That same afternoon once we arrived in Rabat, our local guide immediately joined us on the bus for our city tour of Rabat, the political capital of Morocco. First of, they brought us to the royal district, where the current king of Morocco resides along with his army of royal staff. The royal district is also where the parliament buildings are located, making everything very centrally situated within one another. When we were there, the king wasn't in residence... where was he? In Marrakech! And we knew this without the guide telling us because some of us had seen his envoy in Marrakech the day before :P
S. was a bit miffed that we could not get to go in a see the palace, we only had the chance to see from the outside that's all. The picture on top is the royal mosque where king says his prayers at and twice a year, he has to lead the prayers, decked out in his royal finery... seriously...


From there on, we went to the Hassan Tower and Mausoleum of Mohammed V, the king's grandfather. It is located on the opposite side of the Hassan Tower. Its construction was completed in 1971 and Hassan II was buried there following his death in 1999.






Hassan Tower is the minaret of an incomplete mosque in Rabat. Begun in 1195 AD, the tower was intended to be the largest minaret in the world along with the mosue, also intended to be the world's largest. In 1199, the Sultan died and construction on the mosque stopped. The tower only reached 44m about half of its intended height. The rest of the mosque was also left incomplete, with only the beginnings of several walls and 200 columns being constructed. Instead of stairs, the tower is ascended by ramps. The minaret's ramps would have allowed the muezzin ride a horse to the top of the tower to issue the call to prayer.

First day of 2010. This was the day we left Marrakech for us last day in Morocco, a morning stop in Casablanca followed by us moving forward to Rabat, the capital in Morocco. I was quite exhausted on this day. I remember because this was the day where I put on my glasses for the first time in the entire trip. Not really physically coz I called it quits at midnight the day before, but just mentally exhausted. I had pushing my limits for the past 10 days and now I had begun to feel the effects of it. Plus, I was feeling a little of a sore throat in the morning. When I appeared at the breakfast table in the morning, S. took one look at me and said, "Today you just need to be served." As spoiled as this may sound, the occasional pampering was something quite welcomed. After being independent for so long, it was nice to just sit there and wait for tea to be brought to you already mixed and all that. haha. So I guess understandably, wasn't too much of a cam whore for the first part of the day. As we drove into Casablanca, I stared around at the different districts around us, but didn't really take pictures till we stopped at the Hassan II mosque, the 3rd biggest mosque in the world, built on the sea. Something funny that happened was that I had wondered away from the group myself, just snapping pictures or watching the surf... when I returned to the bus, S. was like, "where were you? Too tired to take any pictures?" To which I defensively replied, "Got lah!" And then S. chuckled at my natural usage of Singlish, something which 3 of us had not heard in a long time, and I just stared in horror at them as I realized how warped my "proper" english was becoming... haha.......

Anyhow, back to Casablanca. Our guide put it in this way, the famous movie Casablanca has helped romaticise the city in the sense that visitors who come have such high expectations of the city, only to fall flat when they realize that Casablanca is just like any other economic powerhouse of the country, full of modern buildings. The main attraction is probably the Hassan II mosque as the pictures below will tell you.

Built on reclaimed land, almost half of the surface of the mosque lies over the Atlantic water. This was inspired by the verse of the Quran that states " the throne of God was build on water." Part of the floor in the mosque is glass so worshippers can kneel directly over the sea. It houses approx 20,000 male and 5,000 female worshippers. The mosque displays strong Moorish influence and the architecture of the building is similar to that of the Alhambra and the mosque of Cordoba in Spain. Work on the mosque was commenced on 12 July 1986, and was intended to be completed for the 60th birthday of the former Moroccan king, Hassan II, in 1989. However, the building was not inaugurated until 30 August 1993. It took 2,500 construction workers and 10,000 artists and craftsman to build the mosque.

I think I was very lucky that day to get a very nice blue sky coz looking back at my pictures, the sand stone colour of the mosque contrasted very well with the blue sky... a feature which I realize was very much in pictures of Morocco..... the colours that they chose for their buildings really provided a very nice contrast for the environment surrouding them....

That same afternoon, went on an excursion to the local berbers village to have some local mint tea and bread and to learn more about their life. I guess for people like us who grew up in modern cities, it is hard to believe that there are still people who live with barely any electricity, have to heat up water for baths and live in barest subsistance with minimal modern comforts. But it is true, they still exist, and the endearing thing is that they have a very simple view of life... they take pleasure in life's simple comforts, which does make us quite envious when we ask them questions and listen to their answers.

View of the countryside enroute to the village

On the bus, we were warned not to give any money to the kids as there would be just 1 too many to give, and we were also warned about the extremely aggressive peddlers that we would be meeting and boy was he right. It was like they were waiting for us... as soon as the bus stopped, there were 7/8 of them waiting with their extremely sneaky techniques.. they would whisper 1 dirham prices and then when you got closer and started choosing one, they would suddenly say 300 dirhams.... and they would remember you! They would remember your face and start hounding you the whole time...

In the berber's house, we were served tea and bread with home made honey and olive oil. The owner of the house was very gracious, letting us walking all over his home like nobody's business... he was quite cute, he even gestured me to go to the back of his house, where I discovered his backyard view overlooking the mountains... I was so excited I was "Shirley come quick!!"

The gracious berber host... I just happened to be sitting there when Shirley took the pic with her camera. Thanks to her for that.

View of his house over to the Atlas Mountains.


This man has like 5 daughters and 2 sons if I remember correctly, and the youngest daughter who stays in Marrakech was at home for a visit that day, and her baby son was so cute that everyone couldn't resist taking pictures with him.... overcoming my baby fears I managed to take a picture with him... but boy... babies are heavy, or I'm just too weak already...

I was one of the first ones up the bus, escaping the hounding peddlers... but everyone else below was being hounded so desperately that I couldn't resist taking a picture of the chaos..... they really got to some of the tourists on the bus.... literally to the point of pissing them off.

We stopped by this place with camels to take pictures with. You had to pay a fee to sit on top and take a picture, which I wasn't too keen about, so I basically just stood around and waited. But Shirley pulled me over to take a picture with her. It's so funny remembering it now. I didn't know where to stand coz I didn't want to be bitten by the camel in front, neither did I want to be shitted upon by the camel at the back (bad experience in Australia) so I was basically hopping back and forth not knowing where to stand, and in the end, Shirley just pulled me close to her and I froze for those few seconds while Simon took the picture. haha...

Pictures from Shirley's camera..


Had a short respite at a nearby hotel whereby I took the opportunity to ask our National guide if I could take a picture with him. He was with us during the entire Moroccan leg and I really appreciated having him around. He was always so patient and professional, especially during evenings at the hotel, when me or the girls would be bothering him with questions on what to do, where to go out at night.... never once he showed a hint of annoyance... and always so soft spoken and so knowledgeable.... definitely one of the better guides that I had on this trip.

Sunset over the mountains.

New Year's eve dinner with the girls... had beef tangine with apricots... sooooo good.... best tangine ever....

Better picture from A. camera

After Fez, we left for the city of Marrakech. One of the reasons why I was so happy in Morocco was because of the weather. Winter was just a mere 21 degrees celcius during the day and it was still double digits during night time!!! And it was sunny and not raining. It was such a pleasure being in such warm weather again that I really just reveled in it.

The thing about travelling from city to city in Morocco is that expressways and highways don't exist, so when changing cities, it always meant a whole day of travelling, sitting in the bus and only getting down for the occasional rest stops. Sometimes the roads were so narrow that when you had 2 big vehicles coming in opposite directions, there would be the occasional sudden right serve that our driver had to do to prevent a collision. Sitting by the window, there were a few times when I saw that there was barely a few centimetres between the bus and the opposite vehicle!!
One of the stops we had enroute to Marrakech was at the Moroccan winter resort, near the Atlas mountains. You can tell that the resort tries to imitate the French vibe through its french names: ala Chamonix...

View of the countryside enroute to Marrakech.


Second day in Marrakech, day tour of the city. First stop, the Koutoubia mosque is the largest mosque in Mrrakech. The minaret was completed under the reign of the Almohad Caliph Yaqub al-Mansur and was used as the model for the Giralda of Seville and for the Hassan tower of Rabat.
The men in the wierd costumes that you see below are water bearer. They carry water in the animal skin bags and sell it to people on the street who need it. Of course, they earn extra money too if you wanna take a picture with them, so hence the discreet photo taking.

Moi in front of the Mosque... there was a slight downpour in the morning, hence the umbrella, but it cleared up quickly by noon.

The Bahia Palace built in the late 19th century, intended to be the greatest palace of its time. The name means 'brilliance'. There is also a 2 acre (8,000 m²) garden with rooms opening onto courtyards. Set up at the end of XIXth century by Si Moussa, grand vizier of the sultan, for his personal use, this palace would bear the name of one of his wives. Here, the harem, which includes a vast court decorated with a central basin and surrounded by rooms intended for the concubines.
Enroute to the castle, I noticed all the spices being lined up in cones... was so excited I took a picture and asked Shirley to snap one of me too. But later on, the guide told us that it's fake and those miraculously cone shaped spices are just covers!



Marrakech is known as the red city because of all its reddish tone buildings like the one below. In fact, it is not allowed to paint your building any tone that deviates from the reddish theme so as to preserve the integrity of the city. Interestingly, movie trivia, scenes from Sex and the city 2 movie were shot here just a few weeks back :) Just saw the movie trailer and recognized the salmon tower from below.

One of the more interesting excursions in Marrakech was when we were bought to a herbalist, an occupation that usually passed from father to son, and in there, we were treated to natural remedies and herbs for all sorts of things, from cosmetics to illnesses to food spices.... It was like wow and very interesting for me.... more so when he brought out the moroccan food spices for curry, tangine, chilli and fish marinate.... breathing it in was salivating on the spot, it smelled like home cooked food!!! I immediately raised my hand for a pack of the spices...


The cosmetic stuff was quite interesting. He had this green stick of lip balm which produced a red colour tone according to the colour of your skin. This canadian lady and I compared our hands and hers was a darker tint that mine!! Among other things, he had stuff for wrinkles, orange oil for stress, rose oil for scars etc etc..... I was surprised to find out that saffron was considered an expensive spice in the western countries and was relatively cheap here. Thus I saw one lady buying about 7 packs of saffron at once...

Last stop of the day: Djemaa el Fna, which is a square and market place in Marrakesh's medina quarter. The origin of the name remains unknown: it means Assembly of the dead in Arabic, but as the word djemaa also means mosque in Arabic, it could also mean place of the vanished mosque, in reference to a destroyed Almoravid mosque. The place is like the main square of Marrakesh. And during the day, it is dominated by orange juice stalls, youths with monkeys, water sellers in colourful costumes and snake charmers who will pose for photographs with tourists for a fee. There were also stalls selling snails and somehow when I saw these stalls, it just hit me.... Amazing race came here before! And a quick check on wikipedia afterwards confirmed it.... I think that everyone was also captivated by the square, because the guide originally only wanted to give us 45 mins to walk around the square, but many argued for an hour.... hehe....