Advertisement
Published: June 23rd 2017
Edit Blog Post
Geo: 31.6334, -7.9996
The next day we decided to go for Moroccan Hammam. Easy spa Medina was recommended by our Riad Abaca Badra which is about 5 mins walk from the Riad, we went there as it was convenient on a hot afternoon. I chose to have the full hammam for 180 dirhams. We were striped to our underwear, so do take spare underwear. The lady washed us with black soap, exfoliated us for few minutes, put the clay mask on us for a minute and shampooed our hair once. It was over very quickly in 20-25 minutes between both of us and I was taken to change. They did not understand English and it was very hard to communicate with them. I was bit underwhelmed by the experience after high expectations ; I should have listened to reviews on TripAdvisor and gone to local hammam where I heard they do a very good scrub, rub and they would have done better job than Easy Spa Medina.
The shampoo at Easy spa was of inferior quality and I went to Riad and shampooed my hair again with lovely shampoo provided by the Riad. Later
I decided to go to local market which is just 5 mins from the Riad and Dominque came with me as I wanted to buy few things as I am terrible at negotiating prices, battering. I was really touched by her warmness and she became more of a friend. Nothing was any trouble for her. I bought few souvenirs at a very good price with her help. I also bought little tagines as I loved the beautiful shape. We had similar routine the fourth day as we wanted to relax and get the feel of Marrakech.
As it was our last night in Marrakech we decided to go to a nice restaurant, we had seen a restaurant 2 minutes from our Riad Abaca Dabra called the Le Comptoir du Pacha. We looked at the tripadvisor reviews and decided to go for it. On arrival we were shown a table in African room which had great ambience and the service was excellent. There was alcohol served here so my friend had gin and I had cocktail. Then we also ordered a bottle of wine which was very good. We had the selection of salad which was beautifully presented
and was tasty. Our mains were tangines but they were different from the traditional as it was fusion between Moroccan and French cuisine which worked very well and was delicious. We had coffee to finish our lovely last dinner in Marrakech.
Next day I did not wake to any of the morning prayers (too much wine the night before) and we packed our bags after breakfast, we were leaving in the afternoon for our flight back to London. Giles and Dominique were brilliant hosts, very helpful and they made sure, we had amazing time at their lovely Riad. Giles gave us departure cards so we filled them before departing, we had booked our transfer with Riad and it was very comfortable journey to the airport. Do keep the pen handy for filling in the departure card and you need an airline stamp on your boarding pass even if you have only hand luggage. Also keep some spare dirhams for coffee and snacks at the airport. The food is expensive here and we had limited dirhams but I always carry some food with me as I know it always comes very handy being a vegetarian. Dominique had
also given me a big apple which was nice as I was hungry.
I was hoping to get coffee on our flight with Ryanair but when they were just about to serve coffee to us there was Medical Emergency so we had to manage with water. On arrival at Stansted airport there were massive queues for immigration but eventually we were very relieved to pass the customs and head home. I liked the experience of Marrakech, the people, their ways and the culture; my favourite dish was vegetarian tangine of course being a vegetarian. Vegetarians would not go hungry here as you have choice of vegetarian tagine, Harira soup (made with fresh tomatoes, chick peas, and lentils), vegetarian couscous and salad wraps which all come with local bread and olives in most restaurants.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0368s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb