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It 's not an auspicious arrival, touching down at night
at Habib Bourgiba International
Airport in Monastir.
The arrival lounge is dark and scruffy, and smoking seems
not only permitted, but mandatory. Unrestrained puffing
in a public building comes as a bit of a surprise to someone
from the UK. I remind myself that I'm here to work not to
enjoy myself, so I'll have to get used to the smoke. I'd
always understood that desert countries were hot during
the day and bitterly cold at night, as the heat escaped
into the cloudless skies, but the Tunisian evening is warm
and very dry.
I like to make my own way around a country and I tend to
be a bit sniffy about being herded by tour companies but,
to be honest, the coach which is to drop us at the hotel
is a welcome sight.
The
El Hana hotel is one of several
large complexes, isolated within their own grounds, ranged
along the coast north of the city to the entirely modern
resort of Port el Kantaoui.
These are enclaves for those who treat Tunisia
as a giant sunbed, and want to keep the 'foreignness' at
bay as much as possible. Egg and chips and Watney's Red
Barrel and none of that greasy foreign muck, as the refrain
goes. Here you can get chips and beer. "Is there a bar in
town you can get English beer?" asks one young London woman.
Another guest suggests she try a local brew. "Excuse me?
I don't think so." she snaps.
To
be fair, I don't explore the local bars myself. We're here
for three nights and we don't get around to it. The American
Bar in the hotel is surprisingly pleasant. The barman is
chatty and it's quiet. Outside is the disco, where you can
play organised games, which all seem to involve getting
trashed, close physical contact and uncontrollable giggling.
Here, in the bar, there's the quiet slide into oblivion.
Every country has its brand of fire-water, that clear, tasteless,
potent brew of pure alcohol. Here, it's boukha. One shot
is necessary to demonstrate your manhood,, two shows you
know your drink, and three is positively heroic. Barman
know psychology. They tell you no-one ever drinks more than
three. That way, they know you'll knock back at least four.
Never fails.
Next
day I have a headache. Something to do with boukha.
One
of Sousse's main attractions
is its medina. The medina is a covered market, a maze of
tiny stalls offloading tourist tat, with a preponderance
of badly-tanned leather goods. The transition from cow to
footwear is as speedy as possible. The sandals I buy turn
mouldy within a month of getting home, and the slightly
rancid smell nags away at the back of your throat, whether
you notice it or not. Sudden vertical shafts of sunlight
drop down from holes in the ceiling as you run a gauntlet
of determined sellers. They don't give up easily, this is
their living. This is also not a good place to wear that
really cool, one-off, exclusive t-shirt . Unless you really
want to sport a conversation starter.
I
know it's expected that you haggle. It's traditional. But
I've no intentionof joining in. I come from a supermarket
culture where everything is scanned and the price is fixed.
And that's the problem. It seems arrogant not to haggle.
It's saying "I'm so rich, I'll pay whatever you ask." In
fact, it turns out to be surprisingly easy. Not the life-or-death
struggle I expected, but fun. It 's treated as a game, with
lots of good humour. With practised ease, the young shopkeeper
spins around the till so my companion can't see the amazingly
low price I'm being offered. And, hey, I join the worldwide
international community by buying a pair of Man Utd shorts.
The tourist trade has had its effect. Every local lad can
pronounce "cheeky monkey" in a perfect Mancunian accent.
Or "Cheaper than Marks and Spencers". God, what
havoc have we wreaked on local cultures?
"Come
with me to the kasbah." said somebody – I never did
know who – in a movie, with overtones of sin and decadence.
The word conjured up a sultry harem where perfumed floozies
lounged on crimson cushions. That's what you get by taking
your culture from Hollywood. A kasbah turns out to be a
fortress: solid, square and impregnable. The kasbah at Sousse
looks familiar. It was used as the 'Jerusalem' city wall
in Monty
Python's Life of Brian.
Sousse
itself is a scruffy, industrial-looking town, the colour
of sand, with little that's picturesque, though no less
fascinating for that. The railway runs though the centre
of the downtown area alongside the port. There are strangely
surreal moments when a train pushes through traffic while
the hulk of a ship looms overhead. Cars, buses, train and
ship come together as unreally as the cover of a transport
encyclopaedia. But three days of Sousse
are enough, if you're not a beach person or a sun fiend
(and I'm not), so it feels good that we'll soon be on the
road.
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