#28 Morocco

Morocco provokes strong responses from people. The general attitude is that people hate traveling there, but they love it when they're home. My experience is the same. You get constantly hassled when you are there, it's hot, smelly and chaotic. It's easy to get food poisoning and even easier to get ripped off by a shop keeper, but in a perverse kind of way, that's the appeal.

I flew into Fez, via Casablanca. It is a one of kind city. It still has the medieval city wall and is not often visited by tourists. I stayed in a riyadh, which is an old house inside the medina. It was amazingly beautiful inside, but from the dodgy alleyway outside, it looked like a hovel. That's the fun of Morocco - challenging your expectations and then exceeding them.

I then caught the train to Marrakech, which in itself was an amazing experience, first class of course. Marrakech is the tourist face of Morrocco. It's awash with has been hippies, wannabe hippies and people looking for a taste of the exotic. It's an experience not to be missed.