MARRAKESH - 5-12 APRIL 2011

I'm on the lookout for an 'I survived Marrakesh' t-shirt....... yes it was that disappointing.

We stayed in an authentic riad in the eastern part of the old Medina, well away from the usual tourist hotels and riads around the souks and central square. Nothing quite prepares you for the instant time travel element which hits you when you walk into this place - it really is like stepping back to biblical times. The streets are narrow, claustrophobic, dirty and chaotic with life and activity. Every kind of social or tinpot business enterprise under the sun goes on within them; tiny shops built into the walls sell clothes, meat and vegtables; makeshift garages sell and repair bikes and scooters; handcarts sell anything that can be thrown onto the back; sickly donkeys drag goods here and there; people stand around flogging thirty year-old tellies and microwaves, bartering and haggling is everywhere and the noise in such a small and confined space is deafening. Its like a nation of North African Del-Boys all crammed into the one spot trying to out-do each other. Kids don't appear to go to school and hang around all day long. Boy racers speed around on scooters wearing replica Barcelona or English Premier League football kits. Lorries and taxi's muscle there way through the crowds and all social activity takes place on the streets; everybody always appears to be going somewhere and doing something.

You have to walk into all this straight from the airport and straight from your own typically European lifestyle and expectations - there is no time to acclimatise at all, so no matter how seasoned a traveller you think you are its serious culture shock. You wouldn't mind if there were other tourists around, but there aren't - there are none! So the locals, who are a pretty loud and streetwise lot anyway, stare at you and immediately think of how they can exploit and rip you off. Its a bit intimidating and never relaxing, nomatter how strong a character you are.

We had to do a 20 minute walk from the riad to get into the main square and for the majority of that trip there wasn't a tourist in sight.  The hassle was fairly gentle and they'd mostly go away after a firm 'no', but we had to risk life and limb to avoid every car, cart, donkey, bike and moped that sped past missing us by fractions, so it was never particularly pleasant and the feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb and being gawped at all the time was constant. Sure, it was fascinating and educating enough in its own way, but sometimes you feel more comfortable observing the fish from outside the tank, not inside it. I never felt especially intimidated myself but I wasn't comfortable either and Fiona felt particularly uncomfortable and tended to get more attention than me.

Often we would take a taxi back from the square to the riad at night, but this presented its own horrors, as Moroccan drivers, possibly learning from their former colonial masters the French, pay little heed to anything regarding the laws of the road and taxi drivers inparticular seem to exist for no purpose other than to get in front of the driver ahead of them at all costs. Basically all you can do is brace yourself in the back seat and count the number of children dressed in Barcelona shirts with the legend 'Messi' embazoned on the back that the taxi driver comes within a centimetre of obliterating on the journey home. I had visions of the taxi finally arriving dripping with the blood of its victims and the word 'Messi' repeated in a variety of impressions all over the bonnet and windscreen, like crushed flies.

One particularly hair-raising journey to Bab Ailen gate took us through mistifying back alleys to an uncertain stopping point with the driver shouting 'Bab Ailen!' in the front seat, a spaced-out Moroccan hammering the window on the outside and shouting 'Bab Ailen!' while Fiona and I sat in the back seat pointing at a different location on a map and shouting 'Bab Ailen, Bab Ailen!' It turned out the driver and the spaced-out guy were right and we had to slink off down the road surrounded by jeering children in 'Messi' replica football tops.

The riad itself,  down another dark and dirty back alley, was actually fine once we got into it. It was designed to be a quiet haven in that deliberate Islamic way which doesn't encourage any street-side opulence to be on public view. The suite was sizable enough and very ornate in its design with windows that faced out over the inner courtyard. The staff were friendly and helpful throughout and it was always a relief to get back to it and relax on the roof garden away from the endless madnesss that went on outside.

Otherwise Marrakesh was a bit of a disappointment. OK the big Jemma-el-fna square can be quite spectacular with all the street vendors, eateries, snakecharmers, shamens and musicians on the go, but it wears its tourist rip-off credentials unashamedly on it sleeves and the amusement wears off after an hour or so. The soulks are colourful, maze-like and full of the usual goods and trinkets, but ultimately there's actually not a whole lot to see and mostly you just sit around the cafes and restuarants watching the teeming masses go noisily by and generally passing the time. Frankly the locals don't help; we never met a shopkeeper, waiter or taxi driver out there who wasn't at best indifferent or a worst downright rude.  They're very tempremental with each other too and watching them have blazing rows with each other in the middle of the street was commonplace. You can't even drink to any decent degree as most places don't sell alcohol and even those who do charge extortionate prices. Anyway, you wouldn't trust yourself on these streets in anything other than a sober and alert state.

There is a new town built by the French along standard boulevard lines with some good shops and cafes and we took a decent, if tourist-loaded, trip out into the Atlas mountains which included a fun trek up to a waterfall, but the holiday has to go down as a bit of a yawn. A week is far too long in this town and the location didn't favour the laze-by-pool type holiday that one of the more modern resort hotels outside the medina might offer. We were either bored or slightly scared, which is a strange combination. Truth is we're probably 20 years too old for this kind of ethnic semi-roughing it; but its hard in any case to see where the town's hippy credentials still are as its as tacky and commercialised as any custom-bult European resort that I've ever been in, and the feeling that the locals despise the tourists is never far from the surface.

Done, dusted, ticked off the list and never again.