Tunisia Trip Day 5

(10/12/2014: updated with photos)

Today is a national religious holiday, which meant we had to drive around town in the morning looking for a store to buy water. Since we're walking around a lot, I'm always sweating and running low on water.

Our first stop today was Midés, which was right on the border with Algeria. There were a few oases along the way and as we drove up a mountain road, the views were spectacular. We also saw an Italian group on ATVs; it looked like the rode a long way through the desert. At the end of the small road is a large river gorge that the locals call the Grand Canyon (it's actually not that big). I read that several films were shot here, including The English Patient. Retracing our steps, we stopped in Tamerza to hike another river gorge. Along the way we met some tourists that drove there from Spain. Overall however, I was again told tourism has gone down a lot after the revolution.

Oasis at the foot of the hill before Tamerza


Crazy Italians on ATVs


Ruins of old Tamerza


Dry river gorge at Midés


Hills and another dry river gorge behind Tamerza


Inside the dry river gorge


Greenery at the end of the gorge...


...fed by a small natural spring

After Tamerza, we stopped at Chebika to check out the old town ruins, and a small spring-fed pool where some kids were swimming/diving. Once again, it was all boys; don't girls get to play outside? On the way back to the car, my right leg started cramping. I think it's because I sweated a lot and only had water to drink. Need to find Gatorade or some bananas to replenish some potassium.

Chebika ruins and oasis


Desert landscape


Spring pool visible at bottom left


No Gatorade? Powerade? How about a Coke Zero?

At this point it was almost 2pm and a rainstorm was coming; we could hear thunder for about 30 minutes already. We drove back to Tozeur to look for food but almost all businesses were closed. We found a small store and bought some snacks and yogurt in lieu of stopping for lunch. On the way back to the hotel, we saw a small restaurant that looked open. They only served pizza and omelettes but we were hungry so we changed our minds and stopped to eat. We asked our driver to sit with us, and when his friend showed up 5 minutes later, he also joined us to talk. Apparently he (driver's friend) runs a few businesses and travels a lot; he was even in China for vacation in 2012. After lunch, he invited us to his house where he has 4 large dogs and a collection of souvenirs from his travels. He also had lots of empty beer bottles. Our driver didn't like that.

We rode on something similar last night; of course there were a lot more of them during the day when you can see stuff


Tozeur

When we got back to the hotel in Tozeur, it started to rain. We decided to call it a day since everyone was super tired. I ended up doing some laundry in the bathroom sink; hopefully everything will dry by tomorrow morning. My room was still really hot and facing the wrong way so there is no breeze. We asked again at the front desk and the same guy from yesterday said the AC might turn on tonight. Of course it did not. Can I give zero star reviews on TripAdvisor?

Tunisia Trip Day 4

(10/12/2014: updated with photos)

Ugh. I'm lying in bed typing this out on a notepad app because our "4-star" hotel does not have free Internet. Instead they want to charge 8 dinars per hour, which is like US$5/hour. That's crazy expensive. Even the Shangra-La in Singapore only charged SIN$15 for an entire day. Even better, there is no AC in the hotel. Wow... the hotel is near the Sahara Desert and during dinner it was like 30°C outside. I told the guy at the front desk that the AC wasn't working and he said there was no AC in the entire hotel. Then he pointed at an open window, and with a f*ck you smile said, "no need for AC, we have wind." I went back to the room, opened the sliding door, and was greeted with a occasional but warm breeze. Not good. Tour organizer said we'll try to change hotels tomorrow since we're here for two nights. You bet this is getting a one-star rating in TripAdvisor.

Beautiful room, n'est pas?

I just took a shower and I'm covered in sweat again.

We drove this morning from Le Kef to another Roman site with several large temples. Along the way, we stopped at a 17th century fort, now used by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs as an office and a Muslim mausoleum. Once again it was hot as an oven when we got to Sbeitla. We walked amongst the ruins and took some pictures. As an added bonus, we found a plastic fan tossed on the ground by Chinese tourists. I'm assuming they are Chinese since the fan was advertising for a Chinese tutoring school and it had a map of the Guangzhou subway system on the other side. Dang mainland tourists.

Fort of El Kef, built by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire


View of Le Kef from the fort


I think this the mausoleum for the founder of the city


Arch of Diocletian at Sbeitla


More ruins... interestingly, on the road leading to the main temples, there appears to be a lot of shops lining each side of the road


Thanks to a mainland Chinese tour group, I now have a fan to relieve myself from the heat and humidity


Temples for Minerva, Jupiter, and Juno (L to R)

After lunch, we took a long car ride from the Roman site to Tozeur, home of my favorite (not!) hotel. Our driver also arranged a horse ride down to a date/fruit plantation for a tour. It was kinda dark when we arrived but since the horse was already there, we went on the tour even though we couldn't see anything. The dates were good. Now I'm tired but sweaty and trying to fall asleep. Double dang it.

Lots of mosques along the road


Another one... some look brand new


Poor horse... our hotel is at the end of a long hill climb and the horse was struggling to pull our cart back up the hill with six people

Tunisia Trip Day 3

(10/12/2014: updated with photos)

First, we're staying the night in a town called Le Kef, and the hotel is the worst I've ever been in. It's even worse then the RMB120 room Leon put me in last time in Chengdu. They stuck me in a tiny room in the basement with a 9" TV that doesn't work, and a Chinese style air conditioner without a remote to turn it on. The bathroom is a joke with a tiny 3x3 shower, which is too small to move around without the shower curtain sticking to you. Tiny dirty towels too... at least they gave me two towels. The hotel is Les Pins... travelers beware!

3 stars, eh?


WTF?

I'm typing this in the hotel lobby surrounded by a bunch of smokers and some Arabic talk show blaring  on the TV. There are occasional beeps on the TV so I'm guessing they're censoring Arabic swear words. Anyway, today was a long hot day touring two separate Roman ruins. It's pretty amazing what the Romans were able to build over 2,000 years ago. I was impressed to see sit down toilets, something China still does not have consistently. At each site, I had to pay an extra dinar to get a ticket to take photos so I took a lot of photos.

First place we visited was Bulla Regia, a large archaeological site that was once a Roman city. There are several large villas with underground rooms for use during the super hot summers. Much of the mosaics found were removed and now displayed in museums, though some were left in place. We "hired" a guide to take us around; her English was pretty good. She also told us that they used to get multiple tours per day; after the revolution, they're lucky to even get one group each day.

Roman road from Carthage to somewhere in Algeria


Opening to underground rooms; not sure if this was covered by a canopy or roof when the structure was built


Mosaics are still vibrant after 2,000+ years (the guide splashed a bit of water to bring out the color)


Amphitheater


Public bathhouse near the entrance of the site

We then drove about an hour to Dougga, a huge Roman archaeological site. We had lunch on-site (bad) and also hired a guide who said he spoke English (bad). Here we met a large group of French tourists and a few English speaking tourists (not American). This site did not have as many mosaics but was much much bigger than Bulla Regia.


Dougga: World Heritage Site


Not so good lamb couscous... I didn't order it since I don't like lamb meat


Looking up the hillside


Underground tunnel


Looking east... rainstorm coming


The capitol, dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva


Large theater with amazing views

Along the way we drove about 120 km south, saw many crazy Algerian drivers, and lots of sheep being bought and sold. This weekend is the Eid al-Adha celebration and each family has to buy a sheep, and have a iman perform a ceremony before they kill and cook/eat the sheep. This makes everywhere we visit smell like sheep dung. Nice.

Truck from Algeria carrying gasoline in plastic containers


And the ghetto roadside "gas stations"; we saw a guy smoking a cigarette while "refueling" a car... not smart


Market Day meant bringing all your stuff to sell, setting up in the middle of the main road in town, and blocking traffic

Tired. We're setting out tomorrow at 8am again. We are supposed to visit El Djem later where there is a very well preserved Roman amphitheater. I hope it will be a cloudy and cool day.

Dinner at Les Pins

Tunisia Trip Day 2

(10/12/2014: updated with photos)

First full day in Tunisia started with breakfast at 7am in the hotel. I didn't feel adventurous so I stuck with pastries and colored sugar water (no grape drink though). The spread was descent but most of the fruit came from cans; definitely different from hotel breakfasts in SE Asia.

Do you know the way to Mecca?

Our first stop was the seaside town of Bizerte. Tour driver said that there is a lot less tourists since the summer peak season is over. We drove around a bit and ended up stopping in the town marina. There was a temporary fish market set up in the parking lot. People actually go out into the sea in the morning to fish so I guess everything is fresh. Our other stop today is in Tarbarka, which is only 25 km from the Algerian border. We found a random place in town to get lunch then checked into our hotel. The place we originally booked our reservation had some water issues so we were diverted to a slightly better hotel along the Mediterranean coast. Our driver then took us back to town for more sights, then back to the hotel for dinner. For both nights now, dinner and breakfast have been included in the room rate. Maybe it's standard here. Dinner was buffet style and was pretty good though the fruit selection was once again disappointing. During dinner, a group of college students knew one of our group members so we got to talk to them a bit in English. I also met a few college professors who were setting up a western style business college in Sfax. All instruction is in English so maybe I can put my University of Phenix experience to use. :)

Fishing boats at Bizerte


Fish market


More fried fish for lunch


Mediterranean Sea


Tarbarka coastline


Our 5-star hotel (Dar Ismail Tarbarka) at night; looks nice from the outside but the rooms are just average

One thing I'm noticing is that women's dress code varies quite a lot. I knew Tunisia was more on the liberal side of Islam but was surprised by how western the college students dressed, including t-shirts and short shorts. On the street we do see women in headscarves but it's not consistently conservative dress. Maybe it's due to cultural influences from France and Europe. However, the ratio of men to women out-and-about is super noticeable. We don't see any women sitting at roadside cafés; it's exclusively all men.

Another weird thing for me is the total lack of Asians, so people stare at us a lot. Many people would come up to us and say "ni hao". Still haven't decided if that's innocent or derogatory. Often people would come up and ask if we are Japanese instead. I just say no and tell them I'm American which seems to always cause more confusion.

It's now almost 10pm and I'm dead tired. I took one shower today already but looks like I need another one. The temperature is actually not too bad but still too hot and humid for me. We head south tomorrow so the weather will get warmer though maybe it will be less humid.

Average... touching the drapes made my hands smell like smoke :(