Jonnn in Paris

Saturday, April 5

The Epic Adventure: Morocco to Portugal via Spain, Overland

A Russian-born American girl. 1x Chinese-Australian guy. Another American girl, this one half-Egyptian. A Gay Puerto Rican dude. And a Californian chica. A motley crew of exchange students, all at the National Foundation of Political Sciences, Paris. All deciding to set out on a two-week trek from the African continent back to Europe. Speaking English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Arabic between us (plus a tad of German, Portuguese and Japanese for good measure), we had all the official languages of the United Nations covered. We were ready to conquer the world. Or so we thought.The plan: start out in Marrakesh, the fabled medieval city in Morocco, and venture overland until we got to Porto, in Portugal. Schedule: two weeks. Mode of travel: anything but aircraft (ruling out flying carpets, for example). buses, trains, taxis, ferries were acceptable, as were camel and horse-drawn cart. With bags all packed and ready to go, we were leaving on a jet plane to Marrakesh.

Our first drama occurred, however, well before we even started out. As luck would have it, the Air Traffic Controller's Union in Paris decided to go on strike. Given the tendency of French workers to go on strike, this was hardly surprising, but it was far from convenient. The worst-case-scenario would mean being stuck in Paris, and forfeiting the hotel reservations we'd already made. Fortunately, flights were redirected at the last minute. We would go after all.

As a budget traveler, we decided to fly with the Moroccan budget airline Jet4You, and as they say, you pay for what you get, and we got what we paid for - the flight was at 6:15 am. For international flights, they normally recommend that you arrive 2-3 hours before departure time, meaning airport arrival at 4am. Since there were no trains at that hour, we had to take a night bus at 3am to get there on-time. No-one got any sleep that night.

Due to the fatigue, the following events were somewhat blurry. We got on a plane, we got off a plane, and we were in a different continent. It was my first time in Africa; quite a reason to be excited. The temperature change was also quite nice - from about 2-3 degrees Celsius to about 25. We would also have to get used to the call to prayer, five times a day, with the first one at sunrise (5:30am) and the last one at night. The fact that everything was written in Arabic was novel, but not overwhelming, as almost everything was accompanied with French. In fact, that was a large part of the reason we decided to go to Morocco; being a former French colony, French was spoken nearly everywhere we went, and communication-wise we had almost no problems.

After our somewhat traumatic experience, we decided to treat ourselves to a bit of Moroccan Whiskey to de-stress. Now, Morocco, being a Muslim country, does not have a culture of drinking, although alcohol is legal. "Moroccan Whiskey" is actually a name for its famous mint tea, and it's famous for a good reason. Delicious green tea leaves are infused with fresh mint, along with plenty of sugar for good measure. The beautiful teapots and elegant glasses add to the experience. Sipping on our tea, bathing in the African sun, watching the world go by, we were ready for our Moroccan adventure.

The next challenge facing us was finding our hotel. Or more precisely, our Riyad, which is kind of like a Moroccan style Bed & Breakfast in a traditional Moroccan home. But first we had to navigate through the maze of a city that is Marrakesh. Moroccan cities all have a walled Medina, which is the old part of town. Here, the roads are just wide enough for a donkey to fit through, and nothing much has changed over the last 1000 years adding to the charm.

The Riyad was nothing short of beautiful, with a beautiful courtyard in the middle (complete with a Moroccan-style fountain), its own terrace, and comfortable rooms. Showers posed a bit of a problem, however, coming in drips and drabs, with the hot water being particularly erratic. It would be something we'd get used to by the end of the trip.

We then decided to visit the famous Madrassa Ali Ben Youssef, a former Koranic school which one of Marrakesh's main attractions. We took a taxi, and the man dropped us off somewhere. "It's just straight ahead", he told us, so we walked straight ahead. However, we soon found ourselves lost in the maze. Now, if there's anything worse than being a tourist in Marrakesh, it's being a lost one. Shifty-looking people kept following us, offering to show us how to get to the Madrassa. Were they really wanting to show us how to get where we needed to go? Or were they wanting to rob us? We tried to lose them but they followed us persistently.

Eventually, we decided to follow a boy, who promised to lead us there. We followed him through the maze, and eventually he stopped and said "here we are - 50 Dirhams". 50 Dirhams is the equivalent of about 5 euros, and it definitely wasn't worth that much. Someone had to pay him, and so I thought, 2 euros should do it. I handed over 20 dirhams, and then realised... I paid WAY too much - we should've given him 5-10. What was worse, he had fooled us - after he slipped away, we realised that he hadn't actually taken us to the Madrassa.

We decided to give up, and take a horse-drawn cart to the Madrassa, only to be taken back to the same spot the taxi driver had dropped us off at. No way were we going to get ourselves lost again. After a long argument with the driver, a well-dressed middle-aged man offered to take us there. He looked somehow trustworthy, and so we followed him. We told him about the kid who had fooled us, how we had spent two hours trying to look for the Madrassa... we got there in the end, and paid him 10 Dirhams. It turned out we weren't far off the first time - just took a wrong turn. The Madrassa itself was not bad...

I decided to try some camel meat for dinner. Thanks to the exchange rate, we could dine in fancy restaurants for around 15 euros, including entrées, drinks, etc.

Unfortunately, this gourmet appetite, despite being relatively cheap, started to take its toll on our backpacker's wallets. In hindsight, we probably should've just stuck with the traditional backpacker's diet of bread and water (bread costs about 10 cents a loaf). We also could've shopped around, considering that Marrakesh is famous for its gigantic souq, or market.

Next stop, the desert. Now, it is extremely touristy to go camel riding in the Sahara desert and sleep in tents with Bedouins. Nevertheless, not doing so would be like not going to Morocco at all, and so we went on a great caravan ride into the Sahara. There was a beautiful sunset veiled mysteriously behind the clouds, but unfortunately, this was also around the time when my camera started dying, and a lot of those photos didn't turn out.

We also met an old man who tried to strangle Anna with a snake, and made us pay him afterwards!
After a night out in the desert (and spending about 7 hours each way getting there and back), we were about to spend another 9 hours in an overnight bus to get to Fez. The bus station in Marrakesh is quite a scene. Before you even get in the entrance, there are people trying to sell you bus tickets. "Where are you going? I offer best price!" We settled for a haggler who showed us a photo of his bus, which he described as "premium class". We asked the official at the bus station whether he was trustworthy, and we were told that he was. The thought of traveling for another 9 hours, however, was enough to dissuade two members of our group, who opted to stay another night in Marrakesh and catch an early train the next morning.

The "premium class" bus. On the outside, it looked alright, the inside was a scene from a circus. Far from being first class, the seats had not been cleaned for an aeon and covered in human sweat. One of the girls was unfortunate enough to be sitting behind a broken seat, which meant her knees were being squashed by the weight of the man in front. There weren't enough seats, so people were squatting in the aisle. Everyone was staring at us, being the only non-Middle-Eastern people on the bus. We tried to sleep.

At around 2am, I was caught in the crossfire of a heated argument in Arabic between the person next to me and the ticket inspector. Something happened, and he had to go and squat in the aisle, making space for an older man. There was more to come. About half an hour later, the bus started making a squealing noise, and the driver seemed to be having difficulty changing the gears. This went on for some time, until the bus pulled up into a service station. As luck would have it, the bus had broken down, in the middle of the desert between Marrakesh and Fez.

We were starting to ask ourselves whether we should've taken the train, along with our companions. We were wondering whether we'd ever get to Fez, when, after about half an hour of tinkering with the engine, a few men helped to push-start the bus. Yes, push-start an entire bus. We got going, but about an hour later, we had to stop again. And then again. Funnily enough, we arrived on-time. Perhaps they schedule the breakdowns into the journey. In any case, we were exhausted by the time we got to Fez.

Fez. The arts and crafts capital of Morocco. As if Marrakesh wasn't enough of a maze, the Medina in Fez is something like 5 times larger than that of Marrakesh, making it the largest medieval city in the world. We decided not to risk it, and pay for a guide to take us around the city. It wasn't expensive, and he spoke excellent English.

Winding through the streets of Fez was fun, now that we had a tour guide. Fez was much less touristic than Marrakesh, and there was a real sense that you were in the middle of a medieval village. Fez really had character, and at every corner, there was something fascinating to see. There were donkeys walking through the street, artisans creating the whole gamut of exotic Moroccan products; from leather goods to chairs, teapots, tables, and fancy lamps

There was a hairdresser...

However, in true tourist style, we were also led into a carpet factory, where we were able to see beautiful carpets being hand-woven.

We were also given refreshing glasses of tea, after which the carpet merchant tried to convince us to buy some of his carpets - for US$2000 each. He told us that they are worth US$10,000 overseas, and advised us on how to go to carpet merchants to sell our goods... No thanks. $2000 was more than my budget for the entire trip. Nonetheless, he nearly convinced one of our fellow travelers to buy a small one for $200. We firmly advised her not to, and she was later glad that we did. The same was true of the tannery we went to next, though it was quite interesting to look at.

The tannery has featured in many famous photos about Morocco, though they're normally more colourful. Unfortunately, there weren't too many interesting colours that day, so I pinched one off the internet for comparison:

Quite spectacular, and smelly too, considering that the liquid they bathe the pelts in is made of pigeon poo.

Our two nights in Fez were great, despite a lot of hassling at times consisting of incessant sexist and racist comments. Next stop was Chefchaouen, a town I hadn't heard of before, but which was entirely blue, and therefore, worth a look.

The entire town was somehow managed to get everyone to paint their houses with the same blue paint

We encountered some children, who demanded that we take their photo.

And then look at themselves in the screen afterwards

Very cute (even though they then kept following us and poking us with a big stick!)

The name "Chefchaouen", in the local dialect, actually means "look at the mountains". Our hostel was sitting at the top of the mountain, and the view was certainly spectacular:

The hostel was run by a Scottish couple and their 15 year-old son, who, two years ago, decided to make a seachange and set up a Bed and Breakfast in Chefchaouen. They just fell in love with the place, they told us. Perhaps it's because Chefchaouen's economy is based around the production of Hashish. There was plenty of it everywhere, and the hostel was no exception, in fact, it came free with the hostel booking. I won't say what happened next... nor will I mention any names...

We decided to head into town for dinner, given that a nice filling meal was only about 3 euros. It was raining lightly, and because some of the roads weren't paved, they turned to mud. Halfway down the mountain, there was a blackout. "That's when they start looting!", said Roberto. His off-handed joke managed to make all of us paranoid. Not knowing how where we were, and not being able to see anything, we got scared. Thankfully, we were able to use a payphone to call the hostel and ask them whether we should go back. They said the electricity should come back soon enough, but we didn't want to risk it. By the time we got a taxi back, we were starving. We got some bread, eggs, and chocolate from the cornerstore for dinner. Because the storekeeper couldn't speak French, I was even able to use the tiny bit of Arabic I had picked up. "How many eggs?" chamsa; "five". And that was Chefchaouen.

The next day would prove to be a long trip. By now were in the north of Morocco, close to the Strait of Gibraltar, from where you can cross over to Spain. Normally, people go to the Moroccan port of Tangiers, but our hosts at the hostel advised us to got to Ceuta instead, because, apparently, there is a lot of crime in Tangiers, and Ceuta is closer anyway. Ceuta is an interesting little spot. It is a tiny enclave right at the top of the African continent, an area of perhaps 50 square kilometres, but it is territory which belongs to Spain. Ironically, the Spanish don't control their own side of the strait; that being the British enclave of Gibraltar.

As much as I normally love couscous, by this time, we were all sick of it, having had it every single night for the past week. It was time to leave the land of El-Maghreb, and a nice little ferry ride across the Mediterranean Sea felt like a good way to do it. Unfortunately for us, it was neither little nor nice, as the inclement weather that day had caused rough seas. Ferry services were cancelled, there was general PANIC everywhere, and we were going to miss our connecting bus in Spain.

Eventually, we were able to catch a ferry, but it would be a slow one. Normally, high-speed services take 45 minutes to hop over to Europe, but the foul weather meant we would be taking the slow boats... and rather than leaving every half hour, there would only be one that afternoon. So we sat around for 3 hours waiting for the ferry... another 3 hours or so on the actual ferry, watching repeats of Happy Feet dubbed in Spanish. After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived in Algeciras, Spain. We were in Europe, at last! However, due to the delay, we'd also missed our connecting bus. It was around 8pm by then, and by the time we caught our bus at 10pm, we had spent 10 hours on the road and on the seas. We arrived at our hostel in Granada at 2am, exhausted. And so the European leg of our adventure began.

Thursday, March 27

What happened to Morocco, Spain and Portugal?

What happened to my regular updates? Why has nothing been happening? The answer to that is because nothing has been happening. But why? After spending two weeks traveling Morocco, Spain and Portugal, you'd normally expect to find a couple of photos and some interesting stories... but there is nothing of the sort on my blog.

My lame excuse is: career disaster. Well, not exactly, more like a stumble. My "journalism internship" with Divento.com turned out to be uneconomical. Especially because I wouldn't get paid.

Divento's recruitment section advertises that it used to be a quarterly travel magazine published in The Guardian, and at my job interview in Paris, I was told that the company was affiliated with the discount airline Ryanair.com, and that I would get press passes to events throughout Paris. All I had to do was research events, write about them, and get paid a 5% commission.

Problem is, the actual amount of that 5% commission depends on the sales from the site. If, as claimed, it was affiliated with Ryanair and had links with The Guardian, then chances were that there would be at least something. Even if it was a token amount, I would get experience writing under the supervision of an editor. That is, if those claims were true. I investigated them. They weren't.

There is no link to Divento from Ryanair, though I can't confirm whether or not it existed as a magazine in The Guardian. Once I had administrative rights to the website, however, I found that the sales figures were only enough to make a healthy profit for Fiona Lazareff, the boss. The top "freelancers", on the other hand, were scraping together perhaps 20-30 Euros a week. My worst fears were confirmed when I emailed a freelancer on the list: no replies, late cheques, meager payments.

That was it, I had to quit. But why did I sign up in the first place? Sure, the site looked dodgey, but I wanted to cast my net wide and give everything a go, at least. A former magazine, with offices in Manchester and Paris, affiliated with Ryanair. A real-life interview in Paris. A secretary. It all seemed to be a viable venture. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Nevertheless, it didn't change the fact that I was suddenly in Paris, unemployed, and paying rent. A less than desirable situation, yes, but at least I found out before I'd officially started. So I went about looking for a job, but not sure whether there was anything worthwhile for me to do for 3 months. If nothing came up, I would have had to leave at the end of March, otherwise, wait until late May for the earliest flight to Sydney. Should I stay or should I go? That question lingered behind me everywhere I went. I spent a good two weeks waiting for replies to my job applications, doing very little, my days characterised by uncertainty.

Fortunately, I did get a reply. A French web company selling electronic products in Australia who needed an English-speaker to write reviews of their products. I was a bit worried about the fact that it was another website - but I met an Australian guy who had worked for them previously, and we negotiated a proper wage and everything. At the moment, I just need to gather my documents together to send to their accountant. If all goes well, I should start next week.

And so what happened to Morocco, Spain and Portugal? The photos, the stories? All thrown in the backburner, which was hardly burning at all, given my unproductiveness. I've got 4 rolls of film waiting to be developed, which I will get around to. Unfortunately, my camera broke somewhere in Morocco - I was able to fix it, but some photos didn't turn out properly. I had bought a cheap second-hand SLR camera to take to Morocco with me, in case it got stolen, but in the end it seemed like an uneconomical solution. So as soon as I develop the photos, I will add my running commentary, as usual.

Oh, and a few photos that I took early on have been used in an article on cafés on www.toomanyfrogsand1brit.co.uk. Yay! I got some photos published. Sort-of. An update on my trip from Morocco to Portugal will come soon... hopefully.

Friday, February 8

Happy Chinese New Year, Australia + photos from Strasbourg

Like they say, "I love Paris in the Springtime", and Springtime is quickly blooming all over Paris. I have one exam left before I head off to Morocco, Spain and Portugal for two weeks. It will also be the last exam of my degree, and I think I will miss uni. Not to worry though, because I am doing a part-time journo course online. I'm also doing a little internship, but as is often the case in journalism, it's probably not even going to cover the rent. It's been a little while since my last post - so I thought I'd put some photos up together with a little bit of writing (because writing is fun)...

Yesterday was Chinese New Year. For a Chinese-Australian living in Paris, it made me have a think about what it means to me. But then I know that I labour the point of being Chinese-Australian, to the point of being laborious. Or rather, as I would like to think about it, Australian-(Chinese), which reflects my identity more than the former. I had thought about writing a tribute to a list of Chinese Australians, but that's awfully self-centred. Rather, I think I'll share a little on black people. Africans. And also, the power of stereotyping. I think it's important, given the mob murders of at least two Sudanese refugees that I have mentioned in earlier installments.

There was that study back in 1987 by Reynolds, Chastain, Kaufman, & McLean on race and intelligence. Four races are listed, and their performances plotted on a graph:

Basically, in a long-winded, scientific way, the authors to tell us: blacks are stupid. Hispanics are nearly as stupid. Whites are smart. Asians are smarter. Of course, however, it was disguised in a whole lot of politically-correct, lacy packaging.

However, let's have a deeper think about this graph. It claims that intelligence is genetic and is related to race, and by implication, race is genetic (not sociological, which is the more mainstream scientific view). There is, however, one glaring error in this graph: the "Hispanic" race. "Hispanic" basically covers people the ancestry of whom originates in the Iberian peninsula: Spain and Portugal. And what race are they? Caucasian. WHITE.

I think this "scientific" graph goes to the heart of the sociological construct of races. Hispanics are considered another "race" for convenience, when in fact, the distinction is more cultural and ethnic. To take this argument even further, a large proportion of African-Americans are actually of mixed heritage; as in, they have significant (often over 50%) "white blood". So the test above isn't testing the correlation between "race" and "intelligence". It is testing the correlation between a social group and performance in an intelligence test.

Let's have a re-think about the categories used. Imagine if Reynolds & Co. had used "number of years spent at school" as the defining characteristic. Or "family wealth and intelligence". What kind of findings would we have gotten? "The working class is stupid" ? "Rich people are smart" ? People who spend more years at school are smarter? This last one should make my point obvious - because often, the number of years spent at school doesn't depend on intelligence. School is an expensive investment - and people from the poorest backgrounds are often the first to drop out of school. We come to a chicken-or-the-egg situation...

Sure, perhaps intelligence is partially inherited, somewhat. However, to think that "races" are genetically homogenous, and that some races are smarter than others is just cruel. I have had discussions with downright dumbasses who have tried to convince me that black people are intellectually retarded. And, as my mum is a researcher, I have had the opportunity to meet PhD students from Kenya and Zambia. A thought.

But I don't think I'm really done with this whole issue just yet. I think there is one last thing which I need to add before I'm satisfied that I've proven my point. And I will take it straight from the horse's mouth - the US census. In 2000, people of African background (of recent African immigration rather than slavery) had the highest rate of university education among all population groups. Am I suddenly contradicting myself regarding racial theories, and suddenly arguing that the Negroid race is superior? No, because I believe that this phenomenon possibly has sociological roots: Africans going to study in the United States tend to be from more wealthy, powerful backgrounds. By the same token, the working class is probably over-represented among Mexicans looking for work in the land of the free (the rich ones are happy where they are). Okay, I've over-simplified and made my point: I think races are sociological.

Why am I so obsessed with black people all of a sudden? A few things. There are a lot of them in France, (my flatmate is no exception), and this is in stark contrast to Australia, where there was a White Australia Policy operating not that long ago. It's also because I'm aware that I myself held these stereotypes, and I had to try to understand them. I have only met a handful of black people in my life; and all of them have been very different. And that's the problem with stereotypes - because stereotypes assume that such-and-such a race are all the same. How many black people have been denied an opportunity to become authors, poets, academics, because they have been assumed to be stupid, illiterate, not given the chance to have an education? What about the PhD student in Kenya who had 5 degrees (not counting graduate diplomas)? What kind of pre-conceptions would people have of him if he were to walk down an Australian street at night, the same kind of street that those two deceased Sudanese men walked down?

Photos from Strasbourg: