Not quite Morocco: Beijing, The Forbidden City

With Facebook censored and no social media to post pics on, I resorted to my old blog ... Some snaps from today in Beijing.
Crowded, hot, pushy, massive and awe inspiring.
I walked where only gods once tread.

Marrakech to Casablanca. Homeward bound

I know what a heavy heart feels like, I have one as I leave Marrakech.
Suddenly everything is more beautiful on my way home and time conspires to steal it from me.
The atlas mountains are crystal clear today, they surround me in wisps of jagged grey and white.
So high that their snowy peaks look like clouds not land, I need to check they are earth and not sky a few times, by sweeping my gaze from their base to summit.
The mystic, optical illusion continues, despite my brain telling me they are really just land and snow.
I share this small hot room on the train with 4 women in veils and long jellaba plus a small angelic boy of about three. His mother talks to him in French / Arabic and I make out a story about Tom and Jerry, he attempts to repeat their names in the wonderful, clumsy voice of a child.
The lady in the window seat puts down her mobile phone and begins to cry, my eyes well up briefly in spontaneous empathy.
The air is thick with emotion.
Next to her, a total stranger, produces a tissue from under her layers of covering and wipes her tears, she pulls her veiled head to her breast and hugs her without hesitation.
Like a womb the compartment is warm and rich with the spirits of the 4 women I share it with. They talk in Arabic to comfort her and the tears dissolve to red eyes and later to sad smiles and then to non stop conversation.
I eavesdrop without comprehension as we speed towards Casablanca. 

Sent from my iPhone

Hammam Marrakech

The Hammam is a fascination for many westerners traveling Morocco. Behind closed doors, it is a place for only the most intrepid traveller.
A public wash house, (google it) the hammam is also a social place for Moroccan women who don't sit in cafes like the men do all day.
Of course it's segregated and steeped in tradition and ritual. Some Moroccans go every day, it makes up part of the cleansing before mosque or can simply be a necessity because you have no hot water at home.

I went to the hammam at Beldi country club spa, it was a private hammam so I didn't have to embarass myself by not knowing the protocols and traditions (OK I was terrified of going into a communal bath/steam house and having to sit on some dirty stone floor with a bunch of old Arab men and rub myself with a pot scourer.. I said it)
Back to Beldi hammam: I was given a robe and a cotton lap lap (hmmm nice, unusual)
Undress, tie the lap lap cord around your waist with the cotton flap at the front. The flap then passes through your legs and gets tucked up under the waist tie at the back .. Kind of sumo style, easy.
I'm lap laped, robed and ushered to a beautiful Moroccan conservatory for a glass of mint tea to wait for my hammam assistant Karim.
He is about thirty and wearing navy blue, nylon, Nike running shorts, he escorts me into a beautiful white marble wet room with two big white marble slabs at each end like alters, the ceiling is a dome with small stain glass windows and it's HOT and wet and steamy.
Bloody HOT.
On the marble slabs are scattered sprigs of assorted fresh herbs, I sit down and the white stone is hot and wet beneath my bum.
Karim begins to tip buckets of water over my head from a wooden pale. Hot water is bubbling from a font adjacent to my slab. Bucket after bucket after bucket.
Right, the wet down is done and the cotton lap lap might as well be made of glad wrap, but what the heck ... When in Rome.
Next comes the scrub.
Now I want you to go and get a new plastic scourer from the kitchen cupboard and start rubbing it vigorously on the delicate skin of your neck. Harder, scrub it harder!
OK now you know what a hammam scrub feels like except they use a glove to get into all the nooks and crannies like your ears and underarms.
Karim was very thorough and I've got to say I was blown away by how much dead skin came off (eeeww)
I think some living skin came off too.
I am an exfoliation freak but this was something else, my skin was amazing for days afterwards.
Typically you are supposed to use black soap in this scrubbing process: "Savon noir." But I guess they spare the westerners that unusual, traditional speciality.
Check out the photo of the savon noir above (plus a typical local hammam entrance) I thought it was sump oil or grease for your Donkey cart when I first saw the buckets of dark, glossy goop.
Until I saw a bucket with a sign in French.
Anyway suffice to say I got SCRUBBED clean both front and back, followed by many, many more buckets of hot water poured, tipped and thrown over me.
Sheesh I'm clean already Karim!

To finish, some Argan oil was poured over my head, arms and torso before I toweled dry.
Phew, hammam done.
Survived, Tick.

Monday Marrakech

Serendipity at Ben Youssef Medersa.
From Brazil via Dublin to Marrakech: you need to buy me lunch for this story.

Leaving Marrakech

Ministero del Gusto

Three attempts to find this bloody shop, technically in the middle of nowhere without signage. Finally after I paid two guys to take me there without any joy, the third had luck. It was worth a look if only for the great interior design.
Gusto is a gallery, vintage couture, retro furniture and Moroccan nicky nacky kind of mash up with a very italian feel. What a combo.
One guide book commented that Iman thumbs through the vintage racks when in town .... I'm sure she would if she could find the bloody place.

Djemaa el-fna

The pounding heart of old Marrakech is Djemaa el-fna, the big square.
Full of action from dawn till after midnight: during the day a wide open, bustling town square full of hawkers, snake charmers, orange juice stands, magic potion sellers, basket weavers, donkeys, bikes, cars and thousands of people .... Chaos right!
After dark this transforms into a circus with a hundred food stalls BBQing everything from lamb, chicken, pigs heads and fish to eggplants.
Then the show begins: story tellers, drag belly dancers (for real) bands, jugglers, boxers and game stalls attract hundreds of people to gather and watch for a few coins, shoulder to shoulder, vying for a view.
I got hustled, jostled, fed, laughed, applauded, gasped, touched up and wrapped up with snakes ... Just another day in the office at Djemaa el-fna!!

Palais Bahia 2

Palais Bahia

The beautiful Palais Bahia was built in 1866.
Bahia means brilliance.
Decorated with incredible stucco work, delicately carved cedar wood, marble and walls of optical Zellij (mosaic tiles) surrounding a lush romantic garden courtyard.
I can be seen reflected above.

Beldi Marrakech

Lunch at the country club

"Oh my God" is a good place to start this post.
The concierge at my riad recommended a relaxing day at the country club, it sounded like a good idea: effectivement a fucking brilliant idea!

A 20 minute ride in a grand taxi, first through the boulevards of Hivernage, then a highway and finally a dusty red earth road delivers me at Beldi country club. Surrounded by a high, mud brick rampart, I enter the resort.
3 shabby rock star types drift by, black sunnies, black jeans and lots of Moroccan jewelry, they could be on their way to a photo shoot but they sit down for lunch.
Some unidentified stick like supermodel and rich BF coo by the pool.
I'm so glad I wore my good shoes today.
Groves of orange trees and flowering rose gardens stretch off into the distance. Behind them the Atlas mountains peer at me with snowy white peaks.
A pair of ancient matching queens sit silently over wine and lunch, their coordinating Ralph Lauren shirts and sweaters (slung over shoulders) give away their story. One is blue and green, the other is green and blue. Heaven.
Flashy Italians arrive to break the tranquility: Her turquoise kaftan with matching Kelly bag (well done)

Its a melange of French chic and boheme Moroccan interior design, open air, swathed in calico and clad in terra-cotta.

After a beautiful lunch I spend the afternoon at the country club's hammam. The hammam will require an entire post all of it's own.

Marrakech

Dinner at Palais Jad Mahal

Jad Mahal is in Hivernage (literally translated: overwintering) it's where all the BIG plush western hotels are located. Posh boulevards, manicured gardens and old people. Did I mention the old people? I'll get to them later.

Anyway .. The Arab militia at the door was my first hurdle, finally after some pretty bad Aussie accent they let us in to talk to the hostess.
Does the description Pussycat Dolls on crack conjure up a picture in your mind? Well, she's her little old ladies granma.
Thigh high black leather boots ended with a good 6 inches of flesh before her amazing legs met her ass in matching leather hot pants. Then as if to strike a balance, she had a teeny, sprayed on white business shirt on top.
Unbuttoned to the waist with a black leather PUSH UP bra (here they are!) underneath.
Kind of like business on top and party down below.
Long black hair for days. I'm talking uber riah extreme.
She had so many weaves on her scalp that she'd have to sit up to sleep.
We came for dinner but I immediately began to wonder "where's the party?" ... Or more "where's the drag queen, hooker, pole dancer, hair expo convention gurlfriend?" snap snap snap.

She escorted us to a table through the darkest restaurant I've ever not seen, finally when my eyes adjusted I knew why the word Palais prefixed their name.
This was a huge square building with a massive courtyard pond in the centre (pond = dam) across the pond stretched a catwalk covered in red Moroccan carpets. Inside gilt and Moroccan decoration competed for attention with velvets and cut glass lampwork, blah, blah, blah.
It was spectacular.
I'm kinda raving on a bit now, I've been giving myself a word limit and blown it already, so I'll cut to the ladies with flaming tea services on their heads.
A Moroccan tradition so I'm told.
After dinner was showtime. First come a dozen ladies balancing large flaming silver trays atop their heads, holding tea pot, half dozen tea glasses and 10 lit dinner candles. Bad photo exhibits #1.
Then come twenty or so belly dancers, this woke the old folk up who had gotten tired with squinting into their tagines trying to see what they were eating.
Next to me a Spanish Blake Carrington got his camera out so quickly I though he was going to wake his wife up, she was very cosy in a pile of velvet cushions against the wall.
Twenty five minutes later (leave them wanting more never occurred to the producers of this show) the dancers moved to the catwalk for a bit of Moroccan belly-line dancing. Bad photo exhibit # 2.
The old folk were all awake now and would make it back to their plush hotels before morning (just down the road) if they left now, the night club opened post show but I passed on that option.
Apparently so did Lindsay Lohan a while back who ended up in the dam when she joined in the line dancing .. Now I wish I'd come to that convention!

Jardin Majorelle pt.2

The garden is a living sculpture. Hundreds of cacti, decades old, explode in huge spires, towers, balls and fans of rich green and thorns. The layout surrounds a dazzling cobalt blue, art deco villa detailed with sulfurous yellow, white and aqua, it's a psychedelic mirage befitting any rockstar or high fashion shoot.

As per his wishes, upon his passing, the ashes of YSL were scattered here in 2008.