Hi guys. I am back from Morocco! Luckily we came back earlier than planned so I 'only' have 12 days of event to blog.
It all started with Jimmy telling me about a 'guy who needs a partner for hitch' at the first Bruneian Social. I was merely being polite when I said, 'hmm, interesting!' Somehow I ended up registering for the hitch with Zhiyang, a 2nd year M'sian (FYI, he's not the guy Jimmy was talking about)
VISA, THE MAIN HEADACHEAnyway, preparing for the hitch was much harder than i initially thought it would be. First we had to raise 300 quid EACH, or else we had to donate from our own acccount to LCD,
'so that no one treats this hitch as a free holiday'. -.-" Everyone doing the hitch went all out to raise the targetted amount of money. Selling Krispe Kremes, blackmailing their friends to donate... Jimmy and Zhiyang even auctioned themselves to run from University House to Rootes in bikinis at lunch hour for 60quid each! (They chickened out though, and are going to be singing chipmunks at the Piazza in boxes instead)
Visa was another problem for us. Apparently only Malaysians need a Visa to go to Morocco, even Singaporeans do not need one. (It somehow makes us wonder what shit the politicians are doing in our country) I won't elaborate too much but many groups applied 3 or 4 times (each time cost 50 pounds), bought ferry tickets, flights, and accommodation in Morocco just to get the Visa. Aaron finally called the Moroccan Embassy up and cleared the matter. It seemed that they MISREAD our documents and thought we are fundraising IN Morocco instead of FOR the Moroccan. $%^*!#$#
Frustrated, Zhiyang and I went to the Moroccan Embassy in London to sort out our Visa. Took us 2 days ('come back tomorrow, we only open at 9-10am for Visa application') and when we finally got it approved, -it was the most hideous looking Visa I'd seen in my life but i
almost kissed it in tears-, we left immediately to Portsmouth to catch the 2300 ferry to LeHarve in France.
OUR JOURNEY BEGINS!
To our dismay, we discovered that we weren't the only group of hitchers there! One look across the ferry told us that there were practically more hitchers in our green hitch uniform than potential 'hitch-giver'. After one whole night of perturbing the people on the ferry, we got 2 ladies, (and 2 year-old Grace), to take us to Angouleme in France. Our first hitch was the best, despite the fact that Grace kept asking us to cut apples for her. Here's part of our conversation.
Lady: I need a knife to cut these apples *fumbling for a knife
Zyang: I have a pen knife
Lady: *Act slightly taken aback* AHA, that's a trick question! Get out of my car now!
Zyang: Oopsie
Grace: I want you cut my apple!
Zyang cuts apple into slices
Grace: It's too big!
Zyang cuts again
Grace: It's too big!
Lady: Grace, you are making fun of your new friend here aren't you?
Grace grins : It's too big! 
We managed to take a short visit to her sister's house in the village where they are ending their journey before being taken by her sister to a nearby petrol station so we can continue our own journey. She was a nice lady too, for she helped us talk to the truck drivers at the petrol station as we speak no French nor Spanish and got us on a van that goes straight into Spain that night! One day and we got pass France!
I have to say that we learnt most of our Spanish in the van with Santos. He spoke a little English and we spent 8 hours in the car flipping through the back of our Spain guidebook with prints of some common Spanish words trying to string them together to form a conversation with him.
We arrived in Burgos at 2300.
HITCHHIKING- HARDER THAN WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE
Our luck ran out the next day. We woke up to find ourselves at a very broad bend towards the motorway to Madrid, at the first day of EASTER BREAK, and almost no car in sight! After an hour of walking and waving, our 'AUTOSTOP CARIDAD' (hitchhike for charity) and 'Ir al sud' (Towards South) signboards saved us and we got picked up and put at a nearby petrol station, where we got our next hitch to Madrid.
Somewhere along the way
I cant describe the disappointment I felt when this guy decided to drop us off somewhere at the bottom of Madrid when we realise that he was going all the way to Morocco! Imagine getting all the way to Morocco in 4 hitches!! You must understand, I am sleeping in the car tonight and it's for my own safety. Awwww-ghhhh. To add to our misery, his estimation of 'bottom of Madrid' was slightly off. When we saw another hitch group at the same petrol station where we got dropped off, we knew we were stuck. Indeed, we spent the whole day begging everyone and still stood at the exact same spot at the end of the day, with friends/competitors beside us this time.
STRANDED IN SPAIN
We started looking for a place to stay after a guy promised us that he would take us to Malaga the next day at 8am. Maybe it's our haggard appearance, with card boards, backpacks and our limited Spanish, or maybe they are genuinely fully booked; we were shunned from every hostel, motel, hotel, pension we asked! We almost went into a church to ask for help (as suggested by one of the hotel receptionist) but went away after hearing people singing inside. Fortunately we met a family on the street and they helped us talk to one of the pension owners (pensions are small hostels where you have to call and ask for a room, we couldn't get one before this as we couldn't communicate beyond 'Ola' (hello)) and we successfully avoided sleeping at a bench outside the church, where we had previously decided that it was the safest place for homeless people like us around Pinto.
What happens when there's too much time to kill......
Our worst dreams can true the next day as we found ourselves still standing at the petrol station hours after the agreed time, frantically calling the guy's mobile for the millionth time while shivering in the cold, cursing the guy for 'flying aeroplane'. At 10, We started asking around for hitch again in turns, (one of us ask whilst the other go into the shop to regain some body heat) and only left the
'most horrible stacion gasoline on earth' at 3. After a few more short hops, we got on to a cool-couple-who-kept-trying-to-offer-us-weeds's car and got to Granada, at the bottom of Spain.Deciding that we had enough, we took a bus to Algeciras, stayed a night, and got on to the ferry into Morocco. That's when our 'holiday' begun.
Really cool couple who kept offering us weeds.
MOROCCO- 'BEAUTIFUL CITY BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE'? 
Stepping out of the ferry in Tanger, it felt as if I landed myself onto another planet altogether. The buildings are Alibaba-like, and I have yet to see another city whose altitude can differ so vastly in a short distance. Again, we walked up and down the steep alley, trying hard to ignore the stares from the locals, for hours before we got ourselves a room.
There are a few things that one can't help but observe when in Morocco. First, jobless bloke -even kids- looking for tourist to con are aplenty on the streets. Kids snatched my food away in Fes when I was eating, taxi drivers hiked up the price by 800%, random people told us
'What are you looking for? I just want to help' and asked payments for their help thereafter...
RISSANI- A TOWN WE WILL NEVER VISIT AGAIN, EVERThis situation was particularly the worst for us when we were at Rissani, the city that we had to pass if we were to go to Western Sahara. Literally EVERYONE we saw was trying to get us to part with our money. Lady begging on the floor, petite taxis, grand taxis, boys on bicycle's with a back seat, restaurant owners, and even, bus ticket seller. He tried to sell us a 90 Dirham (45 ringgit) ticket to Kenifra after telling us that the direct bus to Marrakech were sold out. Not taking up his advice (we learnt that it's best to use our instinct instead in Morocco), we bought the 55 Dirham ticket to Midelt. However after we came back from lunch to wait for the bus, he approached us offering us 2 refunded tickets to Marrakech at its original price, 140 DH, whilst refusing to refund our tickets. Desperate to get out of the terrible place, we grudgingly bought the tickets, declining his offer to 'sell our original tickets for us'. Then We went about selling them ourselves.
Somehow we managed to get to this 2 men who gave their 2 Marrakech tickets to the ticket seller to sell for them, as they decided to go somewhere else. After a short chat, we both realise that we were cheated as the ticket seller sold us the ticket at full price but told them he couldn't sell the tickets. He must have done this trick more than a million times as when he was confronted, he made up all sorts of stories, diverted out attention and ran out of sight. It didn't help our mood when a kid pointed us towards the direction of the ticket booth when asked, turned around and asked for 'payments'; nor when a man stood between us and the place where one put one's baggage at the bottom of the bus, demanded us to give our backpacks to him, turned around, threw them in and asked for 20 DH. To complete our mishaps, the bus broke down after 20 km towards Marrakech. Great.
HIGHLIGHTS OF MOROCCOAll was worthwhile though, as we get to see the beautiful desert, silent with more stars than I know existed twinkling in the sky. The sand was the best. It was so dry and powdery, it just falls off once you get up after rolling in the sand. The architectures are very different from what we have, most apparent in Fes and Tanger, with Medinas where market place lies. Marrakech was also a very interesting city. It was similar to Petaling Street, but much bigger. Avoid looking at the preparations of the food and you will definately enjoy them as well.
Hitchhiking to Morocco is an amazing experience to me. I am not sure whether I will do it again, (lazing around at the beach is still my definition of holiday) but I will definately recommend it to anyone thinking of doing something that they will not forget in their life.
Camel ride
Dancing in the (Day)Light
Beautiful Sahara
When Hitchers meet
Food!
Koutobia- Symbol of Marrakech
End of our journey
Daniel at Coventry Bus Station 
Our journey- recorded 
For more pictures, feel free to visit my facebook photo album :)
