I paused when at this juncture Chee Hui took out his camera and prepared to take a photograph. Looking up, I saw the sign next to the shop which showed that it sold camel meat. It being my first time seeing camel meat being sold by a butcher, I took out my camera and took a picture as well. Weeks later when Gim Hui joined us, and while recounting the earlier legs of the journey to him, I spotted the camel head in the picture, and realised why and what it was that got Chee Hui so interested.
Austere living conditions in our hotel in Fes. For five euros a night we really couldn't ask for a lot, but this overfriendly local at the bus station recommended the place.
You must go to Hotel Maghrib, says he,
it is good and cheap. Must be the worst hotel in all of the Maghrib.
The Medersa Bou Inania, an oasis of tranquility within the medina. The entrance to the place looks like every other entrance, and it took us a day and a half to locate it!
I've always wanted to see what tanneries were like ever since I read Rohinton Mistry's
A Fine Balance two years ago, and I got my chance here in Fes. It is understandable why tanning is left to the lower castes in society, because it involves the highly unpleasant tasks of manually dipping the leather into vats of vile-smelling dyes and then seasoning it after with pigeon dung. Still, there is no reason why being a tanner is anything other than respectable, or why tanners are looked down upon, for they require a good deal of olfactory fortitude.
Fes El-Bali, the largest medina in the Arab world, containing within 900,000 streets that add up to a combined length of some astronomical figure. Facts and figures provided by the same overfriendly smartypants who pointed us to Hotel Maghrib, in his unsuccessful attempt to impress upon us the sheer size of the medina, and have us secure him as a guide. He was unsuccessful on two accounts: that we rejected his offer flatly, and that we shrugged off his warning and walked unknowingly and cockily into a labyrinth of streets and alleys, and very nearly got lost.
A library within the medina, another oasis of calm. One would think that the steps led towards a chamber full of scrolls and manuscripts. They didn't. It was a modern, fully-equipped library which they did, and filled not with bearded ulamas, but bespectacled, uniformed students.
Fes on a rainy, Friday afternoon. Friday afternoon is the worst time to visit a medina, every shopkeeper and vendor being either at the mosque or resting after prayer at home. In Fes, they welcome the rain which only fall occasionally, yet to have it drizzle on a Friday afternoon when nobody is out on the streets is downright depressing.
I paused when at this juncture Chee Hui took out his camera and prepared to take a photograph. Looking up, I saw the sign next to the shop which showed that it sold camel meat. It being my first time seeing camel meat being sold by a butcher, I took out my camera and took a picture as well. Weeks later when Gim Hui joined us, and while recounting the earlier legs of the journey to him, I spotted the camel head in the picture, and realised why and what it was that got Chee Hui so interested.
Austere living conditions in our hotel in Fes. For five euros a night we really couldn't ask for a lot, but this overfriendly local at the bus station recommended the place. You must go to Hotel Maghrib, says he, it is good and cheap. Must be the worst hotel in all of the Maghrib.
The Medersa Bou Inania, an oasis of tranquility within the medina. The entrance to the place looks like every other entrance, and it took us a day and a half to locate it!
I've always wanted to see what tanneries were like ever since I read Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance two years ago, and I got my chance here in Fes. It is understandable why tanning is left to the lower castes in society, because it involves the highly unpleasant tasks of manually dipping the leather into vats of vile-smelling dyes and then seasoning it after with pigeon dung. Still, there is no reason why being a tanner is anything other than respectable, or why tanners are looked down upon, for they require a good deal of olfactory fortitude.
Fes El-Bali, the largest medina in the Arab world, containing within 900,000 streets that add up to a combined length of some astronomical figure. Facts and figures provided by the same overfriendly smartypants who pointed us to Hotel Maghrib, in his unsuccessful attempt to impress upon us the sheer size of the medina, and have us secure him as a guide. He was unsuccessful on two accounts: that we rejected his offer flatly, and that we shrugged off his warning and walked unknowingly and cockily into a labyrinth of streets and alleys, and very nearly got lost. 
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