Far Flung Forays

Renting a Car in South Korea

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Todd

Renting a car in Korea was something that I was really nervous about going into the trip. I had to go to AAA before we left and get an international drivers license which is a confusing book thingy with a passport photo in it. I also read a couple blogs that mentioned the craziness which is driving in Korea and booked a one way car rental with a company affiliated with Hertz. The couple days we spent with Nicole and Matt in Pyeongtaek I was able to pick up some traffic tips.

Drivers do what they want and only obey traffic signs if there are cameras.
The police do not enforce traffic, CCTV cameras and remote speeding cameras enforce traffic.
If there are no cameras red lights are suggested stops
Traffic moves like a slinky speeding up after the speed cameras and slowing down before them.
If there is an accident a percentage blame is placed on each driver by an arbitrator.
You cannot turn left on green, only a green arrow, unless there is a blue sign on the light.
Google was not allowed to map South Korea so no google maps.
Highways are toll roads

That is the insight I took into renting a car, along with hopes of getting a GPS in English. We were able to get a GPS in English which was a life saver. The GPS is way more advanced than the GPS in the states, including playing live TV. The GPS also tells you when there are speed traps and lights with cameras in them. We did discover that they are not always big fans of tunnels and will occasionally forgot to tell you to get off the highway when you should.

You can tell the popular color of car. Ours is the first tiny one

We rented a Kia Morning which is basically a mini clown car and might be smaller than a mini. I wanted the smallest vehicle possible and sure did get it. It get over 40 MPG as a positive with gasoline costing $5 a gallon (our total gas bill was $24).

When we rented the car they went around and recorded scratches and tried to setup the GPS, but couldn’t get the mount to stick. We ended up with Katy holding the GPS and tell me the directions which would shut off if she brushed the power cord. Needless to say this was not a very sustainable arrangement. The second day using a massive amount of spit I was able to get the suction cup to stick to the windshield.

Overall renting a car worked out very well and it was realistically easy to get around with the GPS. We would not have been able to see all that we did between Haiensa and Gyeongji without the car. My tactic driving was to be the slowest car in the smallest car and it worked out way better than it sounds.

Full service gas station, about $6 a gallon.

When we went to return the car we had a hiccup with them saying that there was a new scratch on the bumper. I was able to convince them with a random photo I took picking up the car that the truck parked in front of us prevented us from seeing the scratch and was not charged for it after a couple phone calls and 30 minutes. They even drove us to the train station and we literally made the train with less than 2 minutes to spare. We will wait and see how many speeding and traffic light violations I racked up in three days in the coming weeks.

Please notice how small the Hertz sign is compared to everything else

Korea: Land of Tombs and Kimchi

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Todd

We stayed busy our second half the trip and I did not right any blogs. Our trip home was stressful to say the least and left a little sour taste in my mouth and now after being back a month I am writing some blog I should have written while we were traveling.

We left Haiensa and started heading to Gyeongji which the GPS said would be 2:30 and 6 dollars in tolls (1,100 won is equal to $1 so it is easy to convert as 1000:1 mentally). Somehow (I blame Katy) it took us off the highway and decided we wanted to drive straight through Daegu which is the third or fourth largest city in Korea. By the time we reached our next accommodations I was stressed to the max after a knuckle grinder 3:15 drive sans highways.

A little hipster coffee shop

I quickly (my opinion) regrouped in Gyeongji and headed with Katy to caffeinated. Korea takes it coffee seriously with coffee shops all over the place and prices being pretty westernized at $3.5-6 for a latte. Katy says that some of the coffee is good, but a lot is weak and sub US quality. I am not doing the best at adjusting to the time zones and Katy has taken to feeding me evening lattes so I stay up to an “acceptable hour”.

Our “bed” at the Happy Village

We stayed for two nights at the Happy Village Syebol which was located right next to some tombs in Gyeongji. Gyeongji and Haiensa are two places not on the typical tourist path, but they are not really removed from them either. The locations and how spread out Gyeongji is make it harder for independent backpackers to visit things other than the main sites. Gyeongji was the capital of the Silla rule from roughly 0-1000CE. The Silla rule adopted Buddhism as the state religion around 650 (these dates are plus or minus 100 years) and has a ton of temples, tombs, and palaces scattered around the area. Gyeongji is now a city of 250K, but in it’s zenith had over a million people living in the area.

After being caffeinated we wondered around the sites in town for a couple hours and then came back to the Happy Village. We then went to dinner which was a $17 for the two of us and contained about 15 small plates. After dinner we got some fish waffles which are waffles shaped like fish and filled with either custard or red bean paste. They are either 2-3/dollar depending on your filling. Katy’s attempts to keep me caffeinated did not have the desired impact and we drank some of the alcohol we bought at the convenience store, played Settlers and then I promptly fell asleep.

Please note the bowl of broth like liquid next to Katy is really an unfiltered rice beer.

We got an early start to the morning and hopped into our clown car and started the day driving by driving to one of the most important temples in Korea, Bulguk-sa. We got there pretty close to opening time (even after a detour driving around a random town looking for an open coffee shop, for some reason coffee shops in Korea feel no reason to be open before 1oam) and shortly after we arrived we met the hoards of tourists that were dislodged by the tour buses. In this area most of the tourists were Korean. One thing that noticed in the entire country was the lack of American tourists and a plethora of French tourists (the 10ish other people at the Happy Village were French). We (this means google searches) could not come up with a good reason for this other than they get more vacation than us. After that temple we then drove to a grotto where a buddha is displayed. At this point we were really close to the east coast of Korea and Katy wanted to see the backwards Pacific. Unfortunately the weather was kinda overcast and we couldn’t see the ocean. After a few minutes in the car trying to figure out what were doing using a combination of the car’s GPS (which is not as user friendly as you would guess) and cell phones (using our wifi egg) we decided to head back towards town and go for a hike and get some lunch.

Kimchi stew and a seafood pancake

We somehow managed to locate a place in the guidebook that is known for their three year old fermented kimchi soup. We have discovered that kimchi is actually a way of fermenting veggies and have had a wide range of kimchied (I made that word up). This meal ranked as one of our favorites and we discovered that they use tofu completely differently than us in the states. They use it in conjunction with meat instead of a meat substitute. This has resulted in Katy being a trooper and having to pick around in a lot of dishes.

Katy trying to get caffeinated with vending machine coffee. Discovered it tastes a little worse than it sounds.

After lunch we went for a hike where we were severely under dressed since we didn’t have hiking poles or assorted neon athletic wear on. Since the area was the center of culture for hundreds of years there were tombs and shrines all over the hike which was pretty interesting.

Required pre hike stretches

Safety first on how much you pack in your bag for your 5 mile hike…

Just in case you start a forest fire while out hiking

After it got dark we went and wondered more of the city and discovered a few pedestrian only streets and somehow ended up at the noodle place we were trying to eat at. Katy and I had a slight miss communication on where we wanted to eat which had her thinking I was leading her down assorted side alleys. We ended the night with some fish waffles and called it another good day in Korea.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged backpacking, bulguk-sa, bulguksa, gyeongju, hipster, kimchi, Korea, renting a car, silla, South Korea, temple | 1 Comment

Why Not Rent a Car and Drive to a Mountain Temple in Korea

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Todd

A lot of Korea is like back in the states, but a bunch of it only 90% like back home. Examples include they have food that tastes like banana runts, but instead of being a candy it is an alcoholic beverage. You can buy single servings of milk at the confidence store, but flavored like banana, strawberry, green, chocolate or coffee.

Banana runt alcohol

After our previous train “adventure” sitting on the floor of the area between cars Katy went online and prebooked us tickets to our next city which we would use as a launching point for the next 4 days.

We got to Daegu and began to look for our rental car company (more on that later). The issue was our directions had us leaving an exit from the station that was closed for construction. We found the exit and began to look for the rental company, but the issue was that somehow Katy thought we were looking for a subway line not the car rental company. We eventually found it, sporting only a 4X8 sign in English on the first floor of an office building. After a rental process that involved a lot of confusion and 45 minutes we were shown to our car and proceeded to drive to Haiensa which is a Buddhist mountain temple where we were planning on spending the night. We got there with only one navigational hiccup.

Haiensa temple stay schedule

The main parking lot for Haiensa is 3/4 of a mile downhill from the site and due to not being able to read the signs and some caution we decided to walk there from the main parking lot (we later discovered you could drive right up to where we were staying, but we would not have found it without walking down the road).

We checked into the temple stay and were given our temple outfits/costumes to wear. We were then assigned rooms and normally men and women are segregated but since there were only six of us each couple was given their own room. The rooms were traditional rooms with mats to sleep on and a heating system built into the floor. Like all things in Korea each room in the temple did have its own wifi router… The issue with the heating system in the temple was two fold, it was set at “sweltering” without a control to decrease it and since you sleep on mats on the floor it makes your sleeping surface really warm and it hard to sleep.

Temple clothes and steep steps

We then walked around the temple and each time we came back to the room I put on another layer since it was cold (read so cold that ice formed overnight) and we had on thin cotton pants. We were then given an orientation of the temple and went to dinner. You were not suppose to talk during dinner and you were suppose to finish every last grain of rice on your plate. Dinner was purple rice (good), a mushroom root vegetable stew (good), turnips (bad), potato pancakes (good), bland soup, and lotus root (fair).

We then went to the evening ceremony which started with three monks playing the drum and ringing the bell. We then went to the main temple and participated in the chanting ceremony. There were only two monks there since it is the time before the monks winter retreat and a lot are “on vacation”. We then went back to our room (read sauna) and I promptly fell asleep 7pm, not before opening the door and putting my mattress right in front of it. We woke up at 3am (I got a full 8 hours of sleep) and bundled up and ventured out in the sub 30* weather to hear them play their before ceremony drums. We then went to the temple and there were about 20 monks and the chanting was pretty magical in the cold morning. Luckily neither Katy nor I was the person who fell over transitioning during their prostrations. After additional sleep and breakfast which was very similar to dinner we attempted a hike, but below freezing temperatures combined with a more than stiff breeze stymied our attempt to reach the top of the mountain 100 yards in.

Our rental car in the mini one different than all the others parked next to where we were staying

After walking around some of the extended complex for a bit we headed to tea time with a monk. Which was less about tea and a lot more about talking with a monk for an hour. We then ate lunch and got back in our trusty rental car and started toward our next destination Gyeongji.

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Korea: We Made It

Posted on November 1, 2016 by Todd

As a heads up this is less of a banter and more of a report on what we have done so it is a boring post

We woke up after a solid 6 hours of sleep and prepared to head to Matt and Nicole’s (Katy’s college friend). I stopped by the front desk and after a little mix up picked up a package containing a portable wifi router with 1g of data a day ($5/day). We then headed across the street to the train station and after Katy got her coffee attempted to find the right train to Pyeongtaek. It was a little frustrating and involved going to the wrong area and eventually figuring out it was the wrong area and buying a ticket, but they only had standing room tickets. We ended up sitting on the floor of the connection area between cars, but it made for a semi chilly hour (it has rarely been over 50 F since we got here).

Not sure what this means…

We then met up with Matt, Nicole, and Chloe (their 6 year old) who are 18 months into a two year army deployment. We took our stuff to their Subaru (imported from the US) and headed to a temple with a giant seated Buddha. We decided to walk up a random path that led to a semi shrine cave with a good view of town. We then headed back to town and got dinner. I fell asleep shortly after dinner around 8pm. The time zone change has really hit me hard this trip and the first night I couldn’t keep my eyes open at 7pm, second night at 8pm, and third night at 9pm. Luckily with a little Ambien I have been able to sleep in until at least 6am each day.

In the morning we headed out to a folk village with Nicole and Chloe since Matt had to work. The folk village is basically a traditional village that people still live in that has been preserved. There is a museum section that has labels with explaining different types of houses depending on class. We missed a lot of the demonstrations since we might be here a little off season and some things seamed closed

Fire burning at the folk village

Katy with a selfie stick

It has been pretty cold, but a lot of the leaves have not changed yet even though normally mid to late October is peak tree changing season. As you can imagine the fall colors are a major hit with Koreans and they tend to flock to the mountains to see the colors.

We then went to a Shabu Shabu place for dinner which is basically a Japanese hot pot place which was a lot of fun. Katy has been on the hunt for kimchi and missed the unlabeled kimchi on the buffet that went along with the hot pot. I was feeling exhausted at this point but managed to stay up until almost 9pm.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged backpacking, buddha, folk village, pyeongtaek, South Korea, train | Leave a comment

A 37 Hour Adventure to Korea

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Todd

We are now in Korea after a whirlwind aim not sure how many days. The trip started with going to LA and spending almost 24 hours with Tristen and Lemac. We then had to catch our 14 hour flight to Shanghai on China Eastern at 1am. China Eastern is not an airline that contracts with the US on TSA Precheck so we did have a rather long line to check in, but still had 30 minutes to hangout at the lounge which was offering a serve your self bar of vodka, Johnny Walker Black, and a couple wines.

When your flight round trip to Korea costs $526 there is not a lot of room for complaining. We had read that the airline is normally late which we would agree on (50 minutes leaving Denver and 90+ leaving Shanghai). The long flight to Shanghai was in a 3/5/3 configuration except at the tail of the plane where there were a couple rows of 2/5/2 which made the aisles almost double wide and gave an extra 4+ inches between the window seat and bulkhead. We were able get book one of the 2s in the back of the plane which turned out to be very nice. The entertainment system had a lot of new programs and had a USB port for charging. It was the nicest/most comfortable coach seat I have flown on lately. The food was actually decent, the combos of sides didn’t always make sense. Katy had Chinese noodles with shrimp and potato salad as a side…. One odd note was that they didn’t take the seatbelt sign off the entire flight which just led to people ignoring it even when there was a bunch of turbulence.

We arrived in Shanghai both having gotten less sleep than we wanted and set out to make the best of our 12 hour layover. We got through security (where Katy got the first stamps in her new passport) and headed to the maglev train to take us into town. We were talking about how excited we were for a train that goes from downtown Denver to the airport in 45 minutes and we’re getting on a train that goes 300-430 km/hr (265+ mph) and takes less than 8 minutes.

We got downtown and transferred to the subway which was super easy because we bought a 24 hour subway card with a round trip maglev ride on it for $13 and did not need to mess with subway rickets. We then headed to the Tian Shin Tea factory which is a multistory mall that just sells tea with the goal of buying some tea. It was Saturday morning and a lot of places were closed but we walked around for a while and decided on a place to go in. We tasted a couple smoked teas and I decided on the one I wanted and got down to negotiating. He wanted $63 for 1.1lb which is less than half of what the tea would cost in the states, but we were able to get the tea for $80 for 2.2lbs which I was happy with even though I am sure we were ripped off. I had paid $26 for 1/2lb of tea that wasn’t as good plus shipping from my normal tea source. It overall was a fun experience and I am sure I overpaid but I also could not the tea cheaper at home or online.

Where we got the tea

Chestnut Stand

A mushroom dish, a noddle dish, and a pepper and pork dish

After a detour to buy roasted chestnuts that thankfully had picture instructions on how to open them we headed back to the subway and walked around People’s Square which has a section of park with a lot umbrellas setup with a piece of paper in Chinese on top. We had no idea what it was until it clicked in my head that there were dates and distances in cm that these were parents advertising their children for relationships and Wikipedia agreed that we had stumbled into the Shanghai Marriage Market. We then stumbled out of the marriage market to a pedestrian only street that could very easily be compared to time square. It was on the border of the potion of Shanghai that was built during the early 1900s with a lot of European influences. We then left the main area and found a place to eat lunch.

Examining the people on offer at the marriage mart

After lunch we headed on a whim to the Yu Gardens and boy was that area different than how we started the day with a ton of tour groups and tourists in general. We walked through the gardens which consisted of a lot of buildings, rocks, and water. We were then getting tired and decided to make our way back to the airport via 2 subways and the maglev. We got into the club and Katy had a cup of noodles and some other snacks and beverages. We also discovered that in addition to never leaving on time China Eastern doesn’t change the estimated departure time. We both were exhausted at this point and slept for the entire flight except when they woke us up for dinner. We arrived downtown at Seoul Station (where our hotel was) around 1am and were ecstatic for a real bed 37 hours after we woke up in LA.

Outside the Yu Gardins

Posted in backpacking, Uncategorized | Tagged China, china eastern, Korea, maglev, shanghai, tea, tian shin | 1 Comment

Goats, Mountains, and Snow in Morocco

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Todd

Katy and I said goodbye to Rachid and Mohammad in Imlil and they headed back to their village about 10km away. Imlil had gotten about 6-8 inches of snow in the past two days and it was the first “real snow” of the year everyone was quick to point out. Last year was a wet winter with a lot of snow, but this one has been really dry and it was actually the first time that the pass has been closed.

The valley leading to Imlil

Imlil is a end of the road mountain town at 5,700 feet that sits at the base of Toubkal, a 13,665 foot peak which is the highest in North Africa (not really sure what that means but told it multiple times).

Katy and I were both in our running shoes and were able to change into boots for the walk in the slush up hill for 10 minutes to our guest house, Dar Adrar. They gave brought down a mule to carry our bags along with some food for dinner and we headed up. It was rather chilly at this point, probably 32F, and I put on my spare jacket. Katy got chilled while doing the walk in the sludge to the house, it didn’t help that her boots were not really waterproof.

The town of Imlil

Dar Adrar turned out to have 6 other groups staying there and it might have been full. There was a common room with a fireplace, which was roaring, and everyone congregated in there so it had a very cosy feel. The reason that it was so full was that with all of the recent snow no one was able to summit Toubkal the past two days and people that were planning on staying at the refuge 2/3 of the way up did not stay there. Two Americans that we played a game of settlers with later that night said that high on the mountain the snow was waist deep and they turned back because of wind.

The made road in Imlil. Snow makes “traffic” a mess. There were more tourists here than I expected

We spend the evening playing settlers and hanging out in the guest house and then went to our room which was heated by a wood stove and lots of blankets. The downside was that in the morning it was plenty chilly in the room.

People headed to clear snow off of roofs with homemade shovels

We then donned our rental boots ($2.50) and headed walking up the valley. We didn’t really have a set path but since it had snowed so much we at least knew our options since they were already trampled down. We ending up going up the start of the Toubkal trail and after a bit turned around.

Imlil at night from Dar Adrar

We then headed to Marrakech and decided to spend $5 extra dollars and have a nice ride arranged instead of trying to do it on the fly.

Some goats impeding our progress

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged AFRICA, backpacking, daradrar, goats, imlil, marrakech, Morocco, mount toubkal, snow, toubkal | Leave a comment

It Snows in Morocco

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Todd

Desert Sunset

We departed Fes to start a four day tour ending in the mountains outside of Marrakesh in a haphazard manner. My email communication with the guide we hired, Rachid, said 9am. Someone from the riad we stayed at knocked at our door at 745 with Rachid on the phone wanting to know where we were. We ate some breakfast and met him at 830, Katy needed her coffee.

We booked a trip through Rachid to take us from Fes to Imlil, a village near Marrakesh via the desert over 4 days. We were pleasantly surprised to have Rachid the owner of the country actually be our tour guide and his brother Mohammad our driver.

Ifrane, a mountain town that looks like a European town

Storks are everywhere

A couple things about cars and traffic rules in Morocco. Honking gives you the right of way and says to the other person move out of the way. The larger vehicle also has the right of way. Cyclists have zero right of way if someone honks they have to go off the road into the gravel. There are no shoulders. Abrupt edge describes most of the sides of the roads. Most of the time the traffic cops will give you 5% leeway on the speed limit. Bribing the cops is expectable and expected. There are a lot of police checkpoints, they pull over people who look shady. The centerline is a mere suggestion, if there is no traffic most people just drive down the center of the road. It takes way longer to get places since they don’t really believe in wide or straight enough roads to warrant a high speed limit.

It was great having Rachid who spoke English really well to ask all of the questions that have been building up over the past few days from what a fruit was (prickly pear) to taxes to street cleaning procedures.

A small Berber village in the Atlas Mountains

The first day mainly involved driving with a couple minor stops to the desert where we were promptly escorted onto camels for a 60ish minute sunset ride to out desert camp. Since a storm was brewing the sunset was actually really good. The camel ride was great for the first 14 minutes but after that the novelty kind of wore off. We spent the night in a very large sand dune area which is one of three main dune areas tourists in Morocco go to. We shared the camp which had some lights powered by solar panels (when I was in the desert in Jordan it was all candle/lantern powered) with a group of three.

We saw a couple people’s kitted out riding bikes

Katy and I managed to wake up and get out of bed in the cold desert to trudge up a dune to watch sunrise. Sunset was better and warmer… We then hopped back on our camels, mounting and dismounting camels is very amusing since they sit down for that and stand up with hind legs first and then their front legs creating some unique jerks and angles, and ride back to the non sand dune area in the warm morning light.

We had a “quick” shower and some breakfast and headed in the car through some oasis to Todra Gorge. The wind had really started to pick up at during the drive, creating some sandy windstorm characteristics and some dust devils. During our walk through the gorge the wind picked up and at one point was blowing so hard that it was carrying large chunks of stuff that actually hurt when they hit you. We quickly exited the gorge and got in the car to head to the next gorge, Dades Gorge.

Skoura Oasis

The storm blowing wind

Dades Gorge was not as overtly windy, but it was windy enough that during dinner power was knocked out for the rest of the night. That meant the hotel resorted to candles in the hallways and at dinner. We were given a candle lantern to take into our room and I was given a candle to go to the bathroom with. After dinner we had some whiskey and coke and played settlers via lantern.

He next morning we woke up to snow out side and had a couple hour hike planned. We went to do our scheduled walk and the look on Katy’s face when she found out we had to take our shoes off to walk through the “river” while it was snowing out was enough to decide we should do plan b and walk along the canyon instead of up it. We did discover that the wind was at times 60mph the day before and I believe it.

A truck waiting for the pass to open

Eating by candle light

We learned that he groups that went to the desert that night had to have 4 wheel drive vehicles pick them up and take them back to hotels since the wind was so high. We stopped at a kabash (big fortified mud brick home) and then headed to a UNESCO kabash, Ait Ben Haddou.

Ait Ben Haddou was pretty cool and the site that several movies including gladiator was filmed at. During dinner we were briefed on the plan for the next day and it depended on the amount of snow. We have to go over the highest mountain pass (~8000 feet) to get to Marrakesh/Imlil and had been closed all of today because of the snow. Unfortunately in the morning the pass was closed with speculation that it would open at 4pm, but nobody certain.

Heading to Tizi ‘Test pass

We decided to go the long way around and try a small pass that is not as high called Tizi Test. Unfortunately this meant that we were going to skip one of the sites that I really wanted to see and had added special to the tour, but life happens. We were able to make it over the second pass which was slushy at times and finally made it Imlil around 4pm

The town of Imlil

Posted in backpacking, Uncategorized | Tagged atlas mountans, backpacking, berber, camel ridng, camels, dades gorge, fes, Ifrane, imlil, Morocco, snow, todra gotge | Leave a comment

Buying donkeys for $100 in Morocco

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Todd

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FACT: Moroccan Sun is Hot

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Todd

Moulay Idress

It has been a great past couple of days. We first headed to Meknes, the smallest of the three imperial cities. We of course arrived at the train station 5 minutes after a train had left so we purchased first class, assigned seat tickets ($18 each) for in an hour and went to find some breakfast.

What I thought was a going to be a great breakfast turned into a noodle and fish filled pastry, still a little confused. Ranks up there with biting into a curry filled donut and hotdog filled donut as most disappointing donuts while traveling

We had one talkative fellow, Omran, from Libya who was an Arabic teacher in Morocco getting his PhD in our cabin. Our conversation was very stilted since Katy and my Arabic is limited to hi, thanks, let’s go, and maybe, but Omran’s English grasp was a little larger. He did give us a piece of advice that we will head, don’t travel to Libya in the near future.

We had a bear of a time finding a taxi after we left the train at 2pm and ended up walking to our riad (1-2 miles). I know I live in Colorado and am use to the sun having a huge effect on the weather, but in morocco it might even be greater. It feels like the sun adds 10-20 degrees and on the walk to the riad we were sweating but when we left the riad in the tight shady medina I needed long sleeves. This riad was of traditional design with intricate tile work on the walls and detailed ceiling plaster? work ($28).

We set out to find the big mosque and visit the sites. We initially couldn’t find the big mosque and later realized that the medina was built all around it so tightly that it really didn’t have any discernible exterior and was just sporadic entrances.

A truck trying to make it through the outer medina

A medina is a walled city, most of the houses are made of plaster/mud/brick with no space between them. They are closed to cars, but not mopeds and motorbikes. There are so many roads and alleyways that maps (including Google) don’t show a fraction of them. Thankfully Meknes’ medina is said to be relatively easy to get around and less touts and hustle/hassle then Fes and Marrakesh.

We hadn’t eaten lunch at this point and decided to look for a good food option which we didn’t find. I asked Katy with her French to buy us some salted peanuts for us to munch on. Katy was able to manage buying some peanuts and came away with $0.10 worth… Numbers may not be Katy’s strong suit and 100g sounded like way to much so she settled for 50g, afraid she would end up with a suitcase full.

Main square above which we ate dinner in Meknes

We spent the rest of the afternoon seeing a couple sites and then went for dinner on a terrace overlooking the main plaza. There were performers ranging from bands to men dancing to tell stories and circles of people formed around them, but there were only men in the circles. Some women congregated near the edge of the plaza, but not enough to account for every man in the plaza.

That night we played a game of settlers (i destroyed Katy like normal) and went to bed. The next morning after a breakfast of fried breadish thingy we headed to the grand taxi station to Moulay Idress. A grand taxi is a 1973 Mercedes sedan painted white or blue that leave when they are full and fit six passengers, two in the driver seat and four in the backseat. We decided to splurge and bought ALL the seats in one of the taxis to take us to Moulay Idress (30 minutesish). There is a man who heads the taxis and had a ledger of some sort and told us it would be $6, $3 cheaper then the guidebook said (I always expect more than the guidebook) and we jumped on that.

Taxi to Moulay Idress

Some of the maze of Moulay Idress

Moulay Idress is a relatively minor touristed city. It’s main claim to fame is holding the mausoleum of one of the people that congealed Morocco and there are pretty well preserved roman ruins a couple miles away which we road bikes to after some minor mechanical repairs (including having one having maybe 10lbs of pressure in the back tire).

There are actually some flowers in Morocco

The bikes did not really fit us and we took the dirt road, but it was nice to get out. After a couple hours we peddled back 2.5 miles up hill and had a custard filled chocolate pastry washed down by a Fanta to celebrate (I celebrated the bikes not breaking, not sure what Katy celebrated)!!

That night we were the only people in our guest house and we had arranged to eat dinner there. We decided to get a bottle of Moroccan wine with the meal which actually wasn’t the worse wine I have had!!!!!! Even though Morocco is a predominantly Muslim country alcohol is not illegal, albeit most places don’t sell it. Some hotels, a few restaurants, some bars (mainly associated by men and prostitutes), major grocery stores, and a few shops sell it and it tends to be more expensive.

Veggies and beef with prune and almond tagine

We had a good dinner and then settled into the room which had a nice sized heater and an electric blanket which Katy turned up to melt your skin off temperature. She wasn’t cold…

Moulay Idress sunset, it was cold

Posted in backpacking, Uncategorized | Tagged backpacking, grand taxi, meknes, Morocco, Moulay idress, train, volubilis | 1 Comment

Casablanca, that is in Morocco

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Todd

A fishing boat at the port in Casablance

The adventure to Morocco has begun. It actually started with me having Friday off which necessitated a back country ski tour of the Brainard Lake area before heading to Northern Africa.

King Hassan II mosque and the ocean

Our trip to Casablanca began with a 6 hour layover in Philly where my parents met us and we were able to grab some lunch at Dock Street Brewing. The plane ride was only 7ish hours so after I watched my movie and Katy cried during her Disney movie I took a 4-6 hour sleeping medicine and it turns out only had 3.5ish hours to sleep since the plane ride wasn’t the 8.5 hours advertised. Needless to say I was groggy to the max eating breakfast (read almost fell asleep while drinking tea). Katy wasn’t feeling too hot when we arrived in Madrid and some Tylenol and Zofran later started to feel better once we reached Casablanca.

Petit taxis, used intercity our rides have been $1-$3, they all should have been less than $2…

Our introduction to Morocco was punctuated by a scuffle in the line for immigration. We had a very uneventful cab ride downtown and then went off exploring. We visited the King Hassan II mosque which was just built ~20 years ago and is the third largest in the world (can fit 25k inside). Most mosques non-Muslims are not allowed in, but this one had a tour which we took. We then walked along the seaside before taking a taxi back to the Sheraton and freshening up.

Inside Hassan II mosque

We took a stroll through the medina (walled city) and were told by two Moroccans who live in Amsterdam to eat these donuts there were eating. We continued walked to the port, through the security gate, and onto the docks where the fishing boats were cleaning up after a day out. We resisted the temptation to buy a load of fish and went to a busy fish restaurant. I discovered that Katy had never had peel and eat shrimp before.

After dinner we stopped by and had some donuts before taking a taxi to Rick’s Cafe which is based off the one in the movie (Katy really wanted to go). After almost falling asleep while having a drink at Rick’s we took a taxi back to the Sheraton where the taxi driver screwed with meter and the ride cost $3.10 instead of $1. We then fell asleep at 8pm. I was so tired that I didn’t take a sleeping med and after 11pm I woke up on a regular basis (Katy had no such problem with her resident sleep cycle). The benefit was that I was able to get updates on the Super Bowl and see that the Broncos won!!!!

Donut with marmalade inside

Line waiting to grab a $0.15 donut

I am having a bear of a time uploading photos so posts have been delayed because they are pointless without pictures.

Posted in backpacking, Uncategorized | Tagged backpacking, casablanca, hass iii, jet lag, Morocco | 1 Comment