to maintain our dignity as much as our level of consciousness when one of the waiters alerted us to two other patrons sitting slightly further down from us. They were now facing us, waving nervously. The waiter explained:

                ‘You…’ he began, hesitantly. ‘You… Australian?’ We nodded wearily, causing a genuinely gleeful smile to spread across the man’s lips.

                ‘THEY AUSTRALIAN ALSO!!!’ He cheered with far more enthusiasm than absolutely necessary. It was cool that we’d managed to find a couple that shared our nationality, but at that point, we were more concerned with re-hydrating than we were with socializing. It wasn’t long before we understood that the waiter wouldn’t be happy unless we started talking to them and we came and sat down with the other Aussies. The waiter wandered off into the background, overly thrilled that he’d brought us together, his random act of kindness done for the day.

The conversation felt a little jarring to begin with and it didn’t take long for me to figure out that I’d need alcohol to untie my tongue. Beer in hand, my words flowed freely once more. Ian remained quiet in comparison, not having quite found the energy to join in as yet. We found out that this couple – well into their late forties, early fifties – were from Melbourne. The man – David – was a financial something and the woman - ...?... – was a …?... I was quite annoyed at my brain for not remembering who she was or what she did because she was the nicer of the two. The hour pushed on and we parted ways, with Ian and I and we made our way back to our hotel. When we returned, we found that our washing – that I neglected to mention we’d given to the staff the day before in DIRE need of cleaning – had been returned, sans one shirt of Ian’s. After slumping onto our beds for a few hours, soaking up the free wi-fi and recharging, we slipped into something more comfortable and infinitely less sweaty. Picking ourselves up with more effort than should have been necessary, we made our way out of the room to once more face Istanbul. We were on the hunt for dinner.

Now feeling slightly more comfortable with the layout of the city, we pushed on up and down hills until we found ourselves in essentially the same area we’d had lunch. We’d honestly meant to be more adventurous, but had failed accidentally. Far past caring, we took a seat at the nearest restaurant and devoured as much as we could. It turned out, we were only a few metres down the road from where we’d dined the night before. Even now, writing this only two weeks after it happened, I can barely remember much about that place, save the fact the toilet was upstairs. Stomachs full, we pushed our way through the streets of Istanbul one last time in the fading light. We bid farewell to the Blue Mosque and in return, the evening call to prayer rang out. A little while later, we were back in our hotel room packing for the day ahead. It was going to be an early start – we were headed to Morocco.

Our eyes opened reluctantly at around 5am. We made our final checks of the room to ensure we weren’t leaving any donations to the cleaning staff and stumbled outside, still quite obviously half asleep. As promised by the rather young and disinterested hotel staff the night before, a taxi was waiting to take us to the airport. Unsurprisingly, we took the same route to the airport that we’d taken from it when we’d first entered the country, but I felt like I appreciated it more this time. The road wound along first through the maze of back streets until we found ourselves running by the beach, drinking in the stunning view of the waterfront littered with ships and boats of various sizes first thing in the morning.

The car slowed twenty minutes later as we arrived at the airport, ready for the next part of our journey. After checking our luggage in via the least helpful airline staff member ever, (I don’t think he’d really found his calling, sitting behind that desk all day) we set about pursuing our next and far more important objective – breakfast.

After a hefty amount of walking, we settled into a booth at a rather up-market café. It wasn’t long after I’d engulfed my FABULOUS pancakes and welcome espresso that I sparked up a conversation with a girl around my age who – like the couple the day before – was also from Melbourne. Also like the lady we’d met the day before, I almost instantly forgot her name as was my custom. She’d been travelling for some time now and was on her way to Budapest to reunite with other Aussies. Coincidentally, she’d actually just come from Morocco, so I picked her brain about any local customs we should be aware of. The best she could advise us about was not to wear short-shorts as she had in the old markets of Marrakesh. Though she understood that what she was wearing was inappropriate (she’d forgotten to pack longer pants when packing to leave Australia) she wasn’t prepared for the waves of inappropriate stares, remarks and molestation she received. She said she received a smack on the bum or two, nothing as bad as a worst-case-scenario would dictate. I was disgusted that despite her poor choice of attire, chivalry didn’t transcend culture. Before long, we bid farewell to… the girl (I’m sure her name started with a ‘T’. Tally? Talia? Tina?) and headed off in the complete opposite direction we needed to go.

With less than twenty minutes until boarding began, Ian finally announced that we were headed the wrong way and that he’d known since we first started walking in that direction. We altered our course and headed back the way we came and soon found ourselves on the plane. Having settled into our seats, we watched the screens embedded into the seat in front as they showed a real-time view of the camera nestled just below the cockpit during take-off. The flight lasted for six hours and was rather uneventful. If you call updating this journal and playing Pokemon ‘uneventful’. I prefer to think of it as nothing less than riveting. The time flew by – yes, I finally made that pun – and we began to make our descent into a new and unusual country. We didn’t know what to expect when we touched the ground near Casablanca, but it wasn’t long after we did that we were exposed to our first dose of Moroccan hospitality.

We lined up at the immigration office as we’d done in each country before. It took less than a minute to understand that ‘line’ was a very relative term. It was better described as a ‘straight-ish congregation’, one that continued to spread outwards with every shuffle towards the man behind the desk. It became obvious to me quite quickly that nearly everyone in the ‘line’ we were in had skipped the classes in ‘queue etiquette’ the same as the fat man in Turkey the day before. We were surrounded, shoved and completely ignored as people pushed past us to get to the front of the line before us. It took a little doing, but the two of us managed to spread our luggage out far enough form a make-shift barricade. The man behind the immigration desk soon reached his limit with his rude, pushy Moroccan brethren and promptly lost his SHIT! It was incredible to watch. He left his booth, screaming and flailing his arms wildly, pointing at other lines and back to us before he simply walked off, refusing to serve us anymore. I believe he had intended for his little tantrum to spur the people in the ‘line’ to straighten themselves out, which flat out did NOT happen. The full effect of his chastisement was lost on me, as I found it quite hilarious to watch the man scream in what essentially to me was gibberish. After a few minutes, he cooled off and returned to his post and painfully slowly, we each made it through to collect our baggage.

We now had new objectives:

1.       Find an ATM to be able to pay in a suitable currency

2.       Forage for food and

3.       Get to our hotel.

We’d barely even begun to attempt the first objective when we were pestered by three ‘helpful’ bystanders who were quite happy to point us in any direction, regardless of the fact that we couldn’t understand each other. It took a tiring amount of ‘shoo-ing’, but we managed to find our way to an ATM and use it un-interrupted. It was only after we completed the second objective at a nearby café that we realized

A.      I’d left my laptop on top of the ATM and walked off without it (which I sprinted back and collected) and

B.      The currency here was close to worthless; the food we’d just bought nearly wiping out the small amount of cash we’d just withdrawn.

Annoyed, we returned to the ATM and both pocketed huge wads of cash. It seemed unnecessary – and probably was – but I wasn’t sure when we’d be seeing our next ATM and wanted to be prepared for that eventuality. The next hassle came almost as soon as the doors opened to the great outdoors of Morocco. It was like a mixture of a ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Finding Nemo’. Around ten taxi drivers that were crowding around the doorway instantly started chanting

                ‘TAXI? TAXI!! TAXI?! TAXI!!!’ like the seagulls in the animated children’s adventure, but they only started when the doors opening had triggered them – their vision obviously movement based like a rather large character from the formerly mentioned dinosaur romp. We managed to swat our way past most of them and addressed the most honest-looking of the lot. He promptly delivered us to an old man who escorted us away in a beat-up, beige Mercedes. If you’re ever wondering where Mercedes go to die, I’d say a fair bet would be Morocco. They were everywhere. We’d barely made it onto the road when we realized we’d made a crucial error in trusting this old man to drive us to our hotel. He was quite obviously bat-shit insane.

He was a lead-footed senior-citizen, and had the delayed reflexes to compliment his age. There were no working seatbelts in the back seat, so Ian and I very quickly worked out we were entirely at this man’s mercy. For half an hour, he raced up behind other cars before slamming on the brakes and honking furiously at them for getting in his way – despite the fact they hadn’t changed their course at all. He played ‘Chicken’ with not only other cars and motorcycles, but quite gamely with other buses and trucks. There were two heart-stopping moments where I quite honestly closed my eyes and accepted that I wouldn’t be seeing my girlfriend, my family or Australia ever again only to open them again and be faced with the next pant-soiling traffic-based encounter. I couldn’t believe it, but the only traffic accident I saw on the drive in happened at a slower than walking-pace speed as one car blindly ambled into oncoming traffic and another one plowed into it seemingly out of spite.

Buildings began to replace paddocks and we soon realized we’d made it into the city of Casablanca. The first and most disappointing thing I noticed was how the movie of the same name had lied to me. Though black-and-white and made umpteen years ago, it painted a picture of a beautifully romantic city bathed in culture, none of which was on display. Amazingly, we made it to our hotel. I don’t think I’ve ever made it out of a car as quickly as I did that day. We paid the old man who sped away, never to be seen again. Shaken, we stepped inside the foyer of the hotel and checked into our room. While waiting, we were served tea and biscuits – it has only just now dawned on me that this must have been to calm the nerves of first-time travelers in Morocco.

Receiving our room key (with a hilariously large fake key attached) we crammed ourselves and the porter into the smallest elevator known to man and made our way up to our floor. With more difficulty than necessary, the door was opened (twice; there was an ankle-high section that had to be pushed open for some reason) and after receiving his tip, the staff member left us alone. The hotel was intricately decorated and looked fantastic. The hallways were adorned with wooden panels that appeared to be woven together. The colour scheme screamed

                ‘YOU’RE IN MOROCCO NOW! GET IT?!’ The beds were each dressed with mosquito nets that all added to the foreign air of being in Morocco, yet it did little to mask the drab, dirty streets we’d made our way through to get to the hotel in the first place. I was a little disheartened initially; Morocco was the place that I’d been the most excited to get to out of the entire holiday. It’s where we’d booked the most time in after seeing all the beautiful photos of the country and being swept up in optimistic, unrealistic dreams of what the country would be like. Having now been exposed to Casablanca for only a few hours, I was almost resigned to waiting out our time in the hotels we’d booked. I realize that this is an incredibly childish and stupid thing to think, but it was the first time I’d been exposed to a country like this and it was a massive culture shock.

We quickly hooked into the wi-fi the hotel had to offer and decided that because we only had the rest of the day to explore, we’d only see the main attractions Casablanca had to offer. It took the better part of an hour to realize that Casablanca wasn’t exactly a tourist hot-spot and it had very little in the way of things to look at. Between the two of us, we decided to check out the Hassan II Mosque and the Casablanca Cathedral as they looked the most impressive. We made our way back downstairs and after receiving a map from the front desk we plotted our course to the cathedral and pushed out again into the Moroccan sun.

The streets were filthy, lined with rubble and trash. I tried very hard to convince myself that this was what I had expected before I came to the city but it was still a shock to see people inhabiting this place and essentially ignoring the fact that the city was quite obviously decaying. 

STAY TUNED FOLKS, THIS BE THE END OF PART 7!!!

I really do hope you're all still enjoying this! (This one was a biggie, huh? Sorry about the lack of pictures, I didn't take any that matched the moments I described. I promise to make it up to you next time!) 


Follow the link to part 8:
http://ponderingoblong.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/2013-world-trip-part-8-part-8-really.html