Yuck !!

Small change was the bane of our lives; there was never enough of it. Someone asked for change in a bank and was told that the shopkeepers took it all and the shopkeepers were very reluctant to give the correct change because they always claimed that they were unable to make up the correct amount due to the fact that they had no coins.

I didn't buy any carpets this time

I began to suspect that this was a ploy to extract a bit more money from us tourists and so I decided that I would be prepared to wait while the shopkeeper went among his neighbours and managed to collect sufficient coins to give me change.

Cheeses in palm-leaf baskets

It was not that I grudged the money - far from it. There were so many traders all trying to sell the same goods that is became the luck of the draw which stall actually got our custom and all were so desperate to sell that it was not difficult to screw them down to a very low price. What annoyed us was the blatant reluctance to give correct change once a price had been agreed to.

Crowded food market

The hotels did not allow us to take our own bottles of water into their dining rooms and so we were forced to either go thirsty or buy water from the wine waiters at a price which fluctuated between 50 dirham (the most expensive) to 15 dirham. Due to the chronic lack of small coins which we all suffered I once had to proffer a 100 dirham note for a 15 dirham bottle of water and the waiter went right through my purse to check that I actually had nothing smaller, after which he very reluctantly gave me my change.

I hope that these gorgeous birds were not going where I suspect they were

Not having quite enough money worked well for me a couple of times when I bargained a stall-holder right down to what I had in my purse, because I knew that I didn’t have the money to pay the price and the stall keeper realised that a low price was better than no sale. This happened when I wanted to buy a lapis lazuli necklace the day before we were to leave the country and I wanted to spend my remaining dirhams. I was prepared to abandon negotiations when I realised that I could not pay the asking price. The shopkeeper asked how much money I had, took all my dirham notes, counted them out and then handed back 20 dirham, commenting as he did so "You might be needing this." He kept the rest and I got my necklace at way below the original asking price. That way I managed to rid myself of all but 5 centimes by the end of the trip as we had been told that we would not be allowed to take any of the local currency out of the country. Nobody asked me and I still have the 5 centime piece.

My lapis lazuli necklace