It’s hard to believe that the last 4 entries were just 2 days! The whole point of this holiday was to sit by a pool or beach and do nothing, which is what we did the next day. It felt a bit strange, almost like starting the holiday from scratch. The hotel was nice enough, but now we’ve had time to explore and have a look around it defiantly isn’t 5 star. But then we hadn’t paid 5 star money. Overall though I think we got our money’s worth so can’t really complain.
I have ended up with a cold. Lyn said a couple of the French women were coughing on the coach. So if anyone asks, or even if they don't, I’m going to say;
’When I was in North Africa I got a bit of a virus from a couple of French girls but I’ve taken some pills and it’s all cleared up now.’
That sounds far more interesting and it’s technically true!
The weather hasn’t been great. It was just about perfect when we were in the Sahara but the best I can describe it for the rest of the week is an average British summer. So we’ve contented ourselves with just hanging around the hotel, drinking, eating and having afternoon naps. Honestly it’s pretty much what I do every day now but it’s nice to have a change of scenery in which to do it.
We did set a day aside to go to Monastir. This was to do tat shopping and see the fort (Ribat) where Life of Brian was filmed. On this day we got the train. The train is in a shocking state but it was 3 dinar per person for a return ticket as opposed to a taxi which would have been 40 dinar. BTW 1 dinar is about 25p.
After arriving in Monastir, it was only 2 stops, I used my downloaded maps to make our way to the Ribat. The weather was not good but at least it didn’t rain. My cold was in full flow at this point but I was determined to climb to the top of the tower. I tried filming it in a attempt to recreate Brians escape from the Romans but all you ended up with is footage of a fat man wheezing, swearing and complaining about the uneven steps and lack of light. I might release it in the directors cut. I eventually got to the top and found it was occupied by 3 French teens. In my day they would have been smoking and drinking but I think they were just on their phones. God I sound like a Boomer!
We found another shop where we didn’t have to haggle and bought the tackiest ashtray I could find which had a picture of a camel on it to remind me of Twat, also a fairly nice painting which was done on a feather. We didn’t want to push our luck and eat local so after shopping we got the train back to the hotel. There was no decorum getting on the train with people just trying to barge on before everyone got off. My refusal to do this (out of character but I wasnt feeling well) probably pissed off the people behind me but I said to Lyn ‘I’m not going to push an old lady over just to get a seat.’ The group of old ladies all smiled at me as they got off and said something in Arabic. I thought to myself ‘Manners! That’s why we had an empire!’ and then immediately thought ‘Actually that’s probably why we lost an empire’.
So that was that… until the last day when I found out the Guest Manager had used Lyn's phone to fake a 5 star TripAdvisor Review! I was going to go through the whole saga here but if you're interested you can read my genuine TripAdvisor review .
Would we go back to Tunisia? No is the short answer. Been there, done that, got the tacky ashtray but I would recommend it to anyone for an interesting, good value holibobs.
Comments