he woke up, wide screen wistful, staring at poignant clouds that had not moved an inch the last time he checked.

he ticked off a mental retinue of things to do, of habits to break.

he halted, guilelessly, in his tracks. where do i begin, he beseeched himself?

and he knew that he could not, he felt not, but, he would fly in calamity's face and he would try his level best.

for that ephemeral moment when they meet again.

At 7pm, the moment I found myself back in Djemaa al Fna, the food orgy truly and completely began, and this time, there was No Turning Back. My pocket considerably lightened, my stomach considerably heftier, I began the onerous task of Demolishing Everything in Clear Sight:


First up - the harira stall. The national soup of Morocco, full of vegetables, lamb, pulses and spices. And for only 3 DH...this could have stood alone as a meal.


Every guidebook was raving about this one. I just couldn't pass up the chance...so I went for it, and...sheep's eye is just...bleargh. 25 DH gets you a mix of pretty much everything.


The Moroccan version of French escargot, and for only 10 DH a bowl; a little hard to fish out with toothpicks, but very stringy and Very Nice.


Merguez, this is - and comes with drop-dead gorgeous chilli sauce as well. The Moroccan sausage will have you screaming for more, yes siree.


And how can one pass up a good old-fashioned Moroccan orange juice, 3 DH per glass, freshly squeezed - and with 20 stalls all roaring away at you, claiming theirs is the best, my policy was generally to pick the stall with the least people crowding it :)

And the last oddity - 10 stalls in a row, for some rather odd reason, all hawking...ginseng tea and chocolate gateux. One of the oddest juxtapositions I have ever seen, and one that seems to pass unnoticed by local and tourist alike.

For that matter, Moroccan mint tea is essentially Chinese tea with mint leaves in it. Go figure.

After that ungodly feast, with my stomach screaming bloody hell, it was, I believe, time to go for a little walk, where, horror upon horrors, I was NOT accosted by a SINGLE Marrakechi to buy something unnecessary. I walked around the darkest souks, chanced upon stalls selling, among others:

• Bra straps. Yes, that's all it sold. Replacement brastraps are apparently the Next Big Thing in world commerce.
  
• Misspelt Diesel T-shirts. And yes there were at least 15 of them in a row, all proudly displaying the same misspelling. Now that's what irks me about Moroccan souks - unlike in Camden or Portobello Market, London, where every stall at LEAST makes an effort to sell something different, here, a souk incorporates replicas of one base stall, with the occasional creative variation hidden amidst the Marrakitsch.
  
• Broken radio sets. Amateur radio fixers, your next convention shall be in Marrakech.
  

2 hours of wandering over, I headed back to my hostel, where the glorious people in reception actually AGREED to "take away" my buffet breakfast for the next morning. I would give them a hug if they weren't all clad in The Veil; to compensate, I chatted with the boss in their lobby, draped in fine Moroccan carpets, and chanced upon a copy of...

...How to Give your Wife the Best Time in Bed.

I sincerely hope the poor things at reception were NOT fluent in English.

And with that rather disturbing thought in mind, I collapsed in bed, halfway through Chapter Five of "Astonishing Splashes of Colour", a far more reasonable choice of reading material for a devout Muslim.

Waking up was...bloody cold, to say the least.

There were winds howling everywhere, snow was lashing the windows, and a light mist draped the summit of Toubkal and all its confederates.

With the condition, or lack thereof, of our boots, Kibery and I were NOT going anywhere beyond the refuge. Coupled with everyone's assertions that we would "freeze to our deaths without crampons", Kibery sauntered off to bed after a languid breakfast with the gung-ho Slovenians, while I retreated miserably into the living room to Read a Good Book - in this case, the Lonely Planet Morocco guide.

Two hours later, making out Kibery's shady figure in the hallway, I immediately marched over and told him there was no point staying on. He agreed, and once we had settled our dues, we started making our way down (half of) Toubkal.

The descent WOULD have been a little faster if I hadn't conveniently forgot I was completely immobile in snow without a little TLC; and with clouds fast descending, Kibery still had the common sense to remind me that cloud, here, does NOT mean rain, but, snow.

At that thought, I began slipping and sliding down a little faster; to Kibery's utter disbelief, and my horror, I found myself almost falling down a snowslope. He, then, figured out how EXACTLY to get me down without calling mountain rescue forces - the kick-step. With each step, you kick hard into the snow, making a little crevasse where you trap your feet, thus ensuring you do not fall and slip; this worked, and with that little trick, I was soon bounding down Toubkal's slopes.

I decided against bounding down too much, however, the moment the snow began. This time, it was oppressive. Snow lashing on your face, with a backpack full of junk you wish you hadn't bought earlier, can literally push you to the brink; many a time, I was just ready to cower under an outcrop, waiting for the snowstorm to subside. But pure common sense prevailed, i.e. the longer I stayed out here subject to nature's wrath, the more miserable I would be, and I trudged down, glumly, suddenly being able to emphatise with every camel, every mule, every pack animal that goes through this every day without complaint. Well, at least in a language intelligible to humanity.

At one point, we crossed the snowline again...and common sense insisted that the snow turned into rain. Funnily enough, at that point, we were both so inured to pain that we just began walking faster; even when the old guy at the marabout offered us a mint tea (and no, there are presumably no tourist scams to be had at Muslim holy sites), we decided to press on and make Imlil ASAP.

When we turned the corner, after descending the hill leading to the marabout, things changed. The sun peeked coyly from a hitherto unknown corner of the sky; the clouds dissolved at the wave of a wand; and the path became flat, even simple, again. And we knew that we had reached Ground Zero, the motorized track where village after village beckoned.

That, funnily enough, was when the leg pain began to set in.

Odd things happen when you complete a conquest; heck, even when you FEEL like you've completed. You start talking to the person next to you, you start talking to anything that looks, feels or moves like a person on the way. You start handing out chocolate bars to Berber kids you encounter (Kibery), you start talking to each other about your favourite bands (Slipknot and Sum 41) and movies (American action flicks). You start warming up to each other in a way physical infirmity and rank lethargy did not permit.

And you discover that Mr Kibery lives on the SAME road as your own hostel.

That was one of those marvelous moments of serendipity, when you know that, no matter what I had chosen to do, I would have met Kibery, anyhow, while pounding the streets of Marrakech for souvenirs.

We agreed to do a hammam (a Moroccan traditional bath cum massage) when we got back; and for 8 DH, it sounded like one of those unique experiences you only get to do when you know The Local. Indeed, as we feasted on NOT ANOTHER TAGINE in Imlil - in fact, the same flavour as the ones before, I was looking forward to examining the gleaming bodies of naked Moroccan men in the wild.

This time, our grand taxi trip down was a far simpler chore; with two little boys and lithe Kibery sharing wriggle room, I actually had more than one-quarter of the backseat to myself, allowing my tired feet to wriggle around a bit, especially with the prospect of a good afternoon Walking Marrakech to come.

The Hammam

Back in Marrakech, one hour later, in another Moroccan cloak-and-daggers moment, Kibery FIRST showed me where the hammam was; then we took separate paths back to our respective lodgings, and then retraced our steps, individually, to the hammam. In his own words, "there's a chance they might think we're faggots if a local goes with a foreigner to a hammam together." He warned me sternly that I was to "make friends from scratch" with him in the hammam; which wasn't so hard considering the complete dearth of anyone who didn't look Moroccan, have a fuzzy beard, and curly hair.

The moment I stepped in, I knew this was Serious Morocco.

There was not a single Roman character in sight. Everything was in Arabic, and the only thing I could read was, thankfully, the price. It resembles an extended public pool changing room in many ways; however, opening a door at the back of the changing area, you walk through 3 chambers, each resembling a sauna more and more, with the last one pretty much draped in water vapour everywhere you looked.

I was soon directed to one of many communal pails lounging around, and instructed to fill it by my Brand New Friend, Kibery; he then left me to my own devices while he got himself a 30 DH massage from someone who looked like he'd not left the sauna ever since it first opened for business. Alone yet not alone again, I washed myself up with soap I'd nicked from the hostel, then lay back and just enjoyed the ambiance of being in a public bath, everyone presumably gazing intently at my scrawny Asian features and smaller Secondary Organs...until, unfortunately, someone splashed water all over himself, and I realised, a little too late, that 8 hours worth of Marrakech dirt, sweat and pubic hair were on a collision course with my purportedly clean body.

Too late to miss the onslaught, I picked up my pail, heaved myself back to the taps again, winking at New Friend Kibery on my way there; and this time, I sat all alone, and never lay down on the ground. AGAIN.

As Kibery passed me on HIS way out, he whispered hurriedly to me that "it's time I left"; and, in the same vein of intrigue, I pretended not to have noticed him, then sauntered out of the building on my own, keeping a rather low profile, and failing terribly, as every other customer in the building noticed me, and presumably, put me on a hit list to scam once I had exited the hammam.

That done, we walked out, almost together, and started talking again, in guarded tones, outside. Somehow, my heart broke to see his freedom being curtailed that way; and to free him from the espionage plot he somehow had become part of, I told him I would go walk around Marrakech alone, to "see the sights in my last hour of daylight".

With a gift of a colour magazine detailing Malaysia in its natural splendour, and my email address (which will soon, I hope, be deluged by Toubkal pictures, lending this post a little more appeal!), we parted, and trust me, our paths will cross again.

I will even re-book the same hostel near his house, if he does not email me, just to say thank you, for all he did for me, the greenhorn snow climber. Without him, I would have, in no particular order, frozen, starved, and been scammed to death.

Thank you, Morocco, for your pockets of genuine hospitality.

Climbing a mountain is generally forbidden on fun, leisurely holidays; but nowhere in the script did they account for a certain Nicholas Pang. Operation Toubkal had been well-researched since the day I booked tickets; however, again, the script had not called for the handing over of boots to a certain greedy carpet-selling duo. In such circumstances, I had my doubts about making Toubkal; however, thanks to the preposterous amount of guidebooks (FIVE!) the Spanish-British couple had legally requisitioned from the Lewisham Library, London, I was, again, convinced that, despite my frail constitution and lack of exercise other than walking to medical school each day, Toubkal was assailable.

And with that, I made the simple choice of waking up early on Day Four, and heading out to the grand taxi stand for Imlil.

God was DEFINITELY watching over this sojourn of mine. First, he installed a Frenchman (who even LOOKED like the archtypical big, a-little-dunce-like Frenchmen in Jean de Florette) right where I alit my petit taxi, who immediately reduced the starting price. (Note to self: Always look out for dunce-like Frenchman in French-speaking hostile country, ditto for other colonial powers. Further note: Remember colonial powers of country one is travelling to.) With his jovial, a-little-too-much-to-drink banter, he was the darling of the dourest Arab taxi driver, and the traditional kinks in tourist pricing were ironed out effortlessly.

Next on God's List for Nicholas - a Moroccan guy slouched in a corner, who, bless the heavens, could speak English and was ALSO climbing Toubkal.

With that, my financial woes vanished in the blink of an eye. He didn't want a guide; neither did I. He needed company; so did I, presumably. And Kibery, wherever you are now in Marrakech, you are one of those angels from above who will constantly reassure me that God is watching over me, even during my most destitute moments.

Squashed between Kibery and the gearbox, said taxi zipped off to Imlil, the village at the foothills, which was presumably a little like Kundasang, that cowboy town where every Kinabalu Park need is addressed, save a proper Chinese meal.

It was.

One street, about 50 taxi drivers all desperate to get out of there, 30 mules all patiently waiting for their next load, and...every single shop, devoted to milking as much money out of unprepared climbers as possible. This prepared-turned-failed climber had to rent boots for 2 days (120 DH), which was a PRETTY sweet deal until two Slovenian boys at the halfway refuge told me these boots would not take crampons.

Which shall be the subject of my subsequent rant. Apparently, crampons:



are VITAL for climbing in snowcapped mountains, simply because walking in pack ice with a pair of fairly slippery boots just won't do, unless you have ten hours on your hands to inch forward and annoy everyone behind you. Thus my annoyance that the boot dealer did NOT inform me Toubkal still needed crampons, despite the fact it was April (late spring); I would have gladly rented them, if paying that extra 100 DH would get me to the peak of Toubkal.

But those crampons were never to be, and the boots he rented me were crampon-unfriendly anyhow; thus there went my assault on Toubkal.

On the OTHER hand, Kibery was one lifesaver, OH MY GOD. Among other things, he happily supplied me:

• Dates and raisins for The Munch
  
• Sleeping bag
  
• Winter jacket (EVERYONE knows what happened to the other one)
  
• Saved me a guide and a mule, which I WOULD have done
  
• Haggled the price of the boots down
  

And he was...sweet. He bought me an orange juice from what was decidedly the oddest orange juice stall I have EVER seen, or will ever see - perched 2500m above sea level, it simply begs the question: where DO them oranges come from? A rather nifty contraption was also employed; with an upward-spraying hose, he aimed cold spring water at bottles of Coke and juice tucked under a rocky overhang, effectively turning it into a fridge. It was one of those prize-winning moments where you knew that a picture would have certainly worked far better than the proverbial thousand words, of which I am already in danger of overshooting.

No bother; I just followed Kibery up, and up, and up. Toubkal has no flat ground, so to speak - it is just one continuous uphill straggle, which, for the rational ones amongst my readers, of which there cannot be many, translates into Joy at a Shorter Journey. When you are gasping due to oxygen deprivation, however, Joy and Rationality are but farflung concepts in the recesses of the mind.

The recesses of the mind had a lot to say about the view, though; thanks to Kibery's enlightened policy of stopping every hour, I had a fairly good idea how far we had travelled, and can chronicle this climb by time.

FIRST HOUR

Setting out from Imlil, we were reduced to asking for directions - and this is the part where you just want to hug Kibery for just...being there, and speaking the 3 languages I couldn't but needed most - in lieu of a guide. A quick uphill set of steps were soon replaced by a trek on a dirt path that had definitely seen vehicular infiltration. Shrugging aside the thought that rich young party types in Mercedeses probably did the "trek" every weekend for unbeatable mountaintop rave party sites, we plodded on, and soon left the last village behind, fording a stream that had clearly seen better days.

On the other side, Toubkal dan gunung-gunung yang sewaktu dengannya loomed large; and we knew that every step from now on would be one of defiance, of defiance for our collective lack of footwear, specialist equipment (oh, how we envied the suave British trekkers behind us with actual snow poles), and, arguably, money. This hour was soon over, as Kibery and I huddled beneath an, uh, tree (what citizens of any other nation would probably disparagingly dismiss as a shrub).

SECOND HOUR

This part of the climb was certainly driven by male ego; the Old Lady and her Daughter in her Pretty Party Clothes actually overtaking us, two (okay, at least one) lithe young men in the prime of our manhood, clinched it. Seized by innumerable fears of losing face, we hastened our steps a little, and soon left the foothills of Imlil behind. With Toubkal looming larger and larger ahead, we soon realised we were THAT close to the snowline, and THAT close to seeing how our flimsy footwear fared under that litmus test.

Up, up and away, driven by The Man Within; we left grassy slopes behind for more rocky outcrops, and wound our way, languidly, round peaks that, once claimed as one's own, gave way to bigger climbs. Each step was already beginning to take its toll on my lungs; it was to our relief that we spotted the marabout of Sidi Chamarouch - a holy site only accessible to Muslims. As we spotted, from afar, the women entering it, we heaved a collective sigh of relief; now we could proceed at our own pace.

"Our own pace", unfortunately, was a rather poor stab at speed; though we were already leaving the rock fronts behind, and the snow loomed large, my lungs weren't taking too kindly to the constant up, up and away of the trek. Kibery gazed back, almost longingly, every 5 minutes or so; perhaps hoping he had not encountered me this morning? Anyhow, he stayed true to my cause, feeding me a constant diet of dates, cheese, raisins, to prevent me from completely keeling over in pain.

The marabout was the turning point; after that, everything just began getting more painful, and my legs were like deadwood at that point. Dragging them forward in itself was excruciatingly painful; keeping them on the ground was an equally mournful process, as my boots just felt too loose, and they refused to stay in the same place any longer than gravity rendered necessary. The views were gorgeous, no doubt, but my body was nowhere near keeping up, and this hour was simply miserable.

THIRD HOUR

This hour was mercifully short; somehow, the knowledge that we were inching closer and closer to the snowline kept me going like a drug divine. Pretty uneventful, this leg featured a significantly sluggish Nicholas, slowing Kibery down every step of the way, and it's a wonder he didn't just leave me to the vultures. This leg was where said magical orange juice was quaffed, and it really put me back on the straight and narrow.

FOURTH HOUR

The view stayed the same all through Hour 3 and 4, possibly because I was simply inching forward so slowly. On the bright side, we were definitely covering vast swathes of altitude; each time we looped round a slope, we were rewarded by the sight of what we had left behind. These two hours, we trekked alongside a deep gorge where a swift river ran; presumably, the melting snow on the peak was keeping it up to speed, and it soon assumed the stature of a fairly calming refrain accompanying our ascent.

Close to the end of Hour 4, with picture-perfect bad timing, we spotted the damn refuge.

Obviously none of us had read the guidebooks that advised "you will see the refuge at 3100m at least an hour before arriving there."

Deluded by a heady mixture of both the thin mountain air and the thought of a Soft Place to Rest One's Behind, I was now the Pushy One, egging Kibery to make haste, for it was "not too far away" (the English word "near" apparently doesn't translate too well directly into French; thus I had to scream "not far now" instead, potentially draining valuable vats of energy reserves.) This time, he had to continually ask me whether I wanted a break; perhaps he had read the guidebook. Perhaps I was too idealistic in daring to climb a snow-capped peak on my 1st try.

FIFTH HOUR

As noted, due to the Lack of a Break in the interregnum between Hours 4 and 5, the sight of the bloody refuge kept us going; in my case, in an almost-do-or-die fashion. The higher we climbed, the more of the snowline we saw; Kibery and I were already dreading the moment we set our boots to the test.

The first time, I...almost slipped off and fell a few hundred metres.

Not good karma for someone whose stated aim in coming to this particular snow-capped peak was to climb it.

For Kibery, funnily enough it was his FIRST encounter with snow, ever, and he was adapting fairly well, traipsing around fairly familiarly. Not me, the slit-eyed Asian; I was slipping, sliding and generally struggling to not take one step forward without sliding two steps backward, when good old Kibery, Allah?God bless him, finally took hold of my hand, and guided me up most of the snowslopes.

The moment I let go of his hand, to begin walking by myself again, I cramped. On the right foot. Kibery, at that point, was possibly contemplating pushing me into the gorge, but he came over, and wordlessly yanked at my leg till good times returned. Continuing the trek, this part of the journey was more distinctly rocky, and there was water everywhere, one assumes, from the melting of the snow on the upper reaches.

Too tired to even bend down to lap up the life-giving water, I just trudged, on and on, wondering idly why the bloody refuge seemed to be getting no closer.

And to my utter chagrin, 100 METRES from the entrance to the refuge, my other ankle gave way, and this time, I just stood there, yelling (and potentially precipitating an avalanche), as Kibery, from the front, and five buff British boys, from behind, dashed up to debrief the damsel. This time, I was cringing, as British Boy showed me how poorly laced my boots were, and literally told me off, as I was inclined on the snow, for walking up so far with boots that had, for all intents and purposes, hung off my feet as extra weight all the way.

Once the boots were well-laced, the climb was a cinch, and I slipped, slid, and careered my way to the refuge, this time with a tad more confidence than before, and a little less bravado.

Setting down my backpack in the refuge was another of the high points of this trip. I had made it thus far, and, unbeknownst to myself, would not be able to go any further from then on.

Ze Refuge

Operated by the French Alpine Club of Casablanca, it domineers over the "new" guesthouse, a little wooden cabin right beneath the mother lode. The main refuge is legendary amongst Toubkal climbers, not least for its 50 DH dinners, featuring a hefty dose of tajine, lentil soup, bread, and unfettered quantities of mint tea, all intended to Put You to Sleep Fast so everyone would be bright and bushy-eyed for the next day's climb.

Ze Refuge has TWIN double-decker beds (couples, take note!) with absolutely no insulation or heating; the sleeping bag is thus crucial. Also, the toilets are underground, and hot showers are 10 DH each (money well paid, I reckon.) Beds are 96 DH per night, a steal considering a night in a Marrakech youth hostel is apparently more expensive, while food can be bought off the tuckshop for prices roughly double those at base camp, a good deal nonetheless if you consider how many mules would have rather leapt to their death than carry chocolate up for demanding tourists:


The tuckshop with all its Western delights

Ze Refuge is also home to the most interesting company you can possibly find.

Anyone who has 1) made it thus far to Morocco, and 2) bothered to research and climb Toubkal, can only be eccentric, or terribly fit. Today's bunch were two Slovenian medical students; one already graduated and working, the other 1 month from graduating, who, between them, spoke 10 languages. The graduate spoke all the Southern European ones, the almost-graduate everything north of Germany; such lucky people, to have found travel partners truly complementary in this particular way.

On the same wavelength, we had a British IT grad, who was terribly uninterested in being the best IT technician in the schooling world, and was (understandably) more interested in using his salary to pick up various outdoor qualifications so that when opportunity knocked, he would have an entire set of keys with which to open relevant doors. He was another fun guy to talk to, and if they DO respond to my little letter, sneaked into their Lonely Planet guidebook while they were out taming Toubkal the next morning, I assure you, these are friends I will truly cherish forever.

We had a wonderful late-nighter, in between bites and sips of mint tea, we had a rather fascinating Chinese-whispers conversation. Kibery would speak French to the graduate; the almost-graduate would stare at them and somehow get the gist of their conversation despite his lack of French knowledge; then he would translate to me and the Englishman, who had absolutely no idea. And when a reply was necessary, the entire loop would reverse itself.

We dozed off, respectively, at 10pm, tired out, possibly, by the number of translations we'd all had to do in a night.

Woke up twice in the middle of the night, and am slowly beginning to realise the powerful diuretic effects of mint tea. Taking a leak in the desert is in itself a rather disturbing experience; you have to contend with shadows darting from side to side, the braying of a rather disturbed camel, which I was expecting to follow me out any time soon to lap up my urine, and of course, the thought that, everytime i unzipped, Berber men were laughing uncontrollably in their tent.

After the second awakening, I told myself sternly, enough was enough; the desert chill played a huge role in convincing me to move into the tent to sleep.

...Which I blame squarely for missing the sunrise the next day. FAREWELL PHOTO OPS.

The disappointment was well and truly assuaged, however, when I got back to Kasbah Tomboctou, after another backbreaking 2-hour camel ride - this time with the camelman taking a leak of his own in the desert, with the camel swiveling around to gaze sagely at its owner, and myself trying my best to bow my head in embarrassment - and encountered The Buffet Breakfast.

I LOVE MOROCCAN BUFFET BREAKFASTS.

The Kasbah essentially is a typical three-star hotel with a camel-trekking division - the camel trekkers however DO end up eating the same food as the high-flyers. THANK GOD.


Some of this flatbread, stuffed with amazing slabs of cheese and (halal) ham...


The AMAZING mlawi, the closest you can get to roti canai in Morocco - and uncannily similar too!


A LITTLE different, the msemmen; this one is a little more like naan


Moroccan pancakes, the beghrir; a little like roti jala but squashed flat. Best eaten with honey, which I did. SO MANY times.

And the piece de la resistance...the bakery/patisserie section, which effectively absolved me from all Moroccan bakeries for the rest of my life:


Amazing, simply amazing. Morocco has seriously combined the best of French, Arabic and Berber food.

And with that, my day, literally, ended. Well, of course, there remained the fairly unsettling issue of how I was to get out of Merzouga to Marrakech, some 500 km away; but there's nothing a little politeness has not been able to resolve, and this time, salvation was in the hands of a Spanish-British couple, who were only to keen to have me on board.

200 km and 4 hours of speed-driving later, through an alternative route which did NOT repeat any of yesterday's travails, we ended up in Agdz, a little town which is apparently more reputed for its view than anything. That was where my journey with them ended; with another 50km to Ouarzazate, the aforementioned provincial capital, I needed a taxi, and urgently.

Unfortunately, the taxi stand; nay, the TOWN, seemed devoid of human settlement. This called for urgent reinforcements - in this case, hitchhiking in a local gas station. After my message was passed on to the gas station owners, a little truck offered to take me there. Staring at the emptied chicken cages loaded on the back, I took a deep breath, and said "I do."

Now THIS ride was just...phenomenal. To loud, screeching Arab music, he jabbered away on the phone with one hand, while I, squashed between the gearbox and his adult son, attempted to hang on to said son for dear life. As we whipped our way through one of the most glorious mountain passes in all Morocco, the Tizi-et-Tichka, he overtook enough heavy lorries to send one's blood pressure reeling:


And NO WAY was I travelling that high up.


The view from the road we were on, steep fall included in the price

In half an hour, we were in Ouarzazate, and I had had at least five minor heart attacks. Taking a taxi to the bus station cost 40 DH; exactly the same as if I had just opted for the sane taxi driver from Agdz. But then again, my travels generally function on the "grandchildren principle" - if it doesn't yield a story worth telling them, then don't do it. The bus from Ouarz to Marrakech was clinical; a 5-hour journey for 70 DH, and a 2-hour wait for it to depart at that.

And this is where I discovered what possibly is the cheapest tajine in all Morocco, and in this price we include school cafeterias, prison mess halls, and old age homes. The moment I attempted to leave a shop after spending one hour on a mint tea, the old man in charge immediately offered me the following:

...25 DH (THAT IS LESS THAN 2 POUNDS just in case you were wondering!) and one hour later, I was the happiest man in the world, at that one magical moment.

I had found the cheapest tagine in all Morocco.

And with that, even the hustlers on the bus, the one-hour late departure, and the six-year-old hustlers BACK in Marrakech, who tried to cheat me out of 100 DH just for showing me to my hostel at 12am, faded into obscurity, as I had a good night's rest, ready for the following morning's 6am departure to Imlil, the base of Jeleb Toubkal, 3rd highest peak in Africa.

At this point, I was well and truly stuck in a part of Africa that begged caution; behind said dunes was Algeria, where a nasty bloodbath had happened barely 10 years ago, and the Moroccan-Algeria border was still closed, to the consternation of passport-punchers like me. Still, as the mineral water truck drew close to Hassanbied, where the Kasbah Timboctou was, I was already starting to dream of a soft, undulating camel ride.

Those dreams were, naturally, rudely interrupted, as always happens in Africa, by the mineral water driver setting me down on the road, pointing vaguely into the distance, and telling me to "walk in myself or you will be charged 100 DH."

And thus, I racked up another dubious achievement - walking THROUGH the desert, at least 2km, to the front entrance of the Kasbah, with its canoodling camels (two camels mouth-to-mouth forming an archway over the entrance. Shocking!) and immaculate Berber costumes...I hopped onto my camel, and...bleargh.

Camels have this rather terrifying habit of getting up with a start, and this one, I think, had never "taken anything so small on its back before" (a Japanese tourist at that!). As it reared back, I was almost thrown off the camel, but recovered in time to set out. And what a bloody RIDE it was.

I think camel riding is like having sex. (Not that I'd know :)

It's...2 hours of being shook up and down, rather gently...and camels REALLY are worth their weight in gold. As we trekked through the desert, come high dune or sudden steep precipice, my camel just took it in his stride, following his camelman meekly, and in no way did I ever feel gravity's generally all-pervasive powers; allowing me to concentrate on a few truths that become self-evident in deserts.

1. The skies are FAR bluer.
Having no clouds, no moisture, no...nothing to refract sunlight certainly makes for a completely ethereal experience. The skies are the actual shade of light blue kids paint watercolours in; juxtaposed with the utter desolation of the desert, and the lack of anything green, it's just ephemeral, how two contrasting colours suffice to paint serenity in all its hues.

2. Deserts are hot. Thank God for turbans.
It didn't feel so bad now, that I had...not one, but TWO, turbans; I now understand why women in Arab countries DO wear their headscarves. It's no longer about religion, but about necessity; without it, the sunlight could be a Very Dangerous Thing Indeed.

Formulation of any additional truisms was prevented by the fact that I was utterly hungry at that point, the two previous scams leaving me with no time for food. Oh well, there was the promised khaliyah at the campsite dinner to look forward to:



Two hours on a camel IS tiring, unfortunately. Especially when you are prevented from drinking water by the fact that I left my mineral water bottle, ironically, in the mineral water truck. After sitting by the mint tea pot and clearing it out in 10 minutes, giving in to temptation, I picked up a 15 DH mineral water bottle at the campsite, and literally drained it in another 10 minutes.

The campsite was at least 20 sand dunes away from civilization; on one side, Algeria beckoned, on the other, one of the highest sand dunes in Erg Chebbi kept the dreaded sandstorms at bay. I climbed said dune, trying to make it for sunset. Clad in slippers, I naturally failed miserably; but from my vantage point halfway to the top, an amazing riot of colours...just took my breath away.

After sunset, I hung out with the Berber kids, sandboarding down dunes on converted skateboards. Learning how to laugh at each other's antics, despite the lack of a common language, really teaches you that humanity is worth far more than the pastel shades stereotypes commonly render the world in. Surprised at how many Japanese words a random Berber man knew, I discovered, via a protracted body-language conversation, that Japanese regularly traversed this very part of Morocco, in the Paris-Dakar Rally, and in his words, they "liked taking photos."

Some stereotypes simply whizz through international borders effortlessly, don't they?

While the other tourists were, presumably, holed up in their tents, I sauntered into the Berber makeshift tent kitchen to watch them cook slash beg for food; they soon picked up on the latter and started feeding me bread, to my amazement; then they asked me to stay with them for dinner.

That, above all, was one of the defining moments of the journey - being invited into the Berber inner circle for a meal.

And we had more of that fried chicken, and the Berber khaliyah as described above, and this amazing salad with basmati rice:



Oh, and more mint tea, anyone?

And with that, I decided I was full enough to sleep; but my route to the tent was suspended, somewhat, by stars, more stars than I had ever seen before. Every corner of the sky, there were stars; there was less night sky than stars; one cannot die before seeing the stars in the desert, where there is no vapour, no clouds, no nothing between you and the heavens.

And with the tent fairly close range, I decided I would sleep under the stars, and dragged a few blankets out onto a mat, and curled up on the ground, and fell asleep immediately, bathed in an astronomer's dream.

Woke up horribly early; lay in bed and thought of matters of the heart.

Then I straggled out, and headed down to a nearby cybercafe, where all my thoughts were rewarded, at least for the good 10 minutes that the connection survived.

All hail Moroccan Internet and handphone penetration rates; apparently, even deep into thick desert, my phone reception was still perfect, and had been over the past day.

Today's plan - take 1000 DH camel tour into desert, and sleep under the stars.

Part One, however, was altered a LITTLE slightly after I ventured out to hunt for breakfast. After walking around town for a good half-hour, chomping miserably on my 1 DH two-for-one pastry, in a little street - AND I KID YOU NOT - the guy next to me at the pastry shop suddenly tapped me on the shoulder.

"Hello there, my friend." (Words that made me wince, even though I had only been here all of 24 hours). "You know that desert tour. How much he sold it for?"

"1000 DH? He is lying to you. He is cheating you. You go Merzouga, you get 350 DH maximum. You go get money back from him when he pick you up."

Notice that at this point I was virtually on the verge of a mental breakdown. First, I had been ripped off (already!) of 650 DH; and I'd already paid him 500 DH deposit the night before. Then, this guy shows up and tells me to confront him. Anyone who knows me will know that my gift of gab has developed over the years simply because I actively avoid confrontation, preferring to talk my way out of problems.

With Hicham, my "friend", possibly only fluent in French, Arabic, and tourist-scam English, my odds of getting out of this particular fix weren't looking too good.

Secondly, of course, WHY/HOW THE HELL had this guy followed me around town for half an hour before tapping my shoulder in a back alley, where presumably, Hicham would not be able to spot his subterfuge? Morocco was already becoming fairly cloak and daggers, and I was on the verge of pulling the plug and just going along with 1000 DH.

But Mr Nice Guy told me, No. Threaten him with the police.

Going out to buy toilet paper (70 DH per night - you get what you pay for), which, apparently in Morocco is RED in colour (the same colour as all the buildings, I couldn't help but notice), I bumped into Hicham on the way back.

My expression immediately altered, and the jovial, albeit a tad hungry, boy of last night, was no more.

This time, I meant business. I sternly told him that he had "betrayed my trust" and "lied to me" and I had "checked on the Internet" and found out it was 350 DH. And I wanted my money back. (Notice how non-confrontational I still was at that point - never did I unveil the "or else.") And trust me, I was quivering ALL the way inside - what if he had a knife? A gun, like everyone in the Middle East seemed to? A Mafia contact?

He immediately gave up the fight; I think he knew best than to mess with a (pseudo)outraged Japanese tourist with a Konica. He handed over 340 DH, and then, uttered THE dreaded words.

"Sorry sir, I already spent 160 DH last night. Buy food for my children."

No sob stories this time, I sternly admonished him. Give me my money back. (Still no "or else." I really, honestly didn't want to put him through any hardship...I guess I AM too nice, even to criminals.) And, avoiding eye contact with him (and at many parts of the day I felt like a girl brushing a disliked suitor off), and shooting him dirty, condescending stares at intervals, he just...wilted. And the tension was palpable, it was moist in the air like a thin smog, but all I wanted was my money back.

So I spent the next 3 hours, traipsing with him around town, as he begged, borrowed, and presumably conned, 160 DH to pay my debt. But he could only work up 100 DH.

And thus, the exciting part. For part-payment of my debt, he handed over a brand new red turban, and I paid him 40 DH to cover the costs.

Thank you, Hicham. Now I have a turban I will never use out of costume parties.

Naturally, he tried to rip me off one last time; manhandling me as I adamantly said "I DO NOT want another tour from you", he convinced me he could sell me a tour for 350 DH to the desert in "a really nice place", Kasbah Timboctou. (And it DID look pretty glam, so I sold my soul to the devil, again, for 5 DH - the money he demanded for the phone call there. Pfft.)

So, at 11am, I was finally on a grand taxi (shared long-distance taxi), zipping off to Rissani, a small town near - enough! - to Merzouga, where The Desert Truly Begins.

Arriving at London Luton airport the night before, I decided that obsessive-compulsive health and safety regulations ensured British airport floors were cleaned far too often, and plumped for a spot beside the Burger King entrance, the underlying logic being it HAD to open at 6am, which was when my flight was departing. Technically, as I would be obstructing the entrance, there was no way I was getting the sleep-in I didn't want.

Obviously, Murphy thought differently; I was woken up every hour, at least, by the sudden gusts of cold wind that generally accompany the use of automatic doors, and the corresponding set of idiots who take pleasure in activating their sensors in lieu of, say, getting a good night's rest on an airport floor. Coupled with the fact that my winter jacket, which would have kept me warm (and would not continue doing so for long - but that's another freak tale!) , was doubling up as groundsheet this time, the warmth of Morocco was getting more and more appealing by the minute.

I woke up when the plane was taxiing down the Marrakech runway; 3 hours on a plane and a novel nowhere near completion of Chapter 1.

First Impressions - What, No Sand?

It was GREEN. Granted, nowhere near as lush as landing in KLIA (which, after all, was carved out of palm plantations), but still...the romanticised image of taxiing down a desert in the Sahara was slowly supplanted by the stone-and-bits-of-hardy-plant scene I would soon be accustomed to by the end of it all.

And the buildings. They are ALL the same shade of red. Google Marrakech; nay, google Morocco, for good measure, and only one shade of building colour seems to materialise. Oddly enough, it bears a keen resemblance to the garish red hue Malaysian schools are slowly being repainted in by overzealous government officials; collusion, anyone?

And no, there are no camels ferrying itinerant tourists from aircraft to terminal, in lieu of airport buses. Apparently in most of Africa, it would be a mule that was up to the task. (And, unless our previous desert landing scenario is right, a camel would certainly falter on any surface other than sand; having ridden one for 4 hours, I think I empathise with its predicament)

At this point, I must add that mules are AMAZINGLY adorable, and if my children are to ever have a nice, life-sized animal at home, A MULE IT IS! They are pretty much the ONLY animal in the whole kingdom that still remain cute after growing to full size; those of you that argue the case of orang-utans have obviously only seen tourist (read: baby) pictures before.

But we digress; it is time to head out to Marrakech, and also to purchase a local SIM card; a tradition accompanying every international holiday for reasons best known to the best of you! And before that, of course, money changing; the Moroccan dirham (15 DH per pound, 10 per euro) is a restricted currency, and you cannot exchange it anywhere else but in Morocco. This, naturally, gave rise to fears of the Expensive Airport Moneychanger Scam; and I picked up just enough dirham to get that SIM card, and to catch the bus in town, which, shockingly, had air-con AND plush leather seats AND was driven at speeds not reminiscent of rally cars.

The moment I arrived in Marrakech, however, everything changed.

Marrakech city centre was Africa at its best and boldest. With cars whizzing down every possible lane, a potent cacophany of motorbikes, bicycles, and horse-drawn carriages attempting to squeeze in between all motorized transport, pedestrians have a most miserable time here. Crossing the road seems to involve weaving your way through the traffic, hoping and praying the cars whose paths you have to cross have the decency, or the respect for human life, to at least screech to a halt for you, failing which, it would dodge quickly in front of you so at least it did not hit you. The locals seemed pretty accomplished at achieving the former; no siree, not for me - I think wearing a turban while crossing the road in the future would be advisable.

On the bright side, I crossed said road with a fellow British tourist, and we somehow managed to weasel our way through the deadly traffic, and into a petit taxi (small 4-seater car only operating in towns), where we were immediately overcharged (70 DH) for a 5-minute ride to. The. Bus. Station.

For 50 DH - which is exactly how much My Friend demanded from me after all the help - this place is a (decidedly seedy) tourist attraction in its own class. The moment we were ejected from the petit taxi, five unsavoury-looking characters, all with bandages on various exciting body parts, literally swarmed round us, all claiming to be Our Friend (a theme which would repeat itself every time I got off any form of public transport, to my chagrin). We picked the guy who had a bandage around his hand; at least he couldn't hurt us too much, with 1 out of 4 limbs temporarily out of commission, and wearily stragged into the terminal after him, as everyone, and I MEAN all-200-people-there-everyone, tried to hawk us something.

Be it bus tickets, cigarettes, chewing gum, alcohol (and just when I was starting to believe this was a strict Muslim country!), or a whole series of soft drinks that looked decidedly capitalist-American, EVERYONE in Morocco either wanted to sell you something, or before you had a choice, was already hanging it around your neck (as is the case of the snake-charmers in Djema al Fna, the main square of Marrakech, which can be a rather upsetting experience, whether you have a phobia of creepy-crawlies, or of unnecessarily losing 200 DH).

Top tip - NEVER, EVER talk to ANYONE in Morocco unless you're sure you need his services/product/kitsch tourist souvenir. You will be rewarded with a rather full wallet at the end of it. When hasslers scream at you, just lower your head, look as if you don't comprehend English (or in my case, Japanese - 1 out of 2 hustlers yelled "konnichiwa" at me, and I had to resist the urge to turn my head back in recognition). THIS hustler got his 50 DH, but at least he helped me get the rest of my money changed - and to my utter disbelief, the exchange rates at the airport ARE better than those in town. Turns out the strict currency controls meant that the supply of pounds was, paradoxically, higher at the airport than at random banks in the city centre, thus driving exchange rates down a little. One of those rare situations where theoretical economics ACTUALLY worked out.

Still, by 10am, I was on said bus, with 50 other locals, wondering, miserably, how I was going to survive a reputedly 10-hour journey on a clinker with no aircon, no inhouse movie, and little boys dashing on board trying to hawk junk food to me and only me, the lucrative Japanese tourist.

******

2 hours into said horror journey, I was, literally, awakened with a jolt by the most AMAZING sight you could ever see. (images.google.com photos will have to suffice before my disposable camera photos are developed - YES I don't have a functioning digicam)



Yes, that WAS the route we were on, with the bus teetering precipitously to the edge all the way. He MUST believe in God. Or.

Mid-mountain pass, just when you were under the impression that humanity could not be more punishing to its mountain-dwellers, there materialised a town, literally hanging off the ledges, and the bus...stopped.

The moment I got off the bus, I asked for the toilet, and I suddenly realised I had made my first "friend", one of many whose "friendship" bills began looming.

My "friend" took me to his friend's tajine stall, where I had something that looked exactly like this:



...And only paying 60DH for it, I was starting to fall in love with Moroccan food, or at least, its prices.

Of course, later, payback ensued - the first sign of a concomitant purchase was when he waved off the shopkeeper when I tried to pay him for the meal, explaining "we can pay in one go later." Point taken - purchase required. At his Berber Trinket Stall, the first of at least a few million identical ones in the country, I paid 90 DH for a Berber ring, and quickly slunk back to the bus.

The breathtaking views of the Tiz-al-Tichka mountain pass, at 2800m easily higher than any point in either West Malaysia or the UK, more than made up for the remaining 5 hours, in stony silence, till the bus pulled into Ouarzazate, a desolate French border outpost built in the 1920s and looking exactly that - boring.



A 5-minute stop here ejected ALL the Western tourists on board, leaving me, the gullible camera-toting Japanese, bare for the world to scam.

But scam they did NOT - after a Moroccan guy directed me to the bus driver, where, it transpired, my phone had fallen out of my pocket, he literally began "practising his high school English on me", and I started finding out exactly how crucial body language and jabbings into thin air would be over the next few days. His friend, dressed suspiciously in a Broadway-esque white suit and white bowler hat, had more luck, and excitedly reminded me about all the sights I was missing by staying on the bus. (Yes, sir, I will come back next time, with girlfriend and car in tow.)

With the two of them, me speaking no French or Arabic, and both of them certainly having the English command of a primary school child, we still had a rather animated 4-hour conversation, punctuated by the breathtaking sights all the way:



At one point, we finally got tired of talking to each other, I think; in the small town of Tinerhir, a "friend", once again, attempted to fill the gap by hawking me a 2000 DH direct package tour of the desert. After shooing him away from my aisle with repeated assurances that "I will think about it", Mr Bowler Hat gave me a disgusted look, and I knew all bets were off.

Mr Bowler Hat alighted 30 minutes later, leaving me feeling completely alone for the first time in my entire trip.

I guess that was how I managed to fall for the next scam; straight off the bus in Er-Rachidia 6 hours later (and it was already 9pm - I had spent my first day in exciting Morocco twiddling my thumbs on a bus!), a rather suave young man speaking good English started being "my friend", and this time, I actually successfully walked away, until he literally CAUGHT up with me, blocked my way, and shook my hand, reassuring me "yes I will find you cheap accommodation." At that point, I just caved into the exhaustion and let him.

He took me to a 70 DH hotel, which, as I am fond of pointing out to people, was cheaper than every single souvenir I bought; disgusting indeed. After that, he took me out for dinner, a 35 DH feast of Berber chicken:



And of course, the obligatory mint tea, with which, I happily fell asleep.

...Michelle called at 12am! And a gift is winging its way! THANK YOU DARLING!

...Hizami showed up at my doorstep. TODAY. And will be spending THE WHOLE DAY in Newcastle, going back to Oxford tonight at 11.45pm. OMG. I AM AMAZED BEYOND WORDS.

...Brandon called me from Malaysia

...A random guy in the medical school suddenly stopped me and wished me happy birthday.

...A certain Daphne gave me a hug :)

...An email materialised in my inbox from my pet mother :)

...And it's only 12pm :P

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR MAKING MY BIRTHDAY A GOOD ONE!

Happy Valentine's Day, dear!

Have a good day and take care of that sneezy feeling!