Marrakesh. Another one of those place-names which conjurs up a whole world of mystery and fascination. Maintaining a tradition of exotic getaway for the May half-term, we booked a "low-budget" flight to Morocco. There is something profoundly odd about modern mass air travel. A hundred plus people, pretending to be utterly blasé, are crammed into a steel tube and projected through the sky to a distant destination. On arrival they are processed with cold efficiency through an abattoir-like arrival hall and released into a third world city for the exclusive purpose of being shorn of their hard currency. No cultural preparation, no linguistic credentials required, just get out there and consume the experience of the "other"! But an "other" so homogenised and vacuum-packed, that you could almost get a better sense of the exotic through watching a decent TV documentary. It would certainly be cheaper, more convenient and a damn sight more comfortable.

Actually, despite the huge influx of tourists, Marrakesh remains a fabulous destination, most definitely retaining its ability to shock through difference. What the numbers rob you of is the sense of the uniqueness of your experience. There is absolutely no notion of coming across something yourself and discovering "your" Morocco. No way that you could convince yourself that, through exercising qualities of resourcefulness, initiative, sensitivity and good taste, you have obtained a special insight into local customs and mores, which no lesser sensibility could possibly share. All of which begs the question as to whether travel isn't mostly about a sort of snobbery: "Oh dahling, we must give you the address of the wonderful Riad we stayed in" or "Our driver was simply wonderful, took us to places most tourists never get to see" etc. etc. Regular readers will be familiar with my qualms at collecting "experiences" like bubble-gum cards. Often enough, having been somewhere is at least as, if not more important than actually being there. However, if everyone in the playground is clutching the same card, its value deteriorates accordingly. Also, an influx of tourists, all in pursuit of the same experience of authenticity, changes a place irrevocably, to the extent of their becoming an integral part of the landscape. In fact, we probably spent as much time gawping at other tourists as we did actually taking in the indigenous scene.

We'd booked ourselves into a "riad" in the northern part of the Medina - the old city encompassed by its ancient walls. A traditional town-house built around a central atrium courtyard, our riad was a mini-palace. Richly adorned with a wealth of stucco-work and antique "zelliges" tiles, it remained comfortably cool inside, even under the baking midday sun. Eating by candlelight by the courtyard pool, looking up at the stars, with a rampant bougainvillea spilling down from the wooden ballustrades of the upper levels was a truly enchanting experience. It seems that back in the seventies, many semi-derelict riads were picked up for a song by Europeans who realised their extraordinary potential. Now you would have to pay something well in excess of 300,000 euros for even a small one.

Venturing forth from the unruffled calm of the Riad into the seething streets of Marrakesh was a shock. In every nook and every cranny, at every archway and corner, through every tortuous alleyway, throngs a mass of humanity, all intent, it would seem, on extracting money from your wallet. Hawkers, vendors, beggars, street urchins and con-artists spot the perplexed demeanour of the greenhorns with ruthless acuity. Later I read in my Lonely Planet of the need to avoid phony guides who take you round to their friends to get you to buy things. I winced with inner embarrassment. First day out, less than fifty yards from the door of our riad, we were latched onto by the jovial Abdul. Abdul, apparently, was a teacher in a Koranic infants school, who, as an educated man, relished the prospect of practicing his English, while showing us around some of the sights of his quarter of town. Not tourist stuff, you know, how real Moroccans live. We informed him brightly that we would be only too delighted to take up his kind offer. Following him, we were soon lost in the warren of the Medina, now entirely dependent upon him to lead us back to the familiar tourist haunts. Which, patrolled as they are by the tourist police, were just the areas he wanted to avoid! So, we were chaperoned nervously through the maze, gazing with awkward fascination upon the lives of "poor people". All the while, the strangeness of the scene was accentuated by unfamiliar smells - all variety of spices and herbs, public bakeries, incense and donkey dung, tagine cooking and the fumes of cheap petrol. A bit like a live version of the Jorvik viking exhibition - commented Anna. We were invited to visit an artisan's workshop, "just to see". We emerged clutching a parcel of hand-painted pottery for which we'd obviously paid well over the local odds. They have a clever negotiating technique. The vendor takes a piece of paper and writes down his opening price in the left hand column. He then invites the customer to put down a counter-offer on the right hand side. Wise as you are, you enter a figure which is a third of the original asking price. It's all over. You are committed to making a purchase at at least that price and he's already made his margin. Convention requires that you finally close the deal at around two-thirds the asking price, but that's just the icing on the cake. Still, we like what we got and it would certainly have cost a lot more back home - a fact of which they are extremely aware.

Abdul marched us briskly off to a shop by the Bab el Khemis, a gate in the northern part of the city wall - "just to see how they make the Berber carpets". Crossing the threshold, we were welcomed by a dark-skinned, oleaginous gentleman, clad in flowing blue, claiming to be a Touareg. A Touareg possibly, but surely not one who made a habit of month-long Saharan caravan journeys. With his delicate build, trendy spectacles and extravagantly flash watch, he looked more like an Artificial Intelligence major. He offered us a mint tea - "Berber whisky! Ha ha." How kind! We were hooked. Would we care to take a look at a few carpets while he explained the different traditions and techniques? How wonderful! Honey poured from his lips, unction oozed from every pore. Just say if there's one you like the look of. No obligation to purchase. That is our way - deal or no deal, we remain friends. The Prophet enjoins us to smile and be happy at all times. Happy, we've never been happier!

The assistant threw down a gorgeous Berber peasant rug with a fantastically detailed pattern in authentic natural colours. The Touareg sensed our inner movement almost before we were aware of it ourselves. Yes, a truly beautiful piece and becoming rare. It's increasingly difficult to get the women of the villages to undertake such hard and painstaking work. Obviously, we could perfectly well understand that! Would we be interested in acquiring this unique artifact? Well, you know, we hadn't actually been thinking in terms of actually buying a carpet. No, but for a thing so beautiful - I could offer you a good price! He quoted a figure, which, though doubtless outrageous, was meaningless, as we were entirely ignorant of the going rates. Isn't there an bit of economic jargon to describe this situation? Information disequilibrium or something?

We opted for a policy of distraction, the girls suddenly assuming an exaggerated enthusiasm for some jewellery. They negotiated a poorish deal on some quite cool dangly earrings of thin silver sheet. Still stalling, we expressed an interest in a delicately worked pewter teapot. A desultory discussion of price ensued. Just as concentration was waning, the Touareg went for the jugular. I can let you have the carpet for X (a figure half his original proposal) - final price! Er, well... And I'll throw in the teapot! We retreated to deliberate and ... accepted. Smiles all round. The Touareg made flattering remarks about the loveliness of the girls, the warmth of our family, our extraordinary business acumen and exquisite good taste. We counted out and handed over a great wad of cash. It had to be too much. We were given a parting gift of a beautiful cotton scarf each, which suggested strongly that he'd made his margin and some. Still, we were very pleased with our acquisitions, which, however overpriced, we could well afford. This is the hard fact that lies at the heart of all these tourist transactions - we get decent stuff at a reasonable price, they make a killing. Win-win? Still, I wonder about the suppliers.

The assistant busied himself rolling up and packing the carpet. The Touareg leaned over to me in a conspiratorial, word-to-the-wise manner. It is customary to tip the boy. I fumbled in my wallet for what might be an appropriate denomination. His eagle-eye spotted a red ten-euro note. Ten euros would be a good amount! The implication being that anything less would be unworthy of my newly acquired status as a wild spendthrift. Er, I dunno, isn't that a bit much? I handed over a grubby Dirham note. The Touareg gave me an eloquent look expressing simultaneously his full and entire comprehension for my financial prudence yet sad disappointment at the inelegance of my gesture. "Fuck off and tip him yourself, you slime-ball", I said to him in no uncertain terms. Well, no, I didn't exactly say it, but I thought it real hard.

We blundered out of the shop into the heat of the day. There was Abdul. We'd almost forgotten about him. He was looking pretty shifty. With hindsight, he must have been torn between fear of the police and the avaricious craving for baksheesh. Baksheesh had won, but only just. We gave him what we later realised was a ludicrously lavish tip, explaining it was "for his school". I just caught his "yeah, sure" look, before he disappeared hurriedly into the crowds, leaving us to navigate our own way back to the riad.

And so our week in Marrakesh passed. Gradually we began to adapt. The route from our riad in Bab Taghzout to the Place Jemaa el-Fna in the heart of the town took us on a twenty minute walk through all the souks. We passed there most days. We began to be recognised. We were pestered a bit less. We started to learn how to bargain, who to tip and how much, which beggars were deserving, which shoe-shines worth hiring. We learned how to get a laugh. Pestered by some child to be allowed to be our guide, Carol, with unconscious colonial hauteur, let out a Bertie Woosterish "la shoukran!" - no thank you. The child fell away in peals of laughter. A beggar-woman, her face set in a look of theatrical despair, appealed to my spirit of charity by showing me her Ventolin inhaler. I fetched my own out of my pocket and showed it to her. She laughed out loud. We began to enjoy the tumultuous horde - as the Moroccans so obviously do themselves. The Arabs were an urban society long before western Europe. For them the constant to-ing and fro-ing, ducking and weaving, wheeling and dealing is the very essence of being. To participate in this constant movement, this unceasing flow is to be part of life itself. And all of life is there. The rich and the poor, the old and the young, the bulbous and the svelte, the straight and the crooked, the halt and the lame, blind beggars and raving madmen, the pious, the corrupt, the modest, the vulgar, girls wearing the full veil, flirting outrageously with kohl-blacked eyes, girls in tight jeans and high-heel pumps shopping sweetly with their grannies. Outside the narrow lanes of the souk, the traffic is a creative chaos, as each vehicule describes its own sinuous line through the madness, creating a terrifying arabesque in permanent motion. Ancient gentlemen on rickety bicyles, veiled beauties three-up on scooters, dilapidated taxis in the hands of near-miss specialists, bearded Koranic scholars on mobylettes barrelling through the jams in their Evel Knievel helmets like human cannonballs. This joy of movement is made possible by the total absence of self-righteous indignation, the predominant emotion of our European driving culture. Everyone going about their business but with an instinctive consideration for the other. Not altruism exactly, but an innate sense of community.

Is this the result of Islam, the Ummah, the community of the faithful? Certainly the influence of Islam is omnipresent. It is as natural to the people as the air that they breathe. And it lends them a certain natural dignity, a spontaneous humanity. Mohammed asks no less of his followers than that they abandon themselves utterly to the will of God. To put away love of self and be filled with the grace of God is a gift rarely bestowed. But a society constructed about that aspiration will always offer its people more real sustenance than a society such as our own, which, frankly, is constructed about the aspiration of egotistical self-gratification. I was reminded of R.H. Tawney's "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism". He expresses a certain regret at the loss of the medieval notion of a universal christendom and the sense of a christian community. That people fall short of these lofty ideals does not subtract from them as aspirations. An aspiration, even an unattainable one, gives a purpose and a direction and a sense of community in pursuing it.

The heart of the city to which one constantly gravitates is the Jemaa el-Fna. It used to be a place of execution, hence the name - "Assembly of the Dead". There can hardly be a place on this earth containing so much life. It is effectively an open air theatre, permitting a whole other dimension of people-watching. The effect is overwhelming; orange-juice sellers with their elegantly crafted stands piled high with produce, water-sellers with their absurdly colourful outfits and pointy straw hats, all manner of bicycles, scooters and donkey-carts weaving their way through the crowds and the open-air kebab stalls. Snake charmers, tattooists, acrobats, story-tellers, fire-eaters, each surrounded by a circle of the curious and the fascinated. As dusk falls, the gnaoua bands start up, their persistent, pulsating African rhythms putting both participants and spectators into a state of trance. Eating one evening on the balcony of Chez Chegrouni we were lucky enough to get a ringside seat to watch the comings and goings on the square below. We were especially riveted by the real-life drama of a group of female macaroon sellers and their small children. Unmarried mothers? Women abandoned by their husbands? Later we saw a group of women basket-sellers, faces horribly burnt behind their veils, desperate to make a sale. Who had done this to them? Husbands, rivals, mothers-in-law? I was approached by a frail and hungry looking old man requesting alms by calling out the name of God: "Allah, Allah!" I pressed a one dirham coin into his hand. In gratitude for this princely gift of 10 cents, he pressed my hand to his mouth and kissed it. I was mortified.

One of the disappointing aspects of visiting Morocco is the fact that the mosques are largely off-limits to non-moslems. This was an arrangement originally made by the French protecting power in order to avoid giving offence to the local populace, and it's been kept on. While this very properly avoids appalling scenes of the merely curious gawping inanely at the faithful, it debars lovers of Islamic art from enjoying that art's highest expression. However, we religiously visited those second-string sites which offer at least a hint of what we were missing. The Médersa Ali ben Youssef, the Bahia palace, the Dar Si Saïd museum, the Saadien tombs. At a time when Islam is suffering from a catastrophic public relations problem, its art stands as irrefutable testimony to the religious truth which lies at its heart. The poise, the harmony, the humanity, the humility, the intelligence, the unequalled craftsmanship are a concrete manifestation of an aspiration to that state of grace which only submission to the source of all life can bring. For all its abstract complexity, for all its infinite variation, for all its wanton luxuriance, Islamic art seeks always to call us to the One, to the essential unity of all things.

We went on a couple of excursions out of Marrakesh, to the Ourika Valley in the Atlas mountains and Essaouira on the Atlantic coast. This allowed us to get some sense of the situation of the city within the surrounding countryside, allowing us to appreciate the obvious fact that Marrakesh is not just a film-set package holiday destination, but a living, working economic entity. The ordinary suburbs are reminiscent of equivalent developments in Italian cities. On the road to the coast we passed through an area of incipient desertification. Ahmed, our driver, explained how drought was accelerating the process of rural exodus. The few people who remained lived by "baraka", God's blessing, and small remittances sent back by relations working in Europe. Ahmed was good company. Once we'd overcome a couple of money misunderstandings, he was agreeable, discreet, thoughtful and informative. At one stage we were stopped by traffic policemen. Ahmed pulled over and greeted them particularly correctly, I thought. They asked him to step out and show his papers etc. We stayed in the car as the boot was opened and they poked about inside. More time passed and we were beginning to wonder what was going on. Finally Ahmed got back into the car and we drove off. I could sense he was hopping. What had been the problem? A routine check. And? My professional eye-test was a month out of date. So what happens? 600 dirham fine! But that's scandalous! Yes, but thankfully, he said with heavy irony, in Morocco we have the famous baksheesh! Apparently the whole set-up was a scam. By looking hard enough, the police were almost bound to find something, then offered the victim the opportunity to pay a reduced fine "en noir". "Cela n'est pas le métier d'un homme", I commented. "Non, cela c'est le metier d'un serpent!", Ahmed replied with genuine venom. Our conversation strayed on to broader issues of Moroccan society.
What about the judicial system? Is it also subject to corruption? Ahmed formed a perfect circle with his elegant thumb and forefinger as though digustedly holding the corner of a distasteful banknote. "Tout s'achète au Maroc." We fell silent. By unspoken consent there was nothing more to be said. I reflected on the extraordinary impediment to development which corruption represents and how impossible it must be to root out in a country where "baksheesh" is all-pervasive.

A final word on tourists. I was particularly disappointed at the French. I have always been something of a francophile, taking the view that, if you discount the stuck-up Enarque types, the French are generally human, "sympathique", with a sophistication, good taste and savoir-vivre, which others might well seek to imitate. Not true. At least not in the case of most of the French low-life we came across. Loud, vulgar, unsightly, exuding a sort of post-colonial arrogance they made me feel embarrassed to be European. I spoke of this to Belgian friends back in Brussels. Didn't you know? It's common knowledge. There are French who try to pass themselves off as Belgian in order to avoid being tainted by association! Pas belge mais pas fier de ne pas l'être!