Comments on: tourists

By: Penny in Amsterdam

Penny in Amsterdam — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 21:38:08 +0000

O. # 24
En faisant “Les Bobos”, Negrito se serait-il servi d’un appareil-foto pareille? (Lien de la semaine de Petite il y a à peu près quinze jours.)

By: Carol

Carol — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 14:21:30 +0000

I don’t know who are the most annoying ,those who boast about how much they’ve seen(compared to you)or those who boast about how little money they have spent.The latter often refer to themselves as travellers and everyone else as tourists.In my opinion everyone who is not working in holiday area is a tourist whether they are there for 2 weeks or 6 months,spend £5000 or £300.(That’s how it seemed to me on the backpackers circuit in 1982,and I’ll bet it’s pretty similar now)It didn’t help of course that I was never the one to find the cheap deals and often fell headlong into the traps for the unwary.We ended up in the only guest house in town which our little Guide de Routard expressly warned against!

By: miss tango

miss tango — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:29:26 +0000

That was funny Sue!

Love the photograph Petite, I have the same blue glass sitting here beside the computer, holding my makeup brushes. Your post reminds me of my past desire to visit Morroco…one day.

By: tonic

tonic — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:50:04 +0000

I feel morally obliged to listen in on every conversation I hear in English as I live in Paris and get a bit starved of mother-tongue conversation. English tourists are usually so nice and cheerful too. Mind you, I’ve learnt to be a bit more discreet since I was earwigging on the metro one day and the fascinating conversation about where they were going next was interrupted with the words “That woman’s been staring at us for the last 10 minutes, Mum”. Oops! Probably had my mouth wide open, too…

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:49:53 +0000

But what would life be without the Mr and Mrs Linens of this world, they add so much to any holiday. A colleague of mine was telling me about a cruise he went on in January – he and his wife had the misfortune to be teamed with a very boastful couple on the same table for dinner every evening. Every night they went into elaborate detail about their wealth and possessions and one night the husband said “I have a Jaguar and Porsche in the garage at home.” The retort from my friend was “I have a freezer in mine.”

By: O.

O. — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:46:09 +0000

I went to Fez a few years back with a friend (we were two young American girls), and we had absolutely no problems. But we had been warned, so we were cautious. Being American wasn’t an issue either, and though we both spoke French, we told people where we were from when they asked, and nothing more was said. BUT it was before Irak…

I’m also shy about taking pictures when I feel it’ll bother people, but I love photography, so I’m always torn between dying to take the perfect shot but not wanting to attract any attention to myself. It drives me nuts! I need a James Bond camera in my sunglasses, I suppose.

By: Roads

Roads — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:36:17 +0000

Thanks very much for those two.

Now I’m looking forward to hearing about Essauoira – if you’ve time – it looks so wonderfully blue in all the guidebooks.

By: zapaper

zapaper — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:01:44 +0000

I am totally with you on the “it’s too cheap to haggle” thing. But sometimes I do for the principle of the thing. (I have been here in Beijing for six months.) Yesterday I haggled fiercely (for me) with the roasted sweet potato vendor who pretended to weigh the potato but was obviously trying to cheat me. I managed to get the price down from 3 RMB (37 cents) to 2.5 RMB (31 cents). I don’t know what these are in pounds, but you can figure that the sums involved are… measly.

By: Mancunian Lass

Mancunian Lass — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:41:58 +0000

Dear Mlle Smith
I was in Marrakesh a week after Petite, and I heard American voices around me. I honestly don’t think there is any problem at all for American tourists in Morocco. Quite honestly, non-native English speakers on the whole cannot tell the difference between an English and an American accent anyway, and none of the many English tourists I saw seemed to have any problems. We’re all just lumped together as “Western tourists” as far as they’re concerned.
It does definitely help being able to speak French though, as Petite said.

By: Boris

Boris — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:25:26 +0000

BE CAREFUL WITH THE O.Js ON PLACE DJEMAA EL FNA.

They pump them up with a serynge-full of untreated tap water to make them look more appealing and juicer. Get one from a café instead if you don’t want to get a horrendous tummy bug. You have been warned!