Sunday, December 24, 2006

There's one born every minute.


Local price for a hammam, between 6 and 12 dirhams. Price for British journalist, Catriona Irvine? 500 dirhams.
You have to wonder what planet people are on sometimes. Catriona Irvine from the UK Sunday Mirror was sent on a holiday to Morocco and did the whole gushing thing... BEDUIN & BREAKFAST - DISCOVER MOROCCO'S HIDDEN JEWELS ON A CAMEL TREK INTO THE SAHARA. And - although her room was only 18 pounds per night - she stumped up 30 for a hammam. Sounds unbelievable? Read about her adventures in Marrakech for yourself...

We ventured into the souks for some bartering. We got some leather slippers down from a crazy starting price of £60 to £6 and some large ceramic plates down from £42 to around £6 too. It helped that Jane spoke fluent French the main language after Arabic although many locals also speak English. And the further you walked away from the main square the cheaper everything became.

We had read Marrakesh is a good place to get clothes made up, so set our mind to designing some outfits.

As it was our last day, it would be a tough job to find someone, but we visited a material shop and they led us to a tailor.

He cancelled all other jobs for us and his workforce of five spent the afternoon making us three pairs of shorts and two dresses we had designed, for a total of £42.

After a little more bartering, it was time for a hammam, or Turkish bath. We found one in Derb Dabachi, just off the Place Djemma El Fina. It was pretty daunting as we stood there in our bikinis and were told to take our tops off.

We were rubbed in black salt and headed to the sauna, where we were scrubbed, covered in clay, showered off and then taken upstairs for our massage and facial for £30.

We wore our new outfits that night on a visit to Pacha Marrakesh (00 212 24388400, www.pachamarrakech.com), the latest superclub which is about a 10-minute cab ride from the central Medina.

We booked in for dinner at the Crystal Lounge, which was a stunning setting with tea lights welcoming us up the entrance path and a view over the swimming pool as we tucked into melon soup, sea bass, lamb cutlets and a delicious mango sorbet (three courses with wine, about £35).

WHAT'S THE DEAL?

OUR two-day trip into the desert was with Rediscover the World and cost £209pp (call 08707 406 306 or visit www.rediscover.co.uk). The company also arranged our Marrakesh accommodation - a night's B&B at Dar Anika costs from £30pp and the Riad El Borj has double rooms from £18pp. For flights go to www.easyjet.com

Tip for Catriona. Next time come to Fez and have a real hammam - Price 6 dirhams.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've heard of similar prices for hammams, one place in Rabat comes to mind ("Moving") - don't go there! :) I think they're geared toward expats or Moroccans who like to pretend they're the hoi polloi.

Anonymous said...

Hammam can mean anything from a 6 dirham slime/hair pit to a deluxe spa with all the trims, so take a look at what you get for the money. And the woman was on a vacation!

Anonymous said...

We would like to say sorry to Catriona in that our original article said that she had a "freebie" holiday. This was wrong as she paid for it herself.

Catriona when next in Fez - the luxury Nausikaa Spa hammam ( price 100 dirhams) is on us!

Anonymous said...

The hammam was cheap, it was the facial and full body massage that made the cost £30 in total!

Anonymous said...

If you read the article properly you would see that the £30 paid was for a hammam, massage and facial, the hammam itself was very cheap, I suggest you read things properly before you start making smart comments