Anything's Posse-able

February 2025

My travels in Tunisia ...

It's A Perfect Day

There were more adventures ahead for us, us posse of four.

Colombian Luis, Belgian Vroni, Turkish Göksagun and I decided to spend the next day in a town called Monastir, a 45 minute train ride from where we were staying in Sousse, Tunisia.

But first, after another stunning brekky with Toutou, I moved hotels, so I could be at the same place as the other guys, and be right in the medina, the nicest part of the centre of town.

Left: The courtyard of the Hotel Paris, my new pad. It was cheap and really nice, and I even had my own room, as they don't have dorms anyway.

Centre: The posse, sans moi.

Right: I love the artwork around the hotel.

My tiny room. It was freezing at night though, with no heating. Well, that's not entirely true. There were about six heavy blankets in there. I used three of them.

We strolled along the port to the railway station.

The train was pretty old and rundown, but comfy enough.

Art window.

Welcome to Monastir!

Centre: A debt which will never be repaid

Bourguiba and Independence

We wandered over to the Mausoleum of the first President of independent Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, which he actually had built for himself while he was still alive.

Bourguiba was a lawyer, who graduated from the University of Paris, and was already an influential politician by the 1930s, the beginning of the last years of French rule in the country. The French had first colonised the country in 1881, after the Russians had defeated the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turk War, and then the Western powers carved up the Balkans, doing deals with each other, which included other parts of their own Empires.

The French were gifted Tunisia.

Seems pretty bizarre doesn't it. That foreign powers were able to just occupy and carve up other peoples' countries, according to their own self interests.

Anyway, back to the 1940s, and the Tunisian leader Bourguiba was repeatedly arrested by the French colonial rulers, and was actually exiled to Marseille during World War II. He returned to north Africa after the war, seeking the support of the Arab League for Tunisian independence, and became involved in the escalation of protests and uprisings that again led to his arrest, and another exile in France.

Eventually he negotiated independence with the French from prison, but when he returned to Tunisia to lead a new independent country he was challenged by another local politician, Salah Ben Youssef, for the party leadership position.

Youssef wanted full independence for the Maghreb region, unlike Bourguiba, and a failure to resolve their differences on the issue led to a civil war in Tunisia, which Bourguiba's forces eventually won.

Bourguiba then became President, and ruled for 30 years, becoming more and more dictatorial as time progressed. Surprise surprise.

That pretty much always happens when people rule for too long.

He was eventually removed from office by his own Prime Minister, and died whilst under house arrest.

His mausoleum is a beautiful building, but is looking a little rundown in parts now, especially the domes.

There were the usual obligatory personal items and pics of him with famous leaders. They were pretty much all North African or Middle Eastern men.

Above Left: With the wife of the ex-Shah of Iran, and the Shah, with all his military medals.

Above Centre: Muammar Gaddafi, the once-dictator of Libya.

Above Right: Ahhhh what a guy, a true man of the people

Below Left: Hanging out with the Butcher of Baghdad, I mean, Saddam Hussein, of Iraq

Below Centre: The burial place, inside.

Below Left: OMG!! It's a Cinderella pumpkin carriage! If only they had these when my girls went through their fairytale sparkly dress phases, they would've died with happiness.

Below Centre: Wandering over to another beautiful ribat (fortress).

Below Right: I couldn't pick where these people were from, but I love their dresses.

Above Right: One of 65 million cats in Tunisia.

It was beautiful inside the ribat.

Great views from the top

We strolled out to the coast. It was beautiful. 

Above Centre: Sagun walked all the way there along this narrow wall. It doesn't look major from this pic but on his left was a drop of about 20m. He would've been seriously injured if he'd slipped down that side.

I asked him how he can be so sure-footed up so high, and he told me that when he was a kid he used to walk for kilometres along an unused railway line, on the rails.

All atop the watchtower

We spent some beautiful time on the peninsula, soaking up the space and the views, it was really special. It was late afternoon by the time we finally wandered into the medina for tucker.

Above Centre: Dried peppers. They serve peppers with everything here. The food's super spicy too, usually.

Above Right: This part of the market was selling some pretty tacky stuff.

Above Left: We ate here. The food was great.

Above Centre: This is called brik. Well, brik œf. It's basically a spicy egg-filled pastry, and is now my new favourite snack. You get all sorts of brik here, stuffed with whatever you want. They just make them up after you order.

Above Right: They serve this free with every meal. There'll be some type of olive variety, from tiny ones right through to giant-sized varieties, mayonnaise, and of course, harissa, which is a spicy chilli paste, and very common here.

They often serve chips too.

I love Tunisian food! They've got everything, from super tasty appetisers and snacks, to amazing main courses, and the best sweets ever.

And fresh drinks too, of course.

And bucketloads of dates. And nuts. And dried fruits. And fresh fruits. At the moment bananas and citrus are everywhere, and the oranges are so juicy and tasty.

They also have lots of bread varieties, and will serve French-style baguettes with your food. It's always included.

Their breads vary, and street stalls will sell stuffed breads like, for example,the Tunisian version of the chapati, which is nothing like Indian ones, but a fat and soft bread, more like a soft round panini. They serve mlawi, which is a rubbery thin large bread a bit like a naan, then they have these other fat softer rolls a little like hamburger rolls, but with more substance.

You can get whatever you want on the bread. My go-to order is an omelette, cheese, greens, pickles and veg, stuffed with harissa and various mayonnaises. It's so good.

Below Left: My meal is called ougga, a tomato-based spicy dish. The veg option includes just-cooked eggs with the yolk still runny, peppers, some type of green, and a bucketload of chilli. It's the bomb.

Above Centre: Pink canaries for sale. Mediterranean people seem to love little birds. In cages.

Above Right: This place served us our huge hot espressos in a paper cup with straws. It was funny, and not just to Vroni. Of course they cost virtually nothing, about 50 Euro cents.

We made it back to the train by sunset.

We met an incredible young local woman on our train back to Sousse, Rym. She's a midwifery student at uni, and was telling us all about the medical situation here in Tunisia, where a lack of education all around birthing and women's issues is a huge problem.

She told us that sometimes women will come in to the hospital in the throes of labour, and have absolutely no idea about the actual birthing process, what may or may not  happen, or basically know anything about childbirth whatsoever.

It really surprised me. I mean I understand how a totally male dominated power structure means women's health issues get ignored in the education system. But I just assumed female relatives and health professionals would fill in the gaps.

Anyway chatting with Rym was refreshing, as she really wants to change things. And she will, she's that type of person.

When we got back to Sousse we happily met up with Minami, a guy from Nagoya whom we'd all met back in Tunis. He's a lovely guy, with an amazing sense of humour. He loves ceramics, and collects it from around the world, to sell in his shop in Japan. He also owns a guesthouse there. He laughs a lot, it's pretty infectious.

We all went out for cake.

And then for a beer. It was my first and last alcoholic drink in Tunisia. As a Muslim country, pretty much no one drinks, it's so refreshing actually. But some people do, especially tourists, and bars aren't illegal. There's very few of them though, except maybe in the touristy resorty places, but I haven't been to many of those spots.

Our day and night ended on the hotel rooftop terrace, where Vroni and I played loads of songs together, her amazing voice drawing a crowd pretty much immediately. It was amazing.

Yeah, we all agreed that today had been the perfect day, and we all said how grateful we were to have the chance to spend this time with each other. It was really special.

Another Separation

The next morning most of us were going our separate ways. Vroni was heading south, to Djerba, Luis and Minami back to Tunis, and Sagun and I were staying in Sousse.

I'm not done with Tunisia yet. There's loads more I wanna explore, including the inland town of Kairouan.

Of course, that's just one of many places I'd like to go here. There's just so little time!

Ha! Not really.

I've got all the time in my world.

Kairouan

It was sad to say goodbye to those guys. I have a feeling we'll meet up again. I hope so.

Brekky. This is lablabi, but pronounced "leblebi," basically a cumin-heavy chickpea soup. You throw your bread in it to soak up the juice. It's not my fave flavour, but Luis said he's had better ones elsewhere in Tunisia, so I'll try it again elsewhere.

After a teary goodbye at the louage station, I jumped on a louage to the interior, to a small town called Kairouan, which I'd heard was interesting.

As soon as I got out I saw how poor some parts of the town were. There were homeless people and beggars hanging out by the local market, some sitting in filthy rags on the dirty ground. It was quite a shock, I hadn't seen this type of poverty in Tunisia before.

Below Left, Centre: Op shop, Tunisian style. Suzanne told me these clothing items come from Europe, donated by charities.

Below Right: It was dirty in this part of town.

Above Left: House of carpets

Above Centre, Right: The magnificent Grand Mosque of Kairouan, another ancient masterpiece. It was closed as it was Friday, the main Muslim prayer day, but we got a glimpse inside from around the back. No pics though sorry. The interior is grand, woody, and very dark.

And, surprise surprise, I bumped into Suzanne, the lovely French-Canadian woman I'd met on the louage from El Jem the other day, and we decided to spend explore Kairouan together.

We walked through to the medina.

The old town's beautiful, yet another maze of white and blue buildings, some very stunning inside.

Suzanne was headed to an old noble's house, called Dar Hasseine Allani (dar means house), so I tagged along.

A woman there gave us a tour of the place, in quite good English.

Below Left: The entrance lobby, with a portrait of the original owner.

Below Centre: The inner courtyard.

Below Right: One of the four bedrooms

Below Left: A wedding rug, with traditional Kairouan colours and designs. I was surprised, I'd never seen a carpet with those colours, they sort of look non-traditional to me, but actually aren't.

Below Centre: Entertainment back in the day

Below Right: Suzanne stairing

Below Left: Wedding "dress" from the 1950s. Yeah, they're actually balloon pants.

Below Centre: The Tunisian version of baklava. These were stuffed with dates. They're super sweet and super delicious.

Below Right: Random wall mosaic

We kept strolling, and three young local kids followed us like friendly puppies, staring at us, and speaking a few words of broken French. They were the cutest ever.

Above Right: Weaving loom in a local shop.

I'd heard of another house to explore, called the "Governor's House," which is an incredible building, and is now also a huge carpet shop.

Every single square centimetre of the place was stunning.

I'd never seen so many carpets in one place before. Incredible ones. Hundreds and hundreds of them.

Below Right: Carpet making loom. They do it stitch by stitch. I've seen them working on them in different places. They take months to create, and that's one reason why they're so expensive.

When a girl marries in Tunisia, her mother is traditionally supposed to make her three carpets as a wedding gift. What a job. As if mums don't have anything else to do.

Above Right: If you're into the doors, Tunisia is the place for you. They're all so stunning, and all different.

Above Right: More cows contemplating the meaning of death

More local bread. I haven't seen this type before.

Eventually Suzanne and I made our way back to Sousse, and she eventually returned to the centre of town with her friend Avi, from Pittsburgh, and we ate together. It was super nice to hang out and chat with them.

I hope to see them again sometime.

Below Left: Great veg dinner

Back To Tunis

Well, I've been putting it off, but I need to keep moving. I have a few plans, which basically all involve meeting people.

Sagun and I had our usual morning coffees and pain au chocolats at the local coffee stall, and then headed off for brekky. Yep.

We had tickets on a 2pm train back to Tunis, which Sagun had bought for us the day before. We strolled over to the station, but the train was delayed by 45 minutes.

It was a comfy and chilled journey, nice and slow.

Sagun was thrilled because we could chill at the end of the carriage and open the door and hang out of the train, because the pneumatic lock was broken. Sagun absolutely loves trains, and couldn't stop smiling, he was as happy as a Turk in a kebab shop.

Back in Tunis we ate near the station, and I had ougga again, because it's my new fave.

Above Right: We shopped for our long ferry journey, this is just the halva collection in the local supermarket, there's so many varieties.

Then we made our way out by Bolt to the port.

Above Right: Finally heading off

Göksagun has a Special Turkish Passport, which allows him to travel to the EU and many other countries visa-free. His dad used to work for the Tunisian government, so the family were issued special passports for ease of travel.

But try telling the Tunisian ferry check-in guy all about that. He'd probably never seen a Special Passport before, and insisted that Sagun needed an EU visa, which normal Turkish travellers are required to have.

It took an hour for Sagun to sort it out. And then he had the same problem with the Tunisian border guards later on. Poor bugger, it's not the first time it's happened to him.

Luckily he sorted that out too, after some time.

I was on a different ferry. Mine was supposed to leave at 3am, check-in by midnight, and it took forever to actually get on the ship. So disorganised and inefficient. Passports and boarding passes were checked five times. Yep, five.

Anyway I got to my seat, and, by a huge stroke of luck, had a row of three seats to myself. Joy! I immediately spread out and fell asleep.

I awoke at 8am, and we still hadn't left the port. Crazy huh. We finally pulled out about 9.30am, 6 and a half hours late.

But that was that. Bye bye Tunisia.

It's been an amazing journey here, and I've only just scratched the surface, only checking out the northeast and east of the country.

There's so much to explore here, and you need time to do it. I'd love to come back some day, I love it.

But now here I am, on another ferry, back to Sicilia.

I plan to spend a little more time in Palermo, and then to get over to Bari, on the Adriatic Sea-side of southern Italy.

From there, I'm gonna jump on a ferry to Albania.

Yeah, Albania.

Know where that is?

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