The Other Face of Tunisia (Tunisia)

Member Name: maikli

Product:	Tunisia
Date:	02/12/07 (398 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tunisian hospitality, easy to get around, easy to get off beaten track, old towns, ruins, oases...

Disadvantages: Some places very very touristy

Tunisia suffers from a bit of an image problem.

For decades, Tunisia has been well and truly on the tourist map. Enormous hotel complexes line all the best beaches, where sunburnt Europeans lie nose-to-nipple under a thousand and one parasols. The sand is white, the sea is azure blue, the sun is strong...should be package holiday paradise then. But somehow, Tunisia doesn't quite hit the spot. The food's a bit foreign, they whinge. The entertainment's not quite Ibiza. The people are too pushy. A Moorish arch or two on the "traditional" high risery surrounding the pool is exotic enough for some holidaymakers, who dare not venture too far from their sun loungers for the whole duration of their trip. Those who do escape from the zones touristiques complain of having to run the gauntlet of a million eager salesmen. If they aren't trying to sell you a carpet or a stuffed camel, they're trying to touch up your wife. It's all a bit much.

Backpackers don't rate the country much better either. It's overrun with tourist sheep, herded from place to place in their air-con buses, a mass of touts and postcard sellers clamouring in their wake. Tunisians have been corrupted by this mass tourism, nowhere is left untouched, not a single sight in the country has escaped the tour bus brigade. And anyway, it's far too tame for the hardened backpacker. Too easy, not adventurous enough. Say you're going travelling in Tunisia, and the backpacker will snort and sneer and scoff. Go to Mauritania by bicycle, they'll say. Hitchhike through Afghanistan. That's real travel. Tunisia? Pah! Tunisia's for wimps!

So, you've got package tourists who can't/won't tear themselves away from the beach unless its for a spot of souvenir hunting in an "authentic" touristy souq or for a camel ride in a "genuine" desert oasis...and snobbish backpackers who are far too busy working out how to get their visas for Iraq and Somalia to bother with somewhere like Tunisia. What does that mean?

It means that the rest of Tunisia is unspoiled and waiting to be explored by the curious independent traveller. And that's exactly what I did.

**** **** **** **** ****

Before I carry on, I'd better explain myself a bit. I'm an Arabist, one of those masochistic individuals who studies how to pronounce all those guttural grunts and growls, like kh and gh and 'a, for fun. I like my holidays to come with minarets and souqs, sugary tea and a heavy dose of language immersion. Combine that with a love of taking the road less travelled, and that might help explain why many of my reviews are about remoter "more hardcore" corners of the Arab world, like Yemen and Sudan. However, recently, limited finances have forced me to look a little closer to home for adventure, and in the last couple of years, British Airways has come up trumps, offering return flights to Tunis for less than a train ticket from London to Newcastle.

So, now that I've spent a total of seven weeks visiting "the other Tunisia" I think it's about time I wrote a review, and maybe persuade a few sunbathers to hop on a bus to see a slice of the real Tunisia, or convince a few backpackers to drop their snobbery and give little Tunisia a chance. I'll start with the capital, as that's where most scheduled flights land and where I began and ended both of my trips. Then I'll move on to some attractions in the north, before heading down to warmer climes in the southern deserts and eventually hitting some of the less crowded beaches. What you won't find in this review is anything about the major resorts. Hammamet, Nabeul, Sousse, Monastir, Jerba, Port el Kantaoui...I avoided them all, so if you only want to read a review about any of those places, stop reading now.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

TUNIS

Tunis surprised me many times. My first surprise came just after landing at 10 in the evening and taking a taxi from the airport to the medina (old city). Everything was so quiet, so dark. I was expecting Tunis to be more like Cairo or Damascus, the streets alive with people and cars until well past midnight, pavement cafes heaving with customers, shops and restaurants open for business. But the cafes in the square at the entrance to the old city were piling up the tables and pulling the shutters down, a few teenagers half-heartedly kicked a ball around, old men in anoraks and scarves swept rubbish along the gutters, and a few stray dogs ran amok in the deserted streets. Tunis sleeps early.

Tour groups do sometimes include Tunis as a day trip. Buses drop them off near Bab al Bahr, where Colonial Tunis collides with the centuries old Arab medina. They are paraded up a narrow street of wall-to-wall souvenir shops to the Zeitouna Mosque, and after everyone taken shoes off, taken a few photos, put shoes back on, it's off up another souvenir filled alley to emerge at another square, where the bus is waiting to whisk them off to the Bardo Museum or the ruins at Carthage and more souvenir shops in the clifftop village of Sidi Bou Said. Take my advice, and make the trip to Tunis on your own...instead of following the tour groups into the souvenir market, follow the steady stream of Tunisians heading into an equally narrow alleyway, take any street to you right or left, and get completely lost. You'll see more of Tunis than any tour guide in charge of a herd of 40 can show you.

Getting lost in the medina is really the only way to sightsee. You can try and use a map, but the streets, lanes and alleys twist and turn so much that you'll soon get lost anyway. If you stumble upon the right alleyway, you might come across one of the many museums, a tomb of a holy saint, an Ottoman-style mosque, a covered spice market, a traditional café where old men in red chechia hats smoke chicha pipes and sip strong black coffee. The fun is in finding these things by accident. Go looking for them, and you'll never find them.

Outside the medina, the two old suburbs of Montfleury and Halfaouine offer more of the same with even less chance of collision with another tourist. Mainly residential quarters but just as old as the medina, they are both great places just to walk, following your nose through archways and discovering scenes of everyday life, a world apart from the souvenir shops around Zeitouna Mosque where English, French and German words outnumber Arabic ten to one. Film buffs may enjoy hunting out locations used in Boughedir's film "Halfaouine" (if you're intrigued, you can download it from certain dubious websites for free...).

After dark, the old quarters are not the safest places to be if you don't know where you are going. No street lights, lots of suspicious characters lurking in the shadows, and the huge potential for getting hopelessly lost. As the sun sets, make your way instead to Avenue Bourguiba, the main artery of modern Tunis, and the streets on either side. The architecture is an eclectic mix of French colonial, art deco, Islamic and concrete monstrosities...look out for the enormous cathedral, the clocktower and a hotel built like an upside down pyramid, then pick a pavement café, order a mint tea and do a spot of people watching.

Close enough to Tunis to be considered part of the city, most tourists end up visiting the ruins of Carthage and the ultra-picturesque village of Sidi Bou Said, where whitewashed houses with blue doors command amazing views over the Gulf of Tunis and the mountains beyond. Pretty as it is, Sidi Bou Said can be a nightmare if you have an aversion to tour groups, so try to visit early morning, or at sunset when the views far outweigh the crowds. On the other side of the Gulf, a string of more downmarket resorts line the shore. I visited Hammam Lif, popular in colonial times with Europeans, but now a bit of a backwater. The beach isn't great, but it's an interesting place to visit, especially on a summer weekend when the promenade is packed with locals escaping the heat of the city. Regular trains from central Tunis operate to the resorts, both posh and not-so-posh, for less than the price of a cup of coffee back home.

NORTHERN TUNISIA

Just an hour away by high-speed minibus is the ancient port city of Bizerte (Benzert in Arabic). The harbour is impossibly photogenic, lined with whitewashed houses reflected in the water where colourful fishing boats bob up and down. The harbour used to be a canal leading to Lake Bizerte, until the French came along and filled it in, so nowadays it is like a Tunisian Canale Grande. Where the harbour meets the sea, a perfectly rectangular Kasbah stands guard, huge brown walls encircling a maze of narrow streets off-limits to cars. Beyond the Kasbah walls, the medina stretches inland...no particular sights to see, but like Tunis medina, a great place to get lost for a couple of hours. Bizerte also has beaches, wide curves of white sand very close to the old port, but amazingly Bizerte has been spared the mass development of other coastal cities. Maybe the sand isn't white enough, or maybe it is the incessant wind which batters the north coast, but whatever the reason, Bizerte remains an undiscovered coastal resort which should attract planeloads of sunbathers. Personally I'm glad it hasn't.

I boarded a louage (minibus) heading inland past Lac Ichkeul National Park to the often overlooked town of Beja. Walk around the dilapidated but atmospheric medina or the Spanish-looking town square, and locals will be astonished to see a foreigner. Sit in a local café, and you won't be on your own before long, as some curious soul will come and chat with you. Away from the tourist resorts, Tunisian hospitality is on a par with that of other Arab countries, and I found it very difficult to pay for my drinks in Beja.

Further inland, towards Algeria, is another friendly town, Le Kef, a town that has really benefited from being quite a distance from the coast. If Le Kef was within a stone's throw from a beach, you wouldn't be able to move for tour groups. As it is, Le Kef remains fairly off the beaten track, and is certainly one of the highlights of any trip to Tunisia. A castle on a hilltop above a spectacular old white mosque, with steep cobbled streets spilling downhill in all directions, Le Kef is one of those places that you can see in two hours but can easily stay for two or three days.

Close by are two of Tunisia's finest archaeological sites, Dougga and Bulla Regia. I intended to visit both, but spontaneity won at the bus station, and I ended up on a louage heading to Makthar, a mountain village with an equally impressive set of Roman ruins. The old man at Makthar's only hotel and bar was so over the moon to have a foreigner in his establishment that he had to have a Celtia beer to celebrate. The following day, I was able to enjoy having the ruined city of Makthar all to myself...well, apart from a few hundred sheep and a gaggle of chattering local women picking dandelions.

THE DESERT

Gafsa isn't the most beautiful of towns in Tunisia, but it is a useful place to break a journey between the north and the southern deserts, and it isn't without charm. In the heart of Gafsa's medina are two Roman pools, both still in use as splashing grounds for Gafsa's kids and overlooked by a great café. The abundance of palm trees is the first hint that the desert is not far away. Just a couple of hours south, and you're in the desert proper. Tozeur may once have been a fascinating place, an ancient town built around a desert oasis, but unfortunately it has been discovered by tour buses, and the Ali Baba factor is high. Visit the excellent museum in the old town, guided by a very friendly Tunisian woman who likes to burst into song during her tour, and take a walk around the nearby oasis villages, but then get on a louage heading west.

Thirty minutes later and you're in Nefta, a much more relaxed town where tourism is not the only means of survival. Groups do visit Nefta as a side-trip from Tozeur, but never for more than an hour, so most of the time Nefta is a peaceful place. Impressively built on clifftops either side of a valley called Le Corbeille, Nefta is quite a traditional place. Mosques and marabouts abound, and at night you can hear local Sufi brotherhoods chanting well into the night.

Crossing the desolate Chott el Jerid, a huge expanse of salt full of mirages, you pass through a cluster of oasis towns before arriving at Kebili. The modern town is unremarkable, but three kilometres along a path through palm trees and you come to Old Kebili, a city in ruins, abandoned as recently as the 1980s. It may be abandoned, but Old Kebili is not deserted, as a few of the marabouts (like small mosques) still operate. It won't be long before one of the kids spots you, and reports you to the men who run the Old Kebili museum. They'll track you down, and give you a very informative tour of the place. My visit coincided with Mawlid an-Nabi, the Prophet's birthday, not a huge celebration nationally but marked by certain Sufi brotherhoods, and I was taken to join in the festivities with the local Aissawiya branch at their marabout on the edge of Old Kebili. Five or six elderly men in traditional clothes sat on a carpet in the dusty courtyard chanting religious verses as one of them played out a fast frenetic rhythm on a hand-held drum. Another man produced a reedy pipe, a second began to sway, then turn, then whirl. On the corner sat the women, all covered in robes and silent, save for the occasional wail when emotions ran high. At one point, a skewer was produced and the whirling man pierced his cheek with it, smiling as flecks of blood dripped off his chin and stained his white robe. I'm not quite sure what the point of that was, but he seemed happy enough. This was quite an event, not something put on for tour groups but something 100% genuine.

Afterwards, my guide took me to his pet project, the museum. He seemed concerned that the people of Old Kebili were being neglected by the government. Plans had been made to turn Old Kebili into a sort of Aladdin-style theme park, but my guide was determined not to let that happen. He wanted to encourage tourism, but low-key tourism, independent visitors, not huge groups that would soon overwhelm the place. Instead of the theme-park idea, his dream was to rebuild the old houses, provide electricity and water, and hopefully entice some of its former inhabitants back to live there. I wish him luck.

Random conversations in bus stations can have unexpected consequences. That was how I ended up in Gabes, discussing politics and religion with three engineering students at an all night café by a petrol garage, toxic fumes belching out of a factory on the far side of a patch of wasteground. Yasser was very insistent that I come and stay with him and his friends at their very modest one-room house, and I'm glad I accepted. Gabes may not be the most beautiful city in the world, but a chance to experience Tunisian hospitality and make new friends more than made up for that.

ALTERNATIVE COASTAL RESORTS

Sfax does not get a good write up. Apparently it's a transport hub, a place to change buses, little more. But Tunisia's second city has a lot to offer. Just a few hours down the coast from touristy Sousse, Sfax's medina couldn't be more different. There's not a souvenir stall in sight, and that's mainly to do with the complete lack of tourists. Instead, you have one of the most atmospheric medinas in the Arab world where little has changed over the centuries. Aside from extensive labyrinthine souqs, two excellent museums (one in the Kasbah, one in Dar Jellouli, a traditional house) are well worth seeking out, before relaxing with a coffee and a chicha pipe in my favourite Tunisian café, Café Diwan, set in the old city walls. Modern Sfax is quite a happening place too, what with all the upmarket clothes' shops and trendy cafes and restaurants lining the streets between the old city and the port.

From the port, board a ferry and in just over an hour, you're on the Kerkennah islands, cruelly labelled the poor man's Djerba. At first sight flat and quite ugly, these strange islands have an unusual beauty and are so laid back you can easily stay much longer than you intended. Resort development is limited to a couple of small hotels next to a patch of sand in Sidi Fredj, and all the other villages feel very remote and far removed from the chaotic mainland. I stayed in the islands' capital, Remla, where a couple of bed and breakfast type places offer a friendlier and cheaper alternative to the beach resorts. Hiring a bike is the best way to explore, as the islands are totally flat. No need to rush anywhere, but there are a few places to aim for, like the old tower of Borj Hissar where the guardien will greet you with a big smile and a glass of rosemary tea, the boathouse containing the boat Habib Bourguiba (Tunisia's first president) used to flee the French, and Kerkennah's bizarre museum in the village of El Abbasia, whose exhibits range from photos of circumcision ceremonies to the skeleton of a whale. But what you really go to Kerkennah for is to relax. The beaches may be poor, the landscape flat, but the people are friendly and laid-back, and some Europeans love it so much they return year after year.

If none of the places described above appeal, and you're set on staying in a resort, I will recommend one. Mahdia is less developed than its neighbours to the north, and as such it retains a lot of charm. The old town is situated on a headland, some of the houses literally hanging over the water. Souvenir stalls have invaded the medina, but it is easy to escape them and head through photogenic Place du Caire, past the great mosque and Borj el Kebir castle to the seaside cemetery, ruins of a Fatimid port and the lighthouse at Cap d'Afrique. The beach, wide and sandy, stretches away to the north, the first couple of kilometres packed with locals before reaching the zone touristique and the big beach hotels. Maybe because of this distance from the hotels, Mahdia doesn't feel spoilt in the way that Monastir or Sousse does, and the carpet salesmen are not quite as pushy either.

FOOD AND ACCOMMODATION

In the queue at check-in for my flight home, I overheard some holidaymakers complaining about the food. Apparently the bacon was overdone and dry, and they'd never eaten such a terrible steak, and that's saying nothing of their idea of desserts. Well, I guess they had only eaten in their hotel, as for a start bacon isn't eaten in Tunisia, what with pork being forbidden in Islam. European food cooked by Tunisians in bulk for a hotel buffet...it's never going to be a culinary delight, is it?! In fact, you're more likely to get sick from eating at a hotel buffet...think how long the lukewarm mush has been sitting there in the heat.

To anyone who complains of the food in Tunisia, I would say they should go into a Tunisian town and pick a restaurant, any restaurant that is packed full of Tunisians. The food will be hot and freshly cooked, and you might even like it, stranger things have happened! Tunisians like their spices, and nearly everything comes with some hot harissa sauce. Couscous with some sort of sauce (meat, chicken or fish) is always a good choice, as is kefteji, a sort of stew with lamb meatballs accompanied with bread and salad. Brik al-azm (brik al-oeuf) is a pastry filled with a fried egg and tuna, notorious as being quite messy to eat. For snacks, try a brochette (a baguette filled with grilled lamb, salad, olives and harissa) or a mrawi (like a crepe, filled with cheese, tuna, salad, olives, harissa, egg, or whatever you choose), followed by some sort of sticky sweet like baklava or makroudh.

Alcohol is available in certain places...package hotels will have bars, but outside these you can't rely on finding a drinking hole, let alone a female-friendly one as local bars tend to be male only. Celtia beer is available in some restaurants though.

Cafes are a great introduction to the Tunisian habit of...doing very little! Many of my Tunisian friends can easily while away an afternoon drinking tea, smoking chicha and gossiping loudly in a café. Again, most are male-only, although most towns have a few cafes frequented by local women (try Avenue Bourguiba or the medina cafes in Tunis, and Café Diwan in Sfax). Tea is strong and sweet, often flavoured with mint...sugar is added before boiling, so you have to request your tea without sugar if you can't stand sweet drinks. With coffee, ekspres is an espresso, kappusan is an espresso with a splash of milk, served in a glass (not like a cappuccino), and alonjey is an espresso with a shot of water. In certain cafes, you can get qahwa arabiya or qahwa turkiya, traditional style coffee boiled up with sugar (ask for saadeh if you don't want sugar). The chicha pipes you see everywhere contain tobacco, sometimes flavoured with apple (bi tufaah) like in other Arab countries, although Tunisians tend to prefer plain tobacco in their pipes. They do not contain hashish, as some tourists claim.

Breakfast is easy to arrange...French-style bakeries are everywhere offering croissants and other pastries, and it is perfectly ok to take a bag of croissants to a local café and eat them with a glass of tea.

Hotels...well, the package hotels by the beaches are like beach hotels the world over. Travelling on a budget, every Tunisian town has at least one place to stay. The big cities have a wide choice from 5* to unclassified dorm-style places, often found in the medinas. The cheapest hotels tend to double as brothels, but you're unlikely to get past the door of these places anyway, so it's not a problem. The next level up is the male-only hotel, where you pay for a bed in a shared room. If allowed to stay, women will probably find them uncomfortable, but for male travellers they are fine, and a good way to meet Tunisians. Up a notch are the budget hotels which offer rooms, not just beds, and these are usually acceptable for women...check for female staff or Quranic verses on the wall at reception, which show the hotel is respectable enough. Medina hotels tend to be cheaper, and are great for experiencing life within old city walls, but not so great to find after dark. Prices should be shown on an official document at reception, so there is little chance for overcharging or bargaining.

Hotels I used: (£1 = 2.5TD in 2007)
Tunis: Hotel Milano - just inside the medina close to Bab al Bahr - very cheap, but only female friendly if you can fill a room. (6TD)
Hotel Qatar - outside the medina, but on a well-lit road, slightly more expensive, female staff, clean shared bathrooms. (12TD)
Bizerte: Hotel Africain - family run place close to harbour. (8TD)
Beja: Residence Hiba - bizarre place in old building just off main square, friendly but no hot water. (18TD)
Le Kef: Hotel la Source - colonial building at bottom of hill, run by friendly blind Algerian man. Some rooms have balconies with views. (15TD)
Makthar: Hotel Maktharis - colonial building, rooms above noisy bar, but friendly and clean. (12TD)
Gafsa: Hotel Alaya Bacha - noisy, next to bus station, rude owner, dirty shared bathrooms, not recommended. (10TD)
Tozeur: Residence Karim - opposite caleches, friendly, rooms around tiled courtyards, roof terrace views over oasis. (15TD including breakfast)
Nefta: Hotel Habib - on the main square in the heard of the medina, very friendly, clean but basic. (10TD)
Kebili: Hotel Ben Said - above a cafe opposite small mosque close to bus station, clean and basic. (8TD)
Sfax: Hotel Medina - quiet hotel in centre of Sfax medina, hard to find at night, hot showers, female-friendly. (8TD)
Hotel de la Paix - in the new town, old gloomy colonial building, strange atmosphere but ok. (14TD)
Kerkennah: Residence Riad - very friendly excellent B&B in Remla, brand new, bikes for rent. (15TD including breakfast)
Mahdia: Hotel Corniche - on seafront halfway between medina and zone touristique, very good value. (12TD including breakfast)

TRANSPORT

Tunisia is easy to travel around, because of the fantastic network of public transport. Buses leave at set times, but for a little extra cash, you can take a more comfortable minibus (louage). Louages leave whenever they have enough passengers, so on popular routes you never have to wait long. On less popular routes, make your way to the louage station early and you'll be on a louage within an hour or so. Trains also connect Tunis with cities on the coast (Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia, Sfax, Gabes), although they are quite a bit slower than taking a louage. Also, the seat number on your train ticket may well mean nothing once you get on the train!

CUSTOMS AND CLOTHING

One of the most common complaints about Tunisia concerns harassment. Tunisia is a Muslim country, and although it is nowhere near as strict as somewhere like Sudan or Saudi Arabia, Tunisian society is still fairly conservative in comparison with Europe. Men don't wear shorts in the towns...they are for the beach, the football pitch or the bedroom. Women never wear shorts, ever. Although a lot of Tunisian women don't cover their hair with a scarf, they do tend to dress modestly. So, with this in mind, it explains why so many tourists complain of being harassed or touched when they walk around town in shorts and vests. Cover up a bit when you leave the beach, and locals will respect you more.

Touts in tourist resorts and parts of Tunis can be over the top. I find the best way to deal with them is pretend not to speak any language they know. Being Estonian or Georgian or Icelandic usually stops them dead! Or just ignore them completely. Don't make eye contact, don't shake their hands if they claim they know you from before, don't accept anything like tea if you're not willing to part with your cash. As soon as you've formed some sort of bond, however slight, the salesman will become more and more insistent. Claims of insulting their traditions is rubbish...this is for tourist markets only...go to a real Tunisian market where local people do their everyday shopping and you'll see how a souq really operates. No pressure to buy, and any offers of tea are more likely to be genuine rather than some scam to get your money.

***** ***** ***** *****

I think I've written enough now, and if you've got down this far, well done you! Anyway, I hope I've managed to persuade at least some of you to give Tunisia a second chance. I've seen quite a lot, but have barely scratched the surface. There are still a hundred and one Roman ruins in the north, more remote oases in the desert, and I've never ventured south of Gabes yet...still, another reason to go back.

Summary: Tunisia is so much more than just a beach...