FIRST TIME IN MOROCCO! 🇲🇦 WE DIDN'T EXPECT THIS

good morning everyone, here from marrakech in morocco. this is gonna be our first time in morocco never been here before. and we actually arrived here at 2am this morning so we didn't really see any of the place. we're on the rooftop of the riad that we're staying in called riad al amin. riad i think are like kind of houses or palaces that have like a courtyard in the middle. we're staying on the bottom floor. we got some pretty cool views here of the medina, we're in the old town. we always like staying in the historical places and yeah just everything looks beautiful here, some nice hangout spots. so since we arrived at 2am we got up pretty late at like 12 o'clock so we thought we'd miss the breakfast that's included but they still have it here for us so we've got some traditional bread i guess, looks like some sort of seeds in there some yogurt juice, loads of different spreads. so i'll give you the quick room tour as usual it's really nice on the inside, kind of a similar decoration to what we showed outside so yeah you have like the nice paintings, the beautiful rugs and there's no door on the you just have this like big curtain to close it off. yeah but not a bad place at all, i like the doorway too, it's like a big doorway and then you have these two little ones and this is the courtyard area, cat's knocked out. yeah so just like above just some cool areas where you can hang out, really nice style. so now we're gonna explore the medina area. so as i mentioned before we arrived here at 2am in the morning and somehow we found the place that we're staying, the address on google maps is completely wrong but yeah it wasn't too bad and since we arrived at 2am there was pretty much nobody in the streets at all but it was all lit up so we could walk around quite easy. yeah we're in the back alleys so it's really nice because we're near the central areas but it's very quiet in the part that we are in these back alleys and this is where the lively part begins. so all this was closed off yesterday, all shut. that's funny carol you wouldn't even imagine that it would look like this from what we saw in the morning. whoops beep beep, more beeping yeah so it's kind of funny that just a one minute walk from our place you get this straight away more beeping. so i think first we're gonna enter the souk area which i guess is this place here indoor souk. the guy at our hotel said that we're gonna see more tourists than locals or those like chickens. souk sebagini, not sure how you say that. before we continue with our day we're going to talk about the sponsor of this video surfshark which is our recommended vpn provider that we've been using for almost three years now. if you are a digital nomad or a traveler like us you know how risky it can be to frequently use public wi-fi but surfshark allows us to have a private connection keeping our personal information and sensitive data safe from potential hackers. using surfshark also allows us to access all netflix libraries depending on the country that we are in we might only have access to limited series and films but with surfshark we can set our device to any location and watch all the netflix titles that we want. besides that we also use surfshark to bypass internet restrictions and unlock web pages while visiting countries that block specific websites. with just one single surfshark subscription you can connect to unlimited devices for your entire household. click on the link in the video description which has the discount code jumping places to get three months for free and that also includes a 30-day money back guarantee. and we were actually wondering what to expect here in medina because when you see online a lot of people don't really like it because they say you get in approached all the time, people hassling you. so far nobody's talking to us though but i don't know if that's because i have the camera out. i know in egypt when i film with the camera nobody would approach us and then when i turn it off people would be talking to us all the time trying to sell stuff that's the way. that's the way to not get hassled. yeah maybe. pretend you're filming yeah really cool souq though, pretty laid back oh check out the golden lanterns, lamps, the beautiful plates too. now let's go down this way a little alleyway. yeah the guy at our hotel said it's very easy to get lost in these souqs down the little pathways. we left that indoor souq back there, now we're outside. we're gonna head to the main square. we need to actually get money, we don't have any money do we? yeah we don't have, i actually wanted to buy a scarf or something like that but we don't have money. so first to go to the atm and maybe later on i can find a beautiful scarf for me. like a headscarf or something? yeah. yeah we also need to get a sim card too, carol usually always gets the local sim card. i have a t-mobile international plan since the days when i lived in houston, i still have the same plan. pretty good it's just like 2g speeds though, not very fast. so when carol gets the local ones it's usually a lot easier to search things when we're out and about exploring. so this square is called jemma el fana don't know if i pronounced that correctly. hello looks like fruit juice places are very popular here, you can see them all over the place big square. apparently this place comes more to life at night so we'll be filming it at night as people bring food stalls, you can already hear the snake charming music. yeah but we don't want to get too close to them because apparently if you take pictures or film they're gonna ask for money and a lot of money i think. i like the sound of that though. what is that though? is it like a flute? i don't know, i think they have a proper name for it but i don't know how it's called and the bank that we want to go to is right there, apparently it doesn't charge you any fees it sounds more chaotic than it is just a mess of many different people doing the same sound so it's a bit confusing to understand so that ended up being more of a mission than we expected just to get the money out the bank that doesn't charge, none of the atms had money so we went to like four of their atms and yeah they were all out of money it seemed. but we went to another bank i'll show the name of it because i don't know how you pronounce it and we were able to get how much? seven thousand dirhams and the rate, the fee was 35 dirhams which is not ideal because we knew that there was an option with no fee but it's still okay. not a lot. yeah so that's fine. yeah i'm definitely surprised by how chilled it's been with the vendors so far though, like from videos that i saw on blogs i just thought it was super hectic and people would just be hassling us the whole time but i don't think a single person's approached us yet in the street. we've been here like two hours in the main tourist areas, nobody's bothered us at all. and around the square you have many cool options of places to eat and drink. we actually want to try some of the famous moroccan tea i don't know if we're going to go to one of the restaurants with the views or we'll just try it in the square, be cheaper in the square probably. so we found a pretty cool spot here loving the the colors, right near the end of the square so a bit less hectic here but a good people watching spot. we were thinking of going to that one too, another cool cafe but we chose this one here, cool menu too. i don't know if that's the name, aqua and the famous mint tea is 18 dirhams. you're gonna go for the mint tea too? yeah. so we're not gonna eat here since we had that really late breakfast but i might as well show you some of the prices. so the international dishes, most expensive one salmon fillet 220 dirham and the cheapest chicken supreme whatever that is 130. and then you have the couscous which i think is a traditional moroccan dish, royal couscous 160 and a vegetarian couscous the cheapest one 80 dirham. you get some chicken skewers 120 dirham, kebab 140. but yeah these will be more like tourist prices, probably get a lot cheaper in local places away from the tourist section. so the tea has arrived, i'm loving this, it looks like a genie bottle. yeah it's very fancy. yeah it is fancy, really nice. got the sugar cubes, i'll probably have it pure and with sugar. so look at how much mint there is inside, i didn't realize they put that much mint in there, look at that. all right cheers. yeah the glass is kind of hot. yeah definitely a strong mint taste, not super strong though. no it's very good, i love it and i think i don't need sugar on it, i like it without sugar. yeah so it is a green tea that they mix with the mint i think, that's why it's quite clear. let's get a sugar in there. yeah i think it's even more delicious with the sugar, very sweet though. i mean those sugar cubes are a lot of sugar, probably too much. you want to try it with the sugar? it makes it a completely different taste, it's good but i think i'll stick with the not sugar one because it's healthier. yeah that is too much sugar. so i think we're going to be drinking this tea every day now. so we've just walked out of the medina area quickly, very close to the entrance though. we just came here to get the sim card, so the company we're i think it's only going to work tomorrow for some reason. yeah i think it's better if you buy the sim card at the airport because apparently it's for free and here we had to pay 20 for the sim card plus 50 for the package, so it's cheaper in the airport but when we arrived the store was already closed so we couldn't buy it there. yeah because we arrived like after midnight so it was closed. so 70 dirham overall, that's for 7.5 gigabytes and i think it works for two weeks and we're gonna be here for three weeks so after that i think we have to buy another one. i think so. and right next to the sim card store we have the famous mosque here that is called kutubia, once again i don't know if that's how you pronounce it. nice laid back park too right next to it. so this mosque was built in the 1100s, seem to be doing some reconstruction. i think it got damaged in an earthquake, i saw that online. seems like there's some sort of base of a building here, i don't know if these were pillars and the mosque was a lot bigger. you can't go inside it though, just gotta look at it from the outside. and the medina where we were before was only founded in the 11th century so just shortly before this was built and at that time i think pretty much everyone would have lived within the walls, the city walls. head back into the souks now, see if we can find some sort of scarf for carol now that we have some money. are these already the scarves? yeah but i don't want like heavy ones. that one says four euro, already the price. can't get scammed if they've already written the price. yeah we have no idea how much things should be but probably don't want to spend more than five euros on a scarf so we'll shoot for five euros max i guess, especially since the sign back there already said four euros. this might actually be the biggest medina that we've ever been to though, i mean we had a little middle eastern trip two years ago, went to a bunch of countries, i don't remember being in one this big. definitely quite a lot busier this one than the one in the morning, seems to be more food places too, food and drink. smells so good. yeah it really smells great, don't know what that is. so i didn't mention but the people here mainly speak arabic and french since they were colonized by the french and the arabs also conquered here many many years ago, but some people do speak a bit of english as well. not everyone though. no nuts? no. no? very good. coffee inside or no? no. ah with coffee. that's good. so how much is like, each one is different price? what's your name? chris. no nuts? no. no nuts? no, no. it's good, number one. okay. it's okay, it's okay. okay, okay, finished. so we just bought a very big box of candies or sweets, a lot. i think around ten dollars overall. i don't know if we're gonna eat everything because it's too much and we don't have much time here. a lot of sugar. yeah a lot of sugar but the one that i tried was really tasty. i like how you can just go down the little side streets, kind of like the area that we were staying in before and everything just becomes completely empty and quiet. somebody's fed the cats there, some of the food leftovers. hey guys, nice little local doorway here. you see a lot of doorways like this, all different designs and styles. i think these are a bit lighter. lighter? yeah. so the guy said 70 but i asked if he could do 50 which would be five euros like we said we wanted and yeah, gonna go for it then? yeah i think so. i don't know which color, this one or this one. i'm not sure. maybe that brown one. brown? i don't know, they're both nice. brown's like almost what you're wearing now. yeah we'll get the brown one. the brown one? yeah. okay. yeah so this area that we're in now actually seems a bit more local, don't really see any tourists around this part. i like the traditional clothing that you see the locals wearing like this guy too. some cool artwork here. the atlas mountains. yeah maybe it is the atlas mountains, we should be seeing those closer up. and now we're just gonna walk around the medina with no objective really. i read online that that's one of the best things to do here, just get lost in the maze, look around, take in all the sights, the interesting buildings, never know what's around the corner. it is the next morning now and we've come to one of the main sites to see in the old medina called bahia palace, a palace from the 1800s and it was 70 dirham per person to enter, that's if you're a foreigner, so a lot cheaper if you're from morocco. it says that the first foundation of bahia palace was set in 1866 by, whoa look at the size of that name, that's the biggest name ever. and that guy was the chamberlain minister and grand vizier for the sultans sidi mohammed and i can't say these names, yeah some sultans. so this is the main reason that we wanted to come here to see the beautiful moroccan architecture, the courtyards. i read that there's around 150 to 160 rooms in the palace so yeah probably a lot to explore. i don't know if you can go in all those places though, i always love the islamic style architecture though, some of the best we've ever seen in the world. extremely beautiful courtyard here, always have the fountains in the middle. i also like how symmetrical everything is, the patterns and designs. so i'm not entirely sure what the correct term is if you call it like north african middle eastern art architecture or islamic art and architecture, either way it's the similar kind that you see in this region. so this was the part that we see mainly in the pictures, the marble courtyard. during the french colonial period this was turned into the residence of one of the french generals. so within the medina there's quite a few places that you can visit, that you have to pay to visit to see the architecture like this, old buildings. there's many that are a lot older than this even, i think there's some from the 16th century but this is supposed to be one of the most impressive ones. so these ones it says to touch them, so you're allowed to touch these ones. this one's carved and this one's wood. so just outside the bahia palace is the jewish quarter, the old jewish quarter. slightly different to the other places that we've been to in the medina, seems to be more spices here, so it smells great. smells a lot nicer than the other places that we've been so far. pretty interesting designs on these buildings too. buildings are slightly different. there is a synagogue i think you can visit here if you want. really really does smell great though. so we come back to the main square now, jema el fana and as i mentioned at the beginning of the video they set up all these stalls that are not here during the day, mainly for food. so you still have all the juice ones, got a show going on here. man it's way busier. yeah it's like a different place everybody comes out at night looks like we got some games too. fishing. what do you think they gotta do? put the ring around the the lid? yeah and just get the the bottle somehow but it seems very difficult. yeah this might be one of the liveliest squares i've ever seen at night. wow look at all the steam coming off the the places. the prayer going on too, everything going on. you look skinny like lamborghini. yeah the different people trying to get us to eat. i think we are going to eat around here though aren't we? yeah but i want to look at the food first and then make make a decision but they don't let you do that. if you if you look a little bit they just come to you and talk to you and don't let you leave. later. okay pay me now. so this has definitely been the most intense place in marrakesh because of the amount of people that approach you trying to get you in the food stalls. it's pretty funny though. i think we're gonna try the tagine, whatever you call it. yeah i think you're having the tagine and i'll have the couscous with the vegetables. vegetarian one. yeah i think mine's 50 dirhams and what's yours? 40. 40. yeah it's not too bad the price. once again they have the bread got this dip too. i don't know if this is included or if we have to pay. they have it for everyone though i'm glad i didn't eat the whole thing because it's so spicy. it's like really spicy. i guess that's peppers those bits. the food is looking extra good. mine was in like some sort of clay pot there was a lid, he removed it. i should have filmed it. almost looks like a bit of a stew or soup i think it is kind of that. yeah and there's carol's couscous. i was just searching if that's a grain it says that it's technically more like a pasta, it's made out of flour. we've eaten couscous before though in other countries. yeah not my first time but anyway i like it already and mine is a bit plain, i don't know i don't know why but it's not my favorite couscous i've ever had but it's good. not much flavor. not much flavor. mine might be a bit hot still no mine's great, mine has a lot of flavor. good. the meat anyway yeah they had many different options for this dish, they had like chicken and even shrimp and other stuff for the tagine. so carol was still a bit hungry so we ordered some more things we got some olives, those were 10 dirhams and a soup. yeah so i love the soup, it has some kind of beans, i see the like chickpeas and lentils but also pasta. little bits of pasta little bits of pasta. yeah like spaghetti and a tomato sauce, it tastes pretty much like tomato better than the couscous. i put the couscous in my little pot here, absorb the taste from the stew make it tastier and we also got some mint tea again but this is just included so it's free nice way to finish a meal so we're back at the hotel now, just an update about the sim card that we got yesterday it's still not working so it's been over 24 hours and it doesn't work. carol followed all the rules that the guy gave, it was mainly just to send like an activation code through a text message and there's also a number that you can call to check your credit and it says that the credit's there and that the card is active but it's just not working so we'll keep you updated on that in the next video. and overall we've really loved our time here in marrakech, it definitely went a lot smoother than what we were expecting right? yeah because to be honest i was kind of avoiding this trip, we were thinking of maybe coming here last year but i think i was kind of avoiding it because of the stories that we usually listen about marrakech but it was a lot better than i expected and i'm happy because of that because when we went to egypt and india we had a few like not so funny stories with a lot of hustlers and people trying to scam you all the time and i think somebody told us that marrakech was even worse than egypt so we were like but we're happy that that wasn't the truth at least for us we had a good experience here and we still had some encounters with people trying to scam us but we knew of the type of scams that they were trying to give us and we just said no and it was fine it was better than we expected. yeah so the main common ones when you're going around in the medina some people say like oh the road is closed ahead and then they'll tell you that they're gonna show you the detour and then if you go on the detour with them then they'll ask for a lot of money i mean i've seen videos where they ask for like 40 50 euros even the owner here said that if you go with any of those guys that's usually what they charge like 40 50 euros and they might just walk with you for like five minutes however the majority of the time the road isn't closed so a guy said that to us and we continued on and it wasn't closed at all and you also have quite a lot that ask if you're lost and they're gonna do the same thing again if you say yes and you're looking for something they'll guide you there but then they're gonna charge you a lot so yeah you just gotta watch out for that probably about two or three times some people said those kind of things to us so that's also the reason that it went smooth because we knew to not follow any of the people here the owner of the hotel said that if you need any help for directions just go into the stores and ask the shopkeeper because they're not going to leave the store right they'll just tell you the directions so yeah do that instead the only bad thing about that though is you end up kind of ignoring anybody that approaches you but i think in a touristy place like this that's just what you got to do because yeah some of them are going to be scammers quite a few tourist places in the in the world it's like that though unfortunately and in the next video we're planning on doing a day trip here from marrakech to a beautiful waterfall that's not too far from here so stay tuned for that if you like this video drop a like as usual to support us subscribe to see more videos like this follow us on instagram and facebook and we'll see in the next one