Hi Smudger,
I'm really enjoying your blogs and eagerly look forward to readng the next evenings installment. Morocco's a great country to travel on a bike and glad to hear you're enjoying yourself. I'm sure your TVAM training has helped at times!....I'm an ex member with the group.
Can't wait for my next trip there early next year.

Hi dommiek
Thanks for your flattering words and glad you're enjoying my travel story! I presume you've been before?
Dave

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Hi Rob
Hope your travels are going well. Are you doing a blog by the way? Also I meant to ask if you carry fuel using your sweetcheeks what containers do you use as I thought the normal fizzy drinks/water bottles melted when petrol is put in them?

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Smudge

I used two 1.5 ltr pop bottles when I did my trip in Thailand and Laos last year, I never had a problem with then, but make sure to get the ones with the better screw lid

IMG_1467 by Wayne 66, on Flickr

PS it is still persisting it down in Slovenia, hope you have better weather haha

Wayne

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

DAY 16 - MON 19TH OCT 2015 - MARRAKESH TO EL JADIDA - 125 MILES APPROX.


I'm afraid it's bad news, or potentially bad news. My case of the 'screaming ab dabs' has returned with a vengeance! I was up at least three times last night being thankful I was close to a toilet! Out on the road I won't have this luxury! The good news is I'm still feeling ok and still have my appetite so I was still able to enjoy a hotel breakfast, limited as it was to bread, butter, jam and coffee. I had paid extra for this, had I known this was all I was getting I wouldn't have bothered; tourist prices again I guess! I remember the last time I had a case of the 'trots' I was in Egypt where I left it and left it, thinking it would clear up by itself and in the end I was so weak and dehydrated I could hardly get out of bed. In the end I had to have a doctor called out to me who hooked me up to a salt drip containing various anti-spasmodics and anti-biotics. It certainly did the trick. Within 2 or 3 hours I was up and in the swimming pool! So it's just gone 9am and I'm off to the pharmacist to get myself some drugs!
'Diarrhoea', I repeated, but the bearded wise man in a white doctors coat looked at me blankly. Not wanting to point to my bottom and start doing charades of me squatting down onto an imaginary loo I pointed instead at my tummy, rubbed it in a circular motion and made a pained look on my face. Immediately his face lit up and with a knowing smile and handed me a little box with loads of arabic hieroglyphics on it. I also managed to establish it was the usual,'take 2 three times a day'.
Medication taken I was in no hurry to move on so I took a barely luke warm shower, packed , loaded and was good to go for about 11am. Despite being in one of the busiest ( and beepiest - in my whole time in Morocco I haven't come across anywhere as horn happy as in Marrakesh. As soon as the lights turn green if you don't react with the reflexes of Lewis Hamilton they're tooting like mad for you to get going!!) cities in Morocco, I managed to escape the metropolis without going wrong once!
My journey started pleasantly enough as I continued my journey north west, warm sunshine and a pleasant breeze coming all the way from the Atlantic some 60 miles away on my left. But as I approached a small group of hills on the horizon I could see that beyond them the sky looked dark and foreboding. Sure enough as I started to come back down on to the pan-flat plain on the other side the rain started. So for the first time since France I had to get the waterproofs on. The rain I could cope with but the cross wind increased five fold and so with vision impaired by the horizontal rain coming in from my side and having to lean the bike to my left to compensate was pretty scary, especially when occasionally the wind would suddenly ease briefly and I found myself lurching to the centre of the road towards oncoming traffic! But even more frightening was when the big forty tonners came past from the opposite direction. It felt as if the whole bike was being side-swiped by a one second hurricane, almost lifting it off the tarmac and plonking it back down again. In the end I was moving as far to the right as possible and slowing right down every time one approached.
Mercifully within about 20 miles of El Jadida the wind began to ease and the rain stopped. As I came into the town god decided to throw one more brief but heavy shower onto me, but by the time I reached the coast line it had passed and the sun was peeping through again. I rode for a while along the beach promenade road until I saw a sign for Hotel Yahia. Laying some 400 yards back from the coast it was very reasonably priced, modern, quiet and clean with underground parking to keep the bike safe.
I think the Immodium (or whatever it was) was starting to work it's magic as I felt well enough to go out for a run initially to the beach front and turn left and head for the old town itself. I retraced my steps back to the hotel and on the spur of the moment I put my swimming costume on under my shorts and returned to the beach. If you had kids what a great beach, lovely yellow sand and shallow for miles out. I saw a young man sitting alone enjoying music on his phone. I politely interrupted his solitude asking him to take a couple of pics with my camera and then keep an eye on my stuff whilst I went for a quick dip. The tide was quite a way out so I just jogged and jogged towards the water until I had to dive into an oncoming breaking wave. Refreshing, invigorating, the water not being Med warm, but certainly not the testicle-inverting temperature of Hayling Island in the middle of summer! I swam out for about 200 yards and could still stand up! Being aware the lad was doing me a favour I made my way back to the beach. I thanked him and we started chatting a bit in my pigeon french and some in his pigeon English. His name was Anass and if he ever comes to the UK he will have to change his name! I was allowed one of his earphones and unlike all the middle eastern music I'd been subjected to over the last couple of weeks it was great to listen to a selection of his tunes, nearly all western music. In the end he asked if we could be friends on Facebook and didn't even want any dirhams for the pics taken or giving me his time and his earphone!

Some would say, 'That's an awful long way to travel on a motorbike for a swim in the Moroccan sea Dave' But as they say, 'it's not about the destination but the journey'! A bit like life really.

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Get well soon Dave.

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http://www.wanderclan.com

No problem with the fizzy drinks bottles and petrol. I didn't do a blog or RR for this trip, found it was a lot of work on my previous trip. Just doing my F.B. page now. Following The Front Wheel.

Sorry to read about your stomach problems mate, make sure you stay hydrated and get some lemonade into you. The sugar helps with energy.

Hi Dave,
Hope you're feeling better after your trip to the pharmacy. All's well here, we've read Dad your blog & he really enjoyed it.
Tony said do you know Reading won at the weekend 1-0 against Charlton & they're second in the league.Rugby World Cup all the northern hemisphere sides are out.
Look after yourself, love Helen

Thanks Coutos,
Already feeling much better thanks

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Thanks Hel
Feeling much better now after taking drugs!
Great news about Reading thanks.
Heading north again tomorrow
xx

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Thanks Rob
Will look you up on FB when I get home.
What's RR?

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Hi Wayne
Nice to hear from you again!
What do you do to keep your bum from being split in half by the moto cross type saddle?

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Eh up Smudger
Hope you are feeling a bit better?

I use this and it is doing the business
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...-seating-83784

Wayne

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

Hi Dad,

Liss and I have both emailed you, not sure weather you got it or not. If you can try and get that working again. Hope you are well. Maybe we could organise a Skype session this week at sometime.

Lots of love
Dan & Liss xx

DAY 17 - TUE 20TH OCT 2015 - EL JADIDA TO ASILAH - 250 MILES APPROX.

How did the Imams call everyone to prayer before electricity and speakers came along? It's something I began thinking about this morning. I'd set my alarm on the phone for 7.15am, but I don't know why I bothered as a dog began yapping at about 6am, then a cock began crowing about 6.30am and just before 7 the the nearby mosque began blaring out. The Imam would start at a low level growl building to a high pitched crescendo before dropping back down to a low pitch and building once more, like a car accelerating and changing gear, except this car had about 50 gears! Anyway answers on a postcard please!
I'm pleased to report all is 'quiet on the western front' in the bowel department, but will still take a couple more tabs to be on the safe side! Breakfast was a real treat this morning, not only the bread and jam, but a fried egg as well! I took my time getting loaded up so didn't hit the road until about 10.30am. Another beautiful warm day with just a few clouds to break up the blue sky. I assume it's the same with other bikers, but when you set off on any journey and the weather is like today it just puts an extra spring in your suspension and the meaning of joy and life in general becomes a lot clearer!
My plan was to head up the coast and at least get to a place called Kenitra, just beyond Morocco's capital, Rabat. My plan was to stay off the toll roads which worked swimmingly until I reached Casablanca. I rode through the city on what seemed to be their equivalent of Reading's Inner Distribution Road, and although a really busy 6 lane carriageway things were moving along really well. Then I realised why. I'd inadvertently ridden onto the toll road! No big shakes I cleared the outskirts of the country's biggest city( about 3.5 million if you're interested) paid the toll and slipped back onto the N1 (A Road equivalent). Being near the coast the ribbon development was extremely evident and really slowed me down due to the sheer amount of traffic, roundabouts, junctions and traffic lights. And the weather which had been my friend earlier was now becoming a little too hot and by the time I'd battled through Rabat (their second biggest city) I'd made two decisions. Firstly to go beyond Kenitra and aim for a place called Asilah and secondly to get back on the motorway to do some mile munching.
Now I find when in a car on the motorway you tend to just settle down comfortably put the stereo on, switch off and before you know it you're at your exit and off you go. On a bike you have to remain concentrated and with no in-car entertainment or anyone to chat to you end up thinking about your aches and pains. And on my bike it quite literally is a pain in the arse. As I think I may have mentioned earlier the seat on my bike is like perching on a piece of forbytwo and although I have bought a beany bag thing it has made little,if any, difference. In fact it must be quite strange coming up behind me if you're in a car as you will see a man who is maybe disabled in some way as he wonkily perches on the saddle with all his weight on the back of his left thigh and his whole right side is hanging off the right side of the bike, and when viewed a few miles later has apparently got ants in his pants, or feels the need stand up straight on the foot rests at sixty miles an hour, sit down and repeat 4 or 5 times, or a right leg comes out to the side, followed by the left leg, 'and we do the okey cokey and we turn around'! Anyway I think you get the picture! But not this motorway, oh no, it was entertainment all the way! For the first 10 miles there were men all along the hard shoulder selling what appeared to be walnuts which had obviously been scrumped from all the trees lining that part of the motorway. Then every so often a local would just pop out from the hedgerow and amble across the carriagewy. Then there were women in between the crash barriers in the central reservation harvesting whatever was on the shrubs growing there! A dog taking a crap right by the hard shoulder! A police biker hurtling past me, obviously to deal with the great big piece of delaminated lorry tyre in the nearside carriageway just ahead, oh no, he had a far more important job further up the road. For further up the road was a broken down car on the hard shoulder already being dealt with by the local bobby, so like the women, he also thought he'd stand in the central reservation, but unlike them, he wasn't doing anything useful! And I had another chuckle when I pulled in at a service station and there were three police bikes parked outside the entrance one of which was in a disabled bay!

THE BOYS IN BLUE SETTING A FINE EXAMPLE
As I headed further north I could see black clouds ahead and although I very nearly had to resort to the waterproofs, a rainbow appeared ahead and the skies gradually cleared and by the time I reached the my exit the rain had stopped. The man at the toll booth charged me £4 which for well over a hundred miles of motorway I thought was very reasonable.
Asilah, what can I say about Asilah? Basically it's a little gem! As I rode in it felt different straight away, tidier, cleaner, dare I say, a little more westernized? I initially stopped in a little street on the outskirts to check out any recommended hotels in my Rough Guide To Morocco ( a bit of a bulky paperback to be carrying on a bike but as my trip as gone on I've found a lot of useful info. in it). In the 'Basic' category it mentioned Belle Vue and I'd seen a sign for it back along the way. So I turned round and after a couple of minutes I turned along a quiet side street and there was this little 'Oasis' of place differentiated from all the other properties by the profusion of large plant pots outside and a lovely tree bearing beautiful blue flowers. As I took my ear plugs out I was greeted by a lovely cacophony of birdsong. There was no one in reception but I could see a figure laying on the settee in the gloom at the back of the lounge. So I called out and the figure emerged from his slumber and stumbled towards me still half asleep from his late afternoon siesta. Moustapha, the hotel owner,was a slightly built impish little fella and when he finally came to we did a little friendly haggling and as I had indicated I wished to stay 2 nights instead of one I manged to get the price down from 500 to 400 dirhams (£28) for both nights. He gave me a delightful little room up on the second floor with a balcony overlooking the street. The room, a bit like the hotel was a little quirky in that initially I didn't think there was an en- suite.But upon opening one of the doors to the wardrobe, it was in fact the entrance to the toilet and shower!
Once changed I went back down to move my bike as Moustapha insisted I should put it right outside the hotel entrance so it would remain safe.I then asked if he would take a pic of me and the bike. I honestly got the feeling he'd never taken a picture before as I carefully explained about operating the camera. In the end I heard a click of the shutter and when I showed him the picture he had taken he seemed genuinely chuffed to bits that he had achieved such a feat! I then did a selfie with both of us and he seemed just as gleeful about that as well.
I then took a 2 minute stroll down to the seafront and then the 1km walk out on the sea wall protecting the large harbour area. As it was now around 6.30pm the sun was just starting to set. Because there was a strip of cloud above the western horizon firstly the sun sank through that causing all sorts of beautiful shades at the other surrounding clouds and then as it emerged again from the bottom, just before sinking into the Atlantic a whole new array of colours were projected across the waves and into the sky. I don't know about you but do you ever get those times when everything just fally into line and a lovely feeling of true peace and contentment descends upon you. That's how I felt!
Too soon though the sun had completed it'sfree light show and I made my way back to the town for a pleasant meatball tajine in one of the restaurants near my hotel.
Sorry for the long blog today, but I have had a really great day! No riding tomorrow, just relaxing and exploring!

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