A Holy City
Trip Start
Aug 23, 1996
1
312
452
Trip End
Ongoing
Kairouan,
Tunisia
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The louage gare is in a funny place, and what should have taken twenty minutes, turned into an hour. I kind of missed the turn off !!! Lucy was kind of pissed off, to say the least !!! We went back to the same hotel and grabbed a room. Straight out the door, in through the massive gates of the town walls, we went left straight away as this is where we had previously bought kilims from, and as we got a bargain last time, it was as a good as place to start. In we went, Lucy pulled out her measurements and the Izzy lovers showed us their wares and it was all shit. They decided that they would take us to their warehouse as they had more there. And just like before their selection was shit. There was one runner that was ok, so I asked the price, and Izzy lover said normally we would sell this for 350 Dinars, but as you have been here before, we will sell it to you for 220 Dinars. I looked at the guy and said, mate your a fucking idiot. I only paid 80 Dinars last time, you can jam that fucking kilim up your fucking ass, we're leaving. As we walked the price came down to 120 Dinars, and I told him to stop insulting me, so we kept on walking. We walked through the medina enjoying ourselves until a road that we were on, as usual ended up at a kilim store. We had a look, but this Izzy lover was different. All his stuff was older and nicer. We were like kids in a lollie shop. We were running around ripping things off of the walls, and laying them down. There were so many. Yes we could afford them, but we only had so much room. We decided on two, we were given a price, we wacked a load off, they accepted, and we kicked ourselves for not going lower. Doh !!! We walked a bit more, and then night came, and this being Kairouan, it closed up fairly quickly. We had a walk around the walls, it was so nice having the city to ourselves. This is the best time to be in Izzyville.
After breakfast, we did the tourist thing. The main reason for being here is the Mosque here is the oldest in the country. As Kairouan was where Islam first took hold in Tunisia, this makes it special. Some people say that if you visit Kaitouan seven times, it is the equivalent of going to Mecca for the Haj, and as I will never have the chance to do this, I have to come back another five times. Inside is a massive courtyard, smaller than the Badhashi in Lahore, and no ablution pits. The minaret is way tall, but the worst part in Izzyville is they don't let you into where the prays take place. It pisses me off because in Iran, Pakistan and India, you can go anywhere so I wasn't able to get a goid look at the mirab. After we finished, we hit the streets to see some mausoleums. We have seen it before, but the tilework is good to look at. Also, down butcher street, just like last time, there were all these heads of cows just hanging up. For some reason, some have their tongues poking out, whilst others are eating grass !!! Also, I saw more cow heads than live cows in this country. I don't get this. Eventually our little tour ended, actually it ended up back at the carpet store where we decided to buy another piece. Fuck knows where we will put it, but we just can't help ourselves !!!
The next morning, I packed the pieces into my pack, and we walked the correct way to the louage gare, passing all the bodiless cows, until we were at the gare, and as we are now going to Tunis, the louage filled up before I was even able to have one Capusin.
FUCK IT
