The Tunisian Diaries

Sometime around mid-2004 there was a programme called “Spy” on BBC digital directed by some former MI5/CIA operatives. The format went something along the lines of…11 contestants have to do various challenges in the world of espionage and they pass or fail each test which leads to them getting kicked off the show. The last test saw them in a foreign country which happened to be Morocco.

Anyway, this was how I started I took a slight interest in North Africa…a very different place from my usual Eastern European haunts. I was aiming to go for the first week in December 2004. Possible choices were Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Algeria is seriously war-torn, Libya is scary (and I don’t trust Gadaffi) so that left the other 3. Flights to Eygpt and Morocco were v expensive, so Tunisia it was.

Places visited:
Tunis
Carthage
Douz (Sahara)
Sousse
Kairoun
Monastir

Overall impressions
Not as good as I’d hoped. Most descriptions seem to indicate that it was a western-looking republic. I was half-expecting it to be similar to Turkey, or a poor version of Spain. Found it to be much more Arabic/Middle Eastern/Islamic than I imagined. I kept thinking I was in Iran or Palestine. When people were nice to me I usually became deeply suspicious as earlier experiences lead me to believe that I was about to be ripped-off or cheated in some way.

Good Things
Carthage
Not many tourists
Very foreign
Excellent (very cheap) food
Ribet at Monastir (where they filmed “the life of Brian”)

Bad Things
Very difficult to find alcohol (even in tourist resorts). Very few cafes and no supermarkets sell beer. On the few occasions I did find it,, it was expensive.
Lots of false friends, being harassed for money, lots of scams, being ripped-off.
Being mistaken for a homosexual in a Douz hotel (and nearly having my arse-virginity taken?!).
The Arabic language is so alien that I was completely illiterate.

Tunisia’s place in my hierarchy? Unfortunately 34/34.

Personchester

Went to Justin and El’s housewarming party on Sat 13 August in Cheddleton, Leek. Really nice house. Heavy rain most of day, much alcohol consumed and a good time had by all (except their poor neighbours) I think.

Aug 27. Manchester. Now don’t get me wrong, Manchester is a different night out and does have some very nice pubs and bars. But it is very over-rated and somewhat pretentious. I can’t think of any industry, apart from the night entertainment industry, that treats its customers so shabbily and yet still commands such respect from them. It’s quite normal to queue up for ages only to be turned away for wearing the wrong sort of shoes, wearing clothes that are “too dark”, being in a group of males or not having a girlfriend with you. Compare this with Tirana, Baku and most Eastern European cities where I can walk in with my trainers on, am not charged 3-5quid for the privilege of going there, pay the bill at the end of the evening and am treated with courtesy and respect. There aren’t any bouncers because people don’t cause trouble. And it’s not 2.40 a pint. Maybe its just Manchester has become a victim of its own success or people have too much money in the UK….

This is starting to sound like a rant so I’ll stop it there.

another way round

Friday-Rangers awards in Star and Garter. Big Pete played a woman at pool who claimed she hadn’t played since she was 8. Bearing in mind that she was the wrong side of 30 and Piggy has had snooker lessons from a former England Champion, everybody expected Piggy to blow her out of the water. The atmosphere resembled a sort-of-Germany-vs-Liechtenstein qualifier with the crowd firmly behind the underdog. Germany coasted into a 3 shot lead and with just the black to pot it looked like even Piggy couldn’t mess this one up. But he did. With the help of some outrageously good fortune, Liechtenstein pulled a victory off and the roar of delight from the crowd nearly lifted the roof off!

Piggy then played me and got another thrashing, but, unlike pete, I won’t gloat.

Some quite good photos of some of the places we visited in Albania. At least until I can be bothered to upload some of our photos....
http://berclo.net/page03/03en-albania.html

Where next?

OK so now I've been to 12/12 of the none USSR Eastern European countries and 7/15 of the Former USSR places. Where next for my main holiday? Don't know yet but Kazakhstan, Russia part 2, Armenia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan all sound appealing. Turkmenistan -too hot, Uzbekistan - not good at the moment and Tajikistan too expensive - the 20p beers aren't such good value when you have to pay 800quid for a flight. China is a long-term goal, as is the 6month trip to Russia.

Top 10 things that remind me of Albania in no order:
1.Around 80% of the population driving a (stolen) Merc or BMW (often with its german or swiss plates still on)
2.Lots of attractive young ladies
3. Concrete bunkers located absolutely everywhere to protect the country from 'invaders/enemies'
4.People watering the tarmac
5.Everybody assuming I/we had to be Italian
6.The chaos that ensued when I asked for 2 of something (i.e. 2 beers)– usually both me and mark got 2 each.
7.Drivers always seemed to find the square of rubble you were standing on the same place they wanted to be.
8.Thousands of half-built buldings everywhere. And thousands of totally destroyed, looted buildings.
9.If you hadn’t changed money before midday, you were pretty much screwed since banks and most businesses only work half a day
10.Anarchic driving, even by E European standards. The yellow-bibbed traffic police seemed totally ineffective.