Morocco: Marrakech

The Jemma El Fna is the main square of Marrakech which turns into a carnival each evening.

It's full of hundreds of people circulating between performances by snake charmers, storytellers and African bongo players. There are acrobats and as well as a few unsavoury exhibitions involving men swallowing and regurgitating scorpions, trained monkeys taking photos - I wonder how well? - while vultures perch on shoulders of passersby for a few dirham.

The myriad greasy food stalls send smoke spiralling into the dark night, the police patrol for pick pockets and tourists sit high up on cafe terraces overlooking the square and take in the view of this nightly madness.

The excitement of the crowds is electric but we find ourselves keeping to the edges not wanting to enter the hysterical maelstrom of sound, colour and smell. I have a fear that if we enter the epicentre we may never get out.

We retreat to the less frenetic lane way, where our hotel is situated.

Amongst all the buying and selling in this city there are islands of peace and normality along the Rue Zitoun El Khedim.

There's an entrancing luminescence at night. I wait in line with the locals to buy merguez sausage sandwiches at a street stall. I chat with two nice women about some of the other items on the menu - deep fried brains, pancreas and other offal. They're surprised we don't have this kind of take away in Australia!

There's a tiny tailor's shop where a man sews quietly by hand, a butcher's stall on the street with a big white tiled counter trickling with blood, carcasses of goat hang by hooks, sheeps heads are out on display.

Cats scurry through the crowds with chicken heads in their mouths, there are men pushing barrows of mandarins and sticky sweets. Ironmongers, dingy hammams, hole in the wall launderers are packed side by side along the lane. A rug thrown down on the dirty brick road is used to sell old shoes. The barbers are doing brisk business in hair cuts and nasal hair removal.

One morning we walk to the end of Zitoun El Khedim and make our way along the edge of the mellah. We spot what we suspect are a few faux-Hasidic Jews making money from tourists wanting photos.

We visit the Badi Palace not so much for the architecture or for its historical importance but for its other draw card - the storks which have made their nests along the walls and in crumbling towers, even on top of nearby minarets which blast their call to prayer through loudspeakers five times a day.

There's something other worldly about these birds. The morning is full of their clacking. They feed and fuss over their chicks hidden deep in the tangle of branches and twigs which make up their highly visible, well constructed nests.