Goes Into the Heart of Darkness, Comes Out With This Lousy Tee-Shirt

Cambodia June 22-July 4, 1995



Heart Of Darkness Tee Shirt

Cambodia was not ever on the itinerary for this trip, or even remotely inside my head of list of places to see before I died (or got a real job). How it came about was random. I had met a Swedish woman at a guesthouse in Bangkok, which is like ground zero for budget travelers doing South East Asia, who'd just come back from doing a UN Mission in Phnom Penh, teaching English. Cambodia at this time was just starting to come out of the hellish fog that had descended in the 1970's when Pol Pot took control of the country and executed his murderous Communist social experiment which I will not get into here. But suffice to say, by summer of 1995, it was considered OK to travel to Phnom Penh and the ruins of Siem Reap only. Swedish woman's rationale for me going to Cambodia instead of heading south to Singapore/ Malaysia/ Indonesia which was on the itinerary was that it had just "opened up" and was not yet not overrun with tourists, backpackers/ travelers and the like.

Because if there's anything a backpacker in Asia loves to hate it's other tourists and backpackers which at the same time he/she cannot seem to get enough of....”Bali will always be Bali,” Swedish woman said, “but Phnom Penh will be like "this" only for a little while.” So what the hell, I said, I'll check it out.

The Thai /Cambodia border was still closed and parts of the country were still controlled by the Khmer Rouge, but again, if you stayed in Phnom Penh and traveled only to the ruins via boat on  Tonle Sap Lake, that was considered ok (no airport in Siem Reap as there is now). As soon as I got there, someone broke the news to me that the previous summer several Western backpackers had been captured, held hostage and then murdered in Cambodia, from a train right out of Phnom Penh, but they'd strayed from "the Zones." I guess. It’s not like there’s warning signs, like for the landmines…. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/melbourne-man-david-wilson-was-captured-and-taken-hostage-for-us50000-by-a-khmer-rouge-warlord-in-cambodia/story-fni0ffnk-1226872586332 Just now, in my limitless ability to research any topic within 30 seconds, I read about an American woman who was killed by the Khmer Rouge in January of 1995 at Angkor Wat along with her guide. Ignorance is bliss, and I am not sure that I would have gone, if I’d had all the facts…or even any of the facts…

It became immediately obvious upon arrival that Phnom Penh and its inhabitants and likely the all the people of Cambodia were suffering acutely from some collective form of post traumatic stress disorder. I can't exactly describe it, but it was weird. The sidewalks of the streets were just lined with men sleeping in hammocks; and doing other business such as dentistry and food selling from their hammocks. There were of course the glistening "post recovery" palaces and portraits of King Sihanouk who had somehow "regained" power and even a 5 star hotel, the Cambodiana, which was virtually empty ( I paid $4 to swim there on my last day in Cambodia, that's how I know), but there was just a fog is all I can say. Like people were going through the motions of living and existing but not quite really “present.” In the markets, no-one cared if you bought anything or not, kids kind of listlessly shuffled around in the dirt, there was none of the energy that you would find in the streets of Bangkok or Mumbai or Chennai.

There were very few guesthouses; I think I had a choice of three, which is how I met every single other backpacker in Cambodia at the time within 24 hours and there were maybe like 20. Some of them I would run into for the next two months not only in Cambodia but also throughout Vietnam, which is where this new itinerary would lead. In fact, when I boarded the plane from Bangkok to Phnom Penh, it would be the last time on my trip that I would fly, save the trip back home from Hong Kong to Boston, where a dear friend was being married.

I haven’t even gotten to the Heart of Darkness part, but among some of the more bizarre events on this entire trip occurred in Cambodia and Vietnam. Within the first day in Phnom Penh:

1.       Watching Singles at my Phnom Penh guesthouse with 3 ridiculously tall blond Dutch and Belgian guys, who were actually traveling to Cambodia to get stoned as cheaply as possible (yeah, people did that).  They were also totally arrogant. I got some street cred from having just lived "Singles" in Seattle, but not a lot.
 

2.      This poster.

 

 

 

 

Gets Violently Ill, Then and Now



Luxury Toilet Compared to Varanasi Train, Kodaikanal April 1995

May 3, 1995...to Varanasi, India. 
In some bizarre sort of throwback, I got violently ill Friday night (as in Friday May 1, 2015) after a routine meal of Friday family pizza (that I make myself)  and half a bottle of red wine (mommy only): but jumping back 20 years, on Monday, May 1, 1995, I suffered my first and only bout of illness on my entire venture in North Africa/ Mideast/Asia.  I hate to be dramatic, but it was indeed a near death experience lasting several days in which I was barely conscious (yeah, ladies, kind of like giving birth), and at the same time, on a 30 hour train trip with no-one really around to check my pulse as it were.

Boasting a healthy constitution,  a stomach of steel, and an openness to new culinary adventures, I had actually managed the trip to this point without shedding a single pound.  This is an extremely unusual occurrence for the average backpacker in Asia.  You'd see these haggard super-skinny guys and gals with their large packs at the hostels and me like barely squeezing into my jeans and I'd be like what is wrong with me???  For me you would think that even with the ability to drink the tap water and not contract some sort of dreadful parasite, I would at least become more lean for the following reasons a: I was walking all day, every day for twelve weeks,  carrying a heavy pack most of that time  b: there were no brownies, chocolate or wine to consume and c: small portions. Yawn! Anyway, the Great Gastric Upheaval changed all that, and I am not sure that I have been quite the same since.

Looking Healthy, Tea Plantation, April 1995

While I have no clue what set me off this past Friday, on May 1, 1995, it was undoubtedly the falafel sandwich I had at a small restaurant near the train station in Agra before hunkering down to wait for my 3am train back to Varanasi.  It's funny how after severe food poisoning, you remember that food for years and years later can't stomach the thought of eating what made you ill, though I seriously doubt I will feel repulsed by pizza and red wine for very long. Naturally, I remember the falafel because it wasn't Indian food, which is delicious, but c'mon, lentils and rice for bfast? and I was so happy to find something familiar yet totally different to eat.  Remember this is before the internet and globalization and atms....But there were a ton of Israeli travelers to Asia during that period, so Israeli falafel, hummos and tabouli were everywhere, though personally, as a part-Lebanese Arab who grew up in Saudi Arabia eating all that Arabic food, I claim all that food for the Arabs.  I think they just change the signage depending on which country is most heavily represented: Australian falafel vegemite sandwich...just kidding, LOTS of Australians but no vegemite.

Moving right along out of the Arab- Israeli conflict, which filters down to falafel stands in the middle of freaking India, as I waited the hours and hours for that 3am train in the crowded bustling and dusty station, I could feel the onset of something not quite right happening, but it was not clear at that point what exactly. What did happen initially is that the train to Varanasi was cancelled and I had to get to another train station to try to get another train in that general direction.  Along with the hundreds of other Indian would-be passengers to Varanasi. It was basically chaos and because in India the trains are generally reserved days or weeks in advance, particularly if you want the safety and protection of the "ladies only" car, which TRUST ME, you do, even if you are not exactly a lady and more like a bitch from Brooklyn but bottom line: I basically didn't have a prayer of getting on this other mysterious train from oh yeah, this other station, to this other place near Varanasi in a physical state that was rapidly deteriorating.  Right.  This is where I got to the point where I was like, whatever, I normally AM cool about no trains to nowhere (Journey Is the Destination) BUT I actually DO need to GET TO Varanasi so that I could LEAVE Varanasi so that I could take another ridiculous series of buses and trains to Kathmandu (nod to the victims of this past week's earthquake in 2015) so I could squeeze in my trek in Nepal so I could meet my best friend in Thailand on May 23 (which was also my boyfriend back home's 29th bday) as planned like in December of 1994, putting me momentarily back in the real world of normal people who went to law school and medical school and had day JOBS  with SCHEDULES and pathetically small windows of down time that I HAD to be on that train, any train as long as "they" said it was going near Varanasi, which in India that could mean hundreds of miles but whatever. I did somehow get a place on that other train and proceeded to slowly start dying:

According to my travelogue, some woman helped me secure a berth in the ladies only car, but I have no recollection of that: First it was the vomiting,  and then it was the other end, and it was fast and furious for quite a while. Actually in that state I made the wonderful discovery that squat toilets, even if on a moving train with no soap, water or toilet paper are perfect, I mean perfect, for food poisoning.  I mean think about it, you are puking and shitting at the same time, and you just squat there and do it whereas if you are like in your nice sterile bathroom with a sitting flush toilet in Brooklyn, you actually have to hold a bucket or something and gross! The whole time this past Friday night, I was just wishing I were back on that swaying train holding on to the filthy wall for balance and just doing what needed to be done....But I have to admit it was really nice to just hop into a hot shower afterwards and just you know, freshen up. Brush my teeth with good ole Tom from Maine, crawl into a bed and not onto a board...so I digress... back onto this board, essentially, in the ladies car, where I was shacked up with 5 other ladies, none of whom seemed to notice that I was curled up there in the top bunk in the fetal position moaning, because I am the first to admit, I am a drama queen. 

I was SOOO sick and the ride was SOOO long: a day and a night and a day and I could not keep anything, not even a swallow of water down. I just remember being so afraid that I was just going to die and that no-one would know or care...I have no idea how I got off that train (actually I am pretty sure I had to change trains at some point on this ride) with my pack, but somehow I did, in miraculously, Varanasi, which is where I wanted to be.  I splurged on a rickshaw to the hostel I had been staying in, got into a bed and lay there for a few days.  One of the other travelers, KN, who will feature prominently for the next 2 weeks, gave me a Limka, which is like a lemon soda, and I seriously credit Limka with saving my life and bringing me back from the brink.

 

Morocco Intinerary February 14- March 8, 1995

Morocco February 14- March 8, 1995*

*None of these maps or images are JourneyistheDestination's. She's a terrible photographer in addition to being totally unphotogenic.*

Casablanca,  Feb. 14-17 (Abdullah, JS)

Rabat, Feb. 17  Boring bureaucratic town, got a ride from Casa with JS' colleague

Marrakech Feb. 18-22*



Marrakech Feb. 18-22*
 

Marrakech Feb. 18-22 (Malika) Marrakech is Blue for the sky, White for the Mountains, Red for the walls and Green for the trees according to Malika.

Asni, High Atlas*

(Day trip to Asni to Malika's country house) Feb. 19



Tizi-n-Titchka Pass, High Atlas Feb. 22, 1995*

Marrakech/ High Atlas Pass to Ouarzazate (Omar) Feb. 22

Ait Benhaddout  Feb 22, 1995*
(Yeah, before Game of Thrones, Netflix and the Wole Internet Thing)

Ouarzazate/ Ait Benhaddout/ Tiffout Feb. 22-23

Zagora Feb. 24-26 (Joe)

Zagora back to Ouarzazate to Gorge du Dades Feb. 26

Gorge du Dades Feb. 26*

Gorge Du Dades (Psycho Innkeeper) Feb 26-27  Unbelievably beautiful and striking

Boumalne Du Dades Feb. 27*

Boumalne du Dades to Tingehir (Dead Lady) to Er Rachidia Feb 27

En route to Er Rachidia Feb. 27*



Er Rachidia Feb 28*

Er Rachidia/ Middle Atlas Pass to Fes Feb 28

Fes View  March 1, 1995*

Tanneries in Fes, March 2*
( I can still remember the utterly foul smell of this place)

Fes Feb 28-March 2

Meknes March 2

Volubulis March 3, 1995*

Volubulis (Roman Ruins) March 2-3  It's amazing how much ground these guys covered.  I met a group of kids here from the UK who were driving down to South Africa in a Jeep.  When I marveled at this sight, they were like Roman Ruins?  We can see those any old day.

Casablanca March 4-5 (JS)

Essouira March 5-6, 1995*

Essouira March 5-6 (Joe again).  I loved Essouira and would have stayed a month according to my travelogue.

Casablanca...the movie again... March 7, 1995*

Casablanca...the reality March 7-8, 1995*
(Well, Casa+ Blanca, at Least It's White)

Casablanca March 7-8 (JS, Abdullah)  Bought my tickets on Royal Air Maroc to Cairo and got my hands and feet henna tatooed.

Lasting impressions, now 20 years later?  I would love to come back here with a ton of money and stay in an awesome riad like in Hideous Kinky, with a tea boy and everything.

Casablanca to Cairo March 8, 1995

*None of these maps or images are JourneyistheDestination's.  She's a terrible photographer in addition to being totally unphotogenic.*

Hitchhikes For Life; Confronts Death: Catalogue of Surreal Experiences/Morocco

Gorges du Dades to Boumalne du Dades

Setting off on a backpacking trip to strange warm lands in the middle of a New England winter already put me in a state of suspended animation from the moment I landed in Casablanca: I felt like I went around in a fog for the first few months of my trip, until I got severely ill in India and then kind of woke up to the reality that this was my life, everything I needed on my back, and even that superfluous.
But still things happened that while not triggering a strong emotional response at the time, were just so bizarre, and in some cases, like this one, haunting.
I had gotten into a shared taxi with 4 other men, going from the a tiny town of Boumalne du Dades to Tineghir...after hitchhiking out of the Dades Gorge ( never before and never since have I hitchhiked)...to literally flee a psychotic innkeeper in the Dades Gorge.

Tineghir was just kind of a desert way station where I got a bus to Er Rachidia and then back over the Atlas Mts. to Fes. The shared taxi ride was a few hours over this very hardscrabble, flat landscape.




Hardscrabble Landscape, Beyond Boumalne du Dades

I don't remember seeing any thing really, no houses tents or kasbahs though supposedly the road from Er Rachidia to Ouarzazate is now dubbed "The Highway of a Thousand Kasbahs."
As you can imagine, a shared taxi with 4 strangers, all men made me slightly anxious, but really I think the feeling was mutual. They were just men going about their business and were not particularly thrilled that I was squeezed in amongst them.

So we're driving along in complete silence no one says anything, no small talk, no radio playing just, quiet and scrabble rocks all round like a large brown ocean...When one of the men next to me leans forward across me and whispers to the driver, something not French of course so I don't understand.

But the car stops.

And then goes into reverse back down the road.

And I'm like,  Shit!

This seemed too easy with no one talking to me. Now I am going to get raped and left for dead in this barren patch. Car stops. Men get out. I'm not sure what to do. Do I get out too? They all start walking into the rocky desert. So I get out and driver is like oh no you don't, get back in the car. And so I just look out and then I see her.

She was just lying there: a Berber shepherdess in the desert. Maybe 40. Maybe my age, 25, who lived a short hard life. Either way definitely dead. All alone, no animals around her even.
Someone's daughter, someone's mother, someone's wife, Sister? Who knows? That woman has always stayed with me, lying there with her black scarf covering her head and her long skirt and her hand kind of raised up in defeat.

The men get back in the car and I'm like what??? Really? We're just gonna leave her there? Not that I would have wanted her on my lap, which was the only place available, my shit and their shit having packed the trunk. But it felt wrong.

Another 20 minutes ahead a police check point appears like a mirage. But it was a real police checkpoint with well armed guards and tiny little guardhouse. The driver must have told them about the woman as a police car shortly left back where we came from, and then we too were on our way to Tinehgir.

Technically, I was in Egypt, in the Egyptian Museum 20 years ago today (March 13, 1995), and this will be the final Morocco post.

Gets an Aphrodisiac; Goes on a Toilet Paper Paper Rant, Reveals Identity of JS: Morocco Cast of Characters Part II

 

Postcard of Famous Sign In Zagora

Joe- Joe was the first of the backpacker/travelers/low budget vacationers  I met on my seven-month venture. He was an American working in Switzerland as a chef, and he was on a three week, shoestring holiday to Morocco. I met him on the bus from Ouarzazate to Zagora  (you couldn't miss him, large and blond as he was); we were the only "Westerners"  on the bus.  We didn't speak on the ride, but we each were obviously going to be looking for a guest house or cheap accommodation in Zagora.

Come to think of it I don't recall there really being any or many youth hostels in Morocco. Of course JS* had set me up in Casa and with Malika's family in Marrakech, but there was the whole rest of the country for me to find a place to sleep.

After the whole hippie trail thing in the 60's  (look really closely at the following picture of the jebel, they left their mark in the desert floor), I think the govt. definitely tried to crack down on that kind of visitor, including limiting hostels and the like.  Aside from Joe, who doesn't really count (yep, as Cheryl Strayed shows for the PCT, there is definitely that divide between "backpackers" (3 months or more) and "budget travelers" of one month or less), I met no other backpackers/ budget travelers in Morocco.  Incidentally, despite trying to rid them selves of hippies, because of the bad "un-Islamic" image projected by blond people in dreadlocks having sex and doing drugs all over the place, Morocco remains a large producer and exporter of marijuana. Now that I am kind of an economist and data freak, I find this fascinating. Now, they are talking about legalizing it and maybe they can tax it and use that money to add on to one of the largest mosques in the world, instead of relying on people like Abdullah.

In any case, Joe and I kind of wound up together by default when we got off the bus; I think the sharks of Zagora just assumed we were together and left me alone. He told me about his vacation plans and I mentioned that I was on like day six of a year-long  trip around the world and that I needed to stay in like the cheapest place ever. Joe was an affable guy. So, we head to the market for food and here's what happened:

First background: I always hated dates, you know, growing up in Saudi Arabia where it’s like the national food. I just thought they looked gross and were gross, so I get to this market and the vendors are all getting you to try stuff and this vendor hands me a date with a walnut in it and is like aphrodisiac, aphrodisiac, which was like the only word he knew in English and I kind of think I actually didn’t realize fully what he was saying. I mean I knew what the word meant, having scored a high verbal on my SAT, but I wasn’t processing that like yeah, woman alone traveling in Morocco, I need an aphrodisiac…

Yeah, I needed an aphrodisiac like a goddamned hole in the head.

But then I tasted it. 

And that shriveled up little morsel with a walnut in it was like the best thing I ever tasted. Part of it may have had to do with the fact that it was Ramadan and I probably hadn’t eaten or drank (enough) all day, but it was so good. So delicious.  And I quickly realized that the best thing about dates  was that you could kind of subtly eat a date during Ramadan without anyone really noticing (desert nomads gleaned on to this like well before Jesus/ and Ramadan). I mean no-one at all expected me or other non-Muslim travelers to abide by the daily fasting, and in fact were constantly offering the a la menthe or food, but you want to also be respectful of the customs. 

Then, I proceeded to find a sink in the market and wash the dates.

And now Joe was truly horrified when I did this. Now that I think about it, I too am horrified, but folks it was 20 years ago, I have since matured into a regular and prolific date eater (sometimes paying $40/lb for Saudi dates, even) and I know how it's done: you do not ever wash dried dates, it would be like washing your bagel. Anyway, I bought a bag full and then proceeded to wash them in the sink of the bus stop, and Joe was like wow, you are not going to last another week here….

And I was like Fuck You, American-Joe-living-in-SWITZERLAND;  I have made it this far (from my boyfriend, and JFK the day before Valentine's Day, to the market in Zagora 12 days later )

I am NOT going back to America right now because I feel compelled to wash the dried dates I purchased in the market from a vendor hissing “aphrodisiac” in a country where no-one washes their hands after going to the bathroom…and I use the term bathroom extremely loosely…more like urinating/defecating wherever the hell you want and if there’s pit toilet nearby, okay, maybe. Oh, and did I mention that no-one uses toilet paper, even in Malika's posh villa as I was a little perplexed to discover, as there were like 5 bathrooms with built in toilet paper holders? They use their hands and some water…if you’re lucky and there is water…Now I know I am getting carried away and offending about half the population of the world, but here’s my take on it: using water to clear out your nether regions after doing what needs to be done is really fine by me…I tried not to think about it while eating in a restaurant or someone’s home, but fine, it’s fine. Honestly I did it myself for approximately the next 7 months. BUT YOU NEED TO WASH YOUR HANDS WITH HOT WATER AND SOAP AFTER. Really, you do. And no-where ever at any time did I ever see any soap in a toilet/latrine situation anywhere ever, from Morocco to Egypt…they have soap and toilet paper in Israel…to India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China. Okay, I am done with that rant.

Jebel I Climbed with Joe, Feb 24, 1995;
(note the hippie sunburst on the lower left)

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Now is as good a time as any to say that no, I did not have sex with Joe, no, nope, nada, dates with walnut consumption aside. I mention Joe because he was the first person I met up with on the trip and spent a few days with. We were heading in the same direction and there are only certain things that tourist/travelers are interested in seeing, so why not do them together if you are so inclined?

I know, I know you are reading this and saying, what about that man rant from the previous blog post and not needing a man guide and all that BS? All I can say is that
1. With Joe, everything immediately became easier, no harassment and
2. We didn’t share a room, though ultimately I would (chastely) share rooms with dozens of travelers, male and female in various budget inns, youth hostels and guest houses.

We did share some costs like for a driver to the jebel outside Zagora which we climbed together. I wound up with heat or sun poisoning or something you get hiking in the desert during midday on the edge of the Sahara during Ramadan and Joe had to drag me back to the start-off point of the hike. Toto, something tells me we are not hiking in the Pacific Northwest anymore.

3. Don’t mean to sound all Eurocentric and all, but traveling with another traveler who you can converse with is WAY different that having a paid guide who speaks no English just to keep other men away. Well, whatever, that was Joe, God knows where he is now. He was a good guy, though I am not convinced he thought I would make it out of Morocco alive. We soon parted ways on our various itineraries. 

I met up with Joe eight days later in Casablanca and we traveled together to Essaouira, which was amazing and totally different from the “interior” cities, towns and villages. Way more laid back, really touristy actually, with great restaurants and a total seafaring vibe that I really loved.

 **NEWS FLASH*** MARCH 6, 2015.  JS a long time Linked In contact has bravely agreed to be identified. And you are just not going to believe it, but JS is Jon Smith. No joke, swear to God. Really, Jonathan Smith.  Thank you Jonathan for everything!

 

Dismayed To Discover That Casablanca is Not Like the Movie: Morocco Cast of Characters Part I

(IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)

Abdullah- US AID driver who picked me up from the airport.  When he didn’t have any more pressing US govt. business to take care of, he drove me around Casablanca.  I was almost immediately disabused of any romantic notions of the city acquired from the movie of the same name.  There was of course a Rick’s but it had long been boarded up and looked totally cheesy anyway and was in this kind of scary warehousey neighborhood, nothing at all like Hollywood Blvd.  So, I don’t know if the city got bombed in WWII or what: I can’t be bothered to research this issue beyond asking my husband who can name every single battle of WWII and the dates, outcomes and generals involved…and he wasn’t quite sure... He’s going to go find a book about it and get back to me. Yeah, OK. But it was just a real letdown.  That's what I wrote in my little travelogue for Feb. 15, 1995

Who knows, perhaps just some urban planners from the 70s Chicago School got to it, trying to make order out of their drugged out 70’s existence, but it’s an awful, ugly city with grand boulevards and monuments and such.  Think DC in North Africa.  The beaches and waterfront were just littered with garbage…of course DC has Anacostia...meanwhile in Ibiza….

I should point out, this trip occurred before I read Edward Said's Orientalism and I was made aware of what a horrible little orientalist I was, projecting all my fantisies and desires and Hollywood constructs on this great city. 

Anyway, it was from Abdullah that I got some insights into how the government financed the construction of the world’s largest mosque, the Hassan II Mosque, which was completed a year or so before I came around. 

And You Thought My Hands Looked Big

Basically, all citizens were shaken down, including the poorest and most unable to pay.  We tried 3 times to visit the mosque and it was always closed…and this is during Ramadan, when that’s kind of all you’re supposed to be doing.  And it wasn’t just oh, here comes American lady, we need to be closed, the entire behemoth was literally always closed, like no people milling about, totally dead.  Abdullah, who was a really mild mannered, sweet man, always got his hackles up about this. He would get so angry.  And yes, there was a ladies entrance stashed away.  I hope Abdullah is not languishing in some political prison….

Incidentlally, check this out: http://www.rickscafe.ma/ Someone has established a "new" Rick's in Casablanca in 2006 that looks more like the movie version we are all used to. There is music playing on the link, and it's just lovely. 

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Please note, all Facebook, Linked-in, Google etc. contacts who are mentioned in this blog will be known by their initials, even though most of them don’t actually have any sort of communication with me.  If I am using your real name, I can pretty much guarantee you will have absolutely no clue, and that no-one will ever be able to figure out who the heck you are.

***************

JS- was a family friend from Saudi Arabia, who at this point was doing a 2 year rotation in Casablanca.  His family and mine were very close, and his son, who is now this incredible photographer based in Sao Paolo and Mexico City…should I link to his gallery?  Not sure….and my brother  were good friends growing up.  JS  was incredibly hospitable, warm and welcoming and really enhanced my experience in Morocco by setting me up with various contacts in

Rabat and Marrakech. I used Casablanca as a home base in Morocco ( and thus stashing the pack  while I explored the rest of the country) and it helped me ease into the backpacking thing.

 

To this day, I don’t know if it was me (it being my first country on this trip, I mean) or Morocco, but in no other country did I experience the level of hostility, harassment, fear for personal safety, etc that I did in Morocco. All tourists experience harassment most places in the Mideast and Asia and on 34th St by the Empire State Building…people wanting to be your guide and sell you stuff, carry your bags, have sex with you, whatever,  but for the most part it’s just very poor, even desperate, people trying to get by and they let it slide when you politely say no thanks.  They get that it may not be their bag, but Western women do in fact travel alone and bring great shame and embarrassment to their families and virtually eliminate their prospects for marriage.   But Morocco!  Wow!  It just got so bad that unless I had a man to accompany me, either Abdullah, JS, one of the families he set me up with, Joe ( I’ll get to him), I would literally walk into the closest market stall of wherever I got off the bus and enlist the help of the shop owner (see: Omar) to find someone to just be my guide, to just keep everyone else off my back. 

At first I was afraid, I was petrified,

Kept thinking I could never really explore

With a useless guide. 

But I spent oh so many nights feeling sorry for myself,

And I grew strong

And I learned how to get along (with a body guard).

And I gotta say, I really, really hated this.  I am not a guide girl. I am not Ingrid Bergman.  I don't need Bogie to get me out Dodge (can you even picture her in Dodge?). I just want to stroll through the market or check out the kasbah or hike up the jebel on my own.  I want to just like sit in the desert for a few hours and write in my journal. I DO NOT want some useless man “guide” hovering over me.  And also I was on a really tight budget.  Oh, and also, I can read a map.  But there you have it.

Malika-  Malika was (is?) a Moroccan woman my age, unmarried, living with her family in Marrakech.  She was the daughter of one of JS’s Moroccan coworkers.  Or maybe the younger sister, I don’t really remember.   She spoke French, like most Moroccans, and that was pretty much the language I used to chat with her and to get by in in general seeing as I managed to grow up in Saudi Arabia and learn only about three words of Arabic. She lived in this amazing villa, and I stayed with her while I was in Marrakesh, thanks to JS setting me up.  It was a little weird because her parents were away in Saudi Arabia doing the Hajj, but her older sister and brother were there as well as her very elderly grandfather and a housekeeper who cooked these incredible  feasts after sundown. It was weird because she would say she would show me around, but then she would be like I can't go as it would embarrass my parents if I went out alone with you (accompanied by her brother of course), then it would just be her brother and his friends showing me around, which was great actually.  They knew the city and the markets really well and it felt liberating to just be a guest and not a tourist.

Malika actually felt like a sister to me, even in just those three days.  We just talked and talked all the time when I was not out and about. Malika explained all the Moroccan Ramadan fast breaking rituals, which involved breaking the fast at sundown with a few dates (which at that point disgusted me), a glass of fresh orange juice and some boiled eggs, so as not to overwhelm the system.  It's not like you immediately chow down on a leg of lamb and chug a gallon of water.  Yeah, and despite all those years in Saudi Arabia, I wasn't aware of this. This simple meal has become one of my favorites, and my kids love it too.  Excepting the OJ, the dates and eggs are great for trips.
 

I took a day trip with Malika and her brother (didn't get his name, come to think of it...) to their ancestral village of Ansi in the High Atlas, where we went mountain biking, which struck me as completely bizarre, but that's what we did. They had this really large ramshakle home and some caretakers who lived there, but it was really kind of trashed as I recall.  It seemed odd after being in their glitzy villa in Marrakech.
 

A few days later, I would beg to be taken to the bus depot in Marrakech, which Malika's family really, really reluctantly did, and I was on my way to Ouarzazate on the other side of the Atlas Mountains.
 

Omar- So as soon as I get to Ouarzazate from Marrakech after the terrifying bus ride, I sought refuge in the nearest shop to the bus station. There I found Omar, who I relied upon to help me get “protection” from the aggressive vultures surrounding me as I alighted the bus.  He had a shop in Ouarzazate and he sold the usual stuff like rugs, slippers and the like.  He was a really good guy, my age, and just kind of sad in a way.... His French was awesome, and I explained my predicament, so he came with me to the taxi stand and helped me negotiate a car and driver to take me to the kasbahs and forts of Ait Benhadou and Tiffoutout.  I had wanted to take local buses and just go on my own, but there was absolutely no way that was going to happen.  I have no memory or record of the hotel I stayed in that night, none.
 

The next morning before taking off for Zagora, at the southern end of the Draa Valley, I had a the a la menthe with Omar. I gotta say of all the people I met on my trip, anywhere, Omar was the one I felt like the most "bad" for.  Like he was really smart and educated  interested in other cultures and people but he was like trapped in this godforsaken town on the edge of the Sahara and like he was never going to get out.  He didn't make any offers of marriage or do anything remotely extreme, which was also unusual for Morocco.  I have the address of the shop written in my travelogue, but of course I never did write.

 

Where JourneyistheDestination Becomes a Bride of ISIS, Casablanca March 7, 1995

Henna Hands Held Hostage

Yeah, I knew that would get your attention. I am also curious to see how long it will take my friends in the State Department to come knocking, I mean a blog coming from a female of ARAB descent in Brooklyn and not just anywhere in Brooklyn, but BAY RIDGE which has about 3 mosques in a 2 block radius of this locale (actually just noticed walking the dog at 6 am that one is closed due to flooding), not to mention all the halal markets, butchers and restaurants, more women in full hijab than not and then pops up BRIDE + ISIS. My name is a fairly well known Lebanese Christian name and I have never actually set foot in Lebanon, Syria or Iraq or Turkey, but that's not important.... It's soooooo suspicious. But seriously, look at that photo, could I have looked more unhappy? Bride of ISIS was seriously the first thing that came to mind as I was mining my Morocco photo trove and I never would have included it if I hadn't thought of that clever caption.

First of all, I am so vain that I probably think this blog is about me and that picture of me is just horrendous, but if I can put the whole wardrobing thing out there in the blogosphere, I can do this. Look at how smooth my skin was 20 years ago.

This picture was taken in Casablanca, where I started this trip. The photo was actually done the day before I flew out of Casablanca to Cairo, but let's go back to the beginning: One reason I started out in Casablanca was that it was on the way to enlightenment in India and since I was going to take the time and money to check out, I was gonna do it right and stop at other places along the way. Since it’s all about the journey, you don’t just want to get airlifted in and out from under the Bodhi tree or Shangri-La or where ever you're supposed to find it. Second, I definitely did not want to start in London or some other traveler's check-sucking European city, even though they make great jumping off places for the rest of the world: Africa, the Middle East, Asia even. Finally, we had a family friend who was living in Casa, as they call it, working for the US govt. and he was all about helping me get launched on this venture, so I actually started out this budget jaunt in style. A US AID driver picked me (and my pack, which was like another person), up from the airport bright and early Valentine's Day 1995, and I was off.

I stayed with JS for a few days before setting off for Rabat and then Marrakech. Having JS to guide me, offer me a really nice room, driver and then company in the evenings to just do stuff like eat out or walk the Corniche, things I never would have done alone (at night, I mean), explain customs, was a fantastic way to ease into this whole thing.  Because of his position and personality, he had friends and contacts all over the country; one family  graciously hosted me and showed me around Marrakech and their ancestoral village where they had this ramshakle house in the Middle Atlas and made me feel like family. The drawback is that of course when you are a guest of someone, you abide by their customs and rules and in Morocco, women do not go out alone, they do not travel alone, they do not get on buses alone to strange other places.  It always (here and in other places)  took a huge effort to be like thanks for having me, now take me to the bus depot, I am off to XYZ place.  But those experiences and people and their generosity have stayed with me.

Still, no matter how hard you try to be open to customs, there are always these lost in translation moments, where you're just like what the hell am I doing here and Bride of Isis was one such example. So, I arrived in Casa during Ramadan, which is the worst time ever to travel in a Muslim country.  No eating or drinking during the day, shops and business kind of shut down and people are either sleeping or crabby or just can't be bothered. Having grown up in Saudi Arabia, I was an old hand at dealing with Ramadan, but getting closer to the point, during Ramadan or maybe towards the end, I don't really remember, all the women get their hands and feet henna tatooed. It looks so cool, and I had to have it.  After all, no Corporate America in the morning, so why not? I would later go on to have my nose pierced in Varanasi with a safety pin by a fortune teller and go three months without using shampoo, just for the hell of it.

So, the day before I left Morocco (it was still Ramadan) I arranged with one of the girls I had met through JS to go to someone's sister's cousin's house and get hennad up.  The whole process takes hours and hours and it was Ramadan, right, so no eating no drinking during the day, which always made me headachy and crabby. Anyway when the henna had dried three or four hours later, and I was like cool, thanks, how much do I owe you...we had already negotiated a price...out of nowhere come these other younger girls dragging in a trunk full of these robes and costume jewelry and crowns and shit and they start dressing me up like a bride and I am like, no, thank you, this is weird, but also trying to be not offensive.  It was just one of those things; just one of those crazy things they made me pose like many different ways and they start taking all these pictures (with their own camera, so they could charge me extra for all the pictures, naturally), they had me go up to the roof of the building and take pictures in these robes.  It was so weird,  I remember feeling just bad, but it's also hard to say no to someone's friend's sister's cousin, even when you know the price is gonna get doubled and you are just a dumb American tourist with traveler's checks so ha, ha, ha. But you know what?  They did send me the pictures, and now I have them, 20 years later in Brooklyn. As do you.