For months now Pauline and I have been desperate to visit Tunisia. We started looking into planning a late summer holiday months and months ago. Tunisia was one of the very first countries we thought might still have a chance of being decently warm at this time of year. The fact that there were adverts everywhere we looked
didn’t hurt either – I even saw the adverts when I was in Italy and Spain!
Tunisia is found at the northern most tip of Africa bordered by Algeria and Libya and the Mediterranean Sea. The fact that Tunisia has both coastal waters and access to the Sahara made it an almost ideal destination for our holiday.
Our planning was not without hiccups.
When we first started researching a trip to Tunisia flights were relatively reasonably priced but because we left it a month or two and because perhaps the advertising campaign was starting to have some effect flights suddenly skyrocketed and our holiday to Tunisia was suddenly in grave danger. Luckily we managed to find a packaged holiday (7 nights bed and breakfast in a supposed 5 star hotel plus flights) for about £375 and our holiday was back on.
Except it was very nearly off again when I managed to enter our names in backwards! Oops.
At any rate the past week in Tunisia has been pure bliss and the following is our tale.
| When? | First week of October 2009 |
| Why Go? | Sun, Sand (Beach and Desert) and History |
| Why Not Go? | As a woman, if you can’t handle the “attention” that the men give you. I have to give it to the men of Tunisia they are a confident bunch and they don’t care whether or not you shoot down their offers – whether its to buy their wares or to go to a disco with them! We had offers from all the men, they like to call you gazelle, including, rather uncomfortably since we saw them at night at dinner and in the morning at breakfast, some of the boys/men who worked out our hotel. On our last night one barman, admittedly a sweet guy, kissed me! Men will also call out random compliments though I’m not sure if asking me if my breasts were natural or silicon was a comment I should consider to be a compliment. Heh heh. |
| Additionally, aside for random tourists, you will not see many women out in public. Practically everyone who worked at the hotel was a male and it was rare that we saw women walking out on the streets. | |
| Weather | Absolute Bliss. Hot and Sunny and Blue Skies every day!! |
| Surprising Find | Practically every Tunisian we came across (admittedly all of them in the service industry) spoke at least five languages: Arabic, French, English, German and Italian. A few even appeared to speak Dutch! |
| Additionally, aside for random tourists, you will not see many women out in public. Practically everyone who worked at the hotel was a male and it was rare that we saw women walking out on the streets. | |
| Tips/Comments | Ironically my first tip is about tipping. Most of the people who you come across during your trip, whether it’s the guy who puts your luggage on to the bus, or the porter, or the waiter, or the toilet attendant, will expect a tip of some sort. If you don’t want to squander away your spending money in tips, especially when you first get off the plane and get on to your transfer bus without having yet swapped any money, then make sure you have plenty of small loose change to pass over. |
| Second tip is transfers4u was excellent for our bus transfer from the airport to Hammamet. £6 each return which compared with the £25 some people seemed to be paying was an absolute bargain. |
The Experience
The adventure that was Tunisia started with our visas. As an Australian tourist arriving in Tunisia we had read beforehand that you only needed to buy your visa when you arrived at the airport. Because we were so excited 
about arriving in Tunisia we totally missed the stall where you buy your visas and headed straight to passport control. I went first – thanks Pauline! Ha ha! However, the passport guy was pretty friendly about it but told us we had to go back and buy our visa first. Well, wouldn’t you know it, they only accepted Tunisia dollars! But there was nowhere we could see to swap our pounds for TD. We were giving a “pass” to give to the guards standing near passport control so they would let us out into the airport to swap some money. Other than the startling find that the dude manning the foreign exchange booth was happily puffing away on his cigarette in his booth and inside the airport (I keep forgetting coming from England where smoking is virtually banned everywhere) it was straightforward enough to swap our 
money and go back through passport control to get our visas. We just couldn’t believe how relaxed they were about letting people in and out at passport control. You know what would never happen at any London airport.
Once our visas had been pasted into our passports another aspect of the whole process further emphasized just how relaxed Tunisia border control is: our visas expired as follows – mine on the 8 October, Pauline’s on the 9 October but we were actually leaving the country on the 10 October! And finally on Pauline’s visa they’d used her middle name instead of her first!
This was when we first heard the soon to be often to be repeated phrase “No Problems” apparently used to calm 
excitable tourists. Though worried that we would have problems on leaving the country with expired visas we could really do nothing about it as they practically pushed us out of the airport once they’d given us our visas. All in good humour of course.
So, how did we occupy ourselves for our six days in Tunisia (eight days if you include the day we flew in and the day we flew out)? We wanted to balance it between relaxing (spending time on the beach) and exploring the country that is Tunisia. In the end we split it about down the middle with three days beach-side and three days on tour. The three days on tour was, whilst amazing to experience, absolutely exhausting so the beach-side time was very much appreciated.
The Beach
With a large coastal line and a few islands to choose from we were almost overwhelmed with choice about where to stay. In the end we found a package at the Sindbad Hotel in Hammamet. It is rated as a 5 star hotel (though ratings like this are dubious when there is no international standard for rating a hotel and most often it refers to the facilities available rather than quality ) and #7 out of 118 hotels in Hammamet we were expecting something pretty nice. I’ve read both good and bad reviews of this hotel and I think in fairness it was actually a pretty decent hotel especially for the price we paid and considering it is located in a country which cannot as yet, development-wise at least, be compared with the likes of nearby cities such as Dubai.
We expected a fairly simple room but ended up with a gorgeous room with separate lounge, two giant flat screen tvs (including one in our bedroom), a bathroom which had both a stand up shower and a bath tub/shower, and an outdoor patio area.
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Most hotels or resorts in Hammamet or the nearby Yasmine-Hammamet and presumably across many other tourist regions in Tunisia try to be self-contained offering, as our hotel did, a choice of several restaurants, bars, pools, a spa treatment centre, and a private beach.
Apparently due to the timing of our visit our fellow tourists mainly consisted of big tour groups of the, shall we say, older generation German or French citizens. To presume that most of them were already retired wouldn’t be too a far flung assumption! According to one of our taxi drivers if we’d arrived just a few weeks earlier the tourists would have consisted of people at the opposite end of the spectrum, namely Ibiza-clubbing age party goers and the place would have been heaving. In fact he commented that it isn’t the best time to visit as its almost too busy! I think in the end it was good timing for us because the beaches were not unreasonably busy. The main difficulty with not having many people around is that aside from eating at your own hotel (most people take advantage of half board options) is picking the good restaurants to go to as restaurants were practically desserted with seemingly low turnover. Our hotel actually had a couple of restaurants to eat at including the lovely beach side bar where in fact you could order off the menus from the other restaurants so we ate at our hotel a couple of nights and ventured out for a couple of other nights. The most successful non-hotel venue was Chez Achour. Its not number 1 on the tripadvisor listing for no reason.
Like any beach resort its important to grab your spot on the sun beds as early as possible in the morning – a lesson we didn’t really learn until our last day! However, it wasn’t made easy at our beach to be self-sufficient as quite often there were no towels available without asking and sun beds often had to be dragged to your chosen spot for you. There were a few guys working the beach but they were hardly in a rush to help though they were friendly enough. Perhaps a big tip at the beginning of our stay rather than a little bit everyday might have helped.
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We had no complaints about the beach area. The beach itself was beautiful and gorgeous fine white sand and water so clear you could see all the way to the bottom for as deep as we went (we didn’t go that deep but it was deep enough for us!) Up the coast you could see clear to the Hammamet Medina and to the pirate boats blaring their party music out on the horizon. Everyday on the beach we also enjoyed partaking in the light pizzas that they serve as part of the lunch menu. It felt awfully decadent! I love the fact we didn’t even want to leave the beach to eat!
I’ve mentioned that we had a few dinners at beach bar. This has clearly recently been remodeled as it had a very new feel to it. It faces out onto a lovely pool with a clear wall on the side facing the beach. It was fabulous to take a tip. Not very popular either so I often had it to myself! Even in the evening the bar itself wasn’t exactly popular – I think something to do with the type of holiday-makers present during our stay. We weren’t complaining though as it was nice to have the space to relax in the evening. I can imagine it would be pretty popular in the height of summer.
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The three days on the beach was absolute bliss. Working on my tan and only waking from snoozing to eat my pizza lunch!
The Exploring
As I mentioned earlier our three days of touring was exhausting. For three days in a row we woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn: 4.45am (!), 3.45am (!) and 5.45am (!) and it wasn’t like we were going to bed any earlier than normal either!
Our first tour was a 2-day tour to the Sahara Dessert and the second tour was a day trip to the capital of Tunisia Tunis and the architectural ruins of Carthage.
Sahara Dessert Tour
Researching from London for tours in Tunisia was surprisingly difficult. Even once we got to their hotels we weren’t sure how to book the tours – sure the hotel offers its own selection but its better and cheaper to go with the local tour guides. We ended up booking with a tour group we found online anyway (luckily our Tunisian hotel had free internet in the lobby) with Visit Tunisia but I get the feeling they all the tour operators end up merging in one way or another.
Our first stop on Day 1 of our tour was El Djem Ampitheatre. This is the third largest roman ampitheatre in the world after the Rome Colosseum and Capua ampitheatre though I suspect it’s the one that is the most intact. We hit the ampitheatre at just about 8am (thanks to the early start) but even at that time busloads of tourists were disembarking from their buses. Though during our visit there (about a 40 min stop) it didn’t get anywhere as busy and full as did the Rome Colosseum.
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After a brief stop at a palm tree oasis in Gabes we continued on to visit a Berber community in Matmata and their troglodyte homes. This area is famous for where part of the first Stars Wars film was shot. The homes of the Berbers are dug into the ground rather than being built up so it does look unusually spacey when you see it. Unfortunately it felt a little bit pathetic and invasive of us tourists to be traipsing through the homes of these Berbers even though clearly they welcomed the small change that everyone offered to get a photo of the “genuine” locals. I don’t honestly think we were brought to the actual location where the Stars Wars film was shot. For future reference I believe it is the Hotel Sidi Driss that you should seek.
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After lunch at a local hotel (pretty simple Tunisian fair from a buffet) and from where we actually got some decent vistas we continued our drive south to Douz, which is considered the gateway to the Sahara. Just shy of sunset we mounted some camels for a nearly hour ride in the Sahara. Poor Pauline didn’t actually want to ride the camels and I think some of her tension transferred to the camel because it got a little freaked out and kept kicking out. Additionally our guide didn’t really put Pauline correctly on the camel and she ended up with some fairly huge bruises on her thigh. Still its pretty cool to be able to say we rode through the Sahara and it was very pretty especially as the sun started to set and despite the hordes of tourists we could see everywhere. To Pauline’s credit she stayed on until the end of the ride. We had to don a traditional outfit to take the ride. It was both a blessing (kept the sun off our skin) and a curse (we were so hot under it!)
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After the camel ride it was on tour our Douz hotel (Mehari Douz) for dinner and an overnight stay. It was pretty simple hotel and though we couldn’t take advantage of it the hotel had two swimming pools including one which was a thermal swimming pool with naturally hot sulfurous water.
Day 2 started off early with our 3.45am wake up call. A quick breakfast and then a ride on the bus saw us delivered to Chott El Jerid Salt Lake to watch the sun rise. The salt lake is the largest in Tunisia and boy was it a sight to see as we drove up to our stopping point. Its actually dry during the warmer seasons and though you imagine seeing this lake in front of you it is more like you are surrounded by it. The lake has a surface area of 5,000 km² – so pretty huge. Though there are roads/paths to make your way through it mirages have often lead people astray. Watching the sun rise was definitely worth the very early wake-up call.
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Leaving the salt lake we drove to our next transport vehicle – a 4×4. I was expecting an exciting 4×4 drive through the dessert reminiscent of the one I’ve done in Dubai and though it was exciting the drive was very short. About 5 minutes! It was a nice day in the dessert though. Ha ha! We were using the vehicles to drive to 
our next sight-seeing point: Chebika an oasis in the mountains and close to the Algerian border. Some of the more entertaining parts of this drive was seeing camels cross in front of us and also the road signs which warned of camels crossing!
At Chebika it is a decent 45-minute walk up and around the village. Lots of stall selling their wares so it was a strange mix of a tourist trap and genuine Tunisian article. It was actually really pretty and some bits almost looked like you were on the moon or something!
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Finally we stopped in at Kairouan mainly to visit the Great Mosque of Sidi-Uqba. It was pretty though because we were not Muslim the closest we could get was to climb to the roof of a store facing opposite and take photos from across the street. Pauline and I were a bit like – why are stopping here for so long!
In all fairness after such an early start to the day most of Day 2 was about traveling all the way back to our hotel in Hammamet.
Our tour was not without incident. The worst incident was when we left this “Russian” guy (true nationality undetermined – just enough to know he didn’t speak great English) on the road after a pit stop. It was an unofficial pit stop because some of the kids on the tour needed to go to potty. What our tour guide didn’t realise was that the “Russian” got off as well and no one who saw him get off said anything until after about 20 minutes after we’d driven off and our tour guide failed to do a body count before we took off. It ended up being a 60 minute detour to turn around and find him! The other incident related to Faiz’s camera battery – he and Narimend had left it at one shop to charge before we went up to Chebika thinking we’d be back to the shop only we actually came down the other side of the mountain! By the miracle of the tour groups working together however they got it back – 50 kms away!
The funniest moment of the tour was when Pauline and I told some of the people we became friends with that we were doing the Tunis Tour, Ian and Basel were co-incidentally already on it and Faiz, Narimend, Jean-Robert and Corinne decided to join us! AND our tour guide was also going to be the same, Borhensa! as we were to find out! Borhensa, like all Tunisian men, was extremely flirtatious even though he was married and had kids. He was a harmless enough guy and funny though sometimes we felt a little creeped out by his flirtations.
Tunis Tour
The Tunis Tour was a simple day tour that took us to a few of the nearby places which included the ruins of Carthage, the National Bardo Museum (a museum in Tunis with a collection of Roman mosaics and other antiquities – great mosaics but otherwise a little boring), the Tunis Medina and, the highlight of the tour, the beautiful village of Sidi Bou Said with its pristine white buildings and brightly coloured blue doors, windows and shades.
Carthage
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Sidi Bou Said
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Tunis Medina
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Food during our tours, by the way, were nothing to write home about. At least it wasn’t disgusting.
The Rest
When in Hammamet, apart from time at the beach and walking around Yasmine Hammamet, we also spent a bit of time in our hotel’s spa. The spa lady, who’d been chasing us since day 1, finally convinced us to buy into one of their packages. It was the Biya Wellness “Welcome-Zen” which for 170 DT got you a Hamman (Turkish Bath), a salt sea gommage, a royal wrap with blue algae, a hydromassage bathand a Cocoon massage. You could do all your treatments in one day or like us spread it out over two days.
During our Turkish bath we met some English guys (older men who were about 40+ named) who were entertained as we were by the whole spa experience. Sitting in the Turkish bath wondering what would happen next was an almost bonding experience (in fact we later had dinner with them and their friends and even came back to the hotel for drinks.) Soon enough Pauline and I were called for our salt sea gommage. This turned out to be one of the most vigorous scrubs I’ve ever had delivered by this middle-aged woman – she scrubbed so hard and nearly all over all areas of my body that I thought I’d lost my entire layer of skin. She even did my boobies and my face! Interesting. There was also a lot of bum slapping. Hmmm. I was expecting the wrap to go on next. Consider individually the wrap should have been 70 DT what she ended up putting on me (a big mud mask) was not exactly what I was thinking. I walked out to call Pauline who screamed like she was on a roller coaster when she saw me. She reckons I looked like The Creature From The Black Lagoon. It was so funny.
While Pauline had her turn at the gommage and the “wrap” I went back to the Turkish bath to wait. Before I knew it Pauline was shouting my name so I went back to the room. Apparently it was my turn to get hosed off but then after which I would be hosing Pauline off. Yep – there’s no modesty in Tunisia. After we were finally rinsed off it was kisses and high fives to the lady who scrubbed us and then a wait with mint tea it was time for our hydrobath which actually was pretty special. Imagine a jacuzzi ten-fold. It was divinely relaxing.
The next morning we had our cocoon massage. This was the first massage I’ve ever had which is on the floor and involved my masseuse (a girl) sitting on me and stretching me into random yoga positions. It was good massage if not as erotic as how it was described by one of the guys who had it before us.
Last Words
Unexpectedly a week in Tunisia was just not enough for me. I was very sad to see the end of our holiday.