Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Dyer's souk

We've read about the dyers' souk, so we went in search of it. We asked around and found a guy who was even willing to take us there. We told him, we are not buying anything from him or anyone else. Here nobody does anything except that they want to sell you something. He said, 'no pressure'. No pressure is no pressure. So off we went following him through some twisting alleys and up on the roof top. Again just like the tanneries in Fes, the dyers' souk is best viewed from the roof top. Here we looked down on the racks and racks of fabrics that were being hung to dry after being dipped in vats of colorful dyes. They say the dyes are made from vegetable matter but more and more synthetic dyes are being used. In one of the workshop a merchant started draping a scarf over Sophie's head, she protested but to no avail. When she took it off and we started to leave, the merchant started being disappointed for not having persuaded us to buy something. We told them at the outset, we're not looking to buy anything, just to take a few pictures. Oh well, we left anyway, too bad. The guy who brought us there started his sales pitch, 'you want to see my stuff?' No, we don't want to see your stuff, you just practised your English with us, that's it, that's the quid pro quo! We left after taking these pictures. We've become really thick skinned.

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