Dear Reddit. Could you all post your own personal guides to wonderful places you've been in the world?

I'd like some really personal accounts that will influence my next trip. To get the ball rolling I thought I'd talk a bit about Morocco seeing as it WAS a very different place, enough to inspire some brief waxing on idiosyncrasies. So here we go and if it helps anyone going over so much the better, I'm just going to write things down that I wished someone had told ME before going, yes I did all my learning on the hoof.

1. Do not be scared of people: I was in a turkish restaurant once. And the guy who served me looked like he wanted to kill me. Wtf? I got a bit huffy and asked his colleague if there was a problem. His colleague said "no no, he happy... his face - it's angry face". It's true - he had an incredibly angry face but he was actually a very nice person.

Moroccans can all look a bit dodgy at first, and some CAN look like they want to mug you you ickle piggle. There is no western sense of keeping up appearances for politeness' sake. This combined with the warren that is Marrakech can leave you on your guard - which is a good thing (after all we have instincts for a reason) - but after instinct this guardedness shouldn't hold you back too much. People might totally get you to pay over the odds for spices (which we did), they might escort you reverently to their friend's shop instead of the Museum and then demand more tips (which happened), but it is very rare to really be in any sort of danger in Marrakech. This is largely because the police force is massive, incognito and concentrates on keeping Marrakech edgy but tourist friendly. The dark passageways can be daunting especially when walking past large groups of staring locals (the number one pastime in Morocco is 'hanging out' and 'staring at things'), but you get over it quickly especially if you talk crap french at people. People can be surprisingly friendly but not everyone looks or sounds friendly. If they did I'd be suspicious.

Buying: This is probably obvious to most of you but I haven't done much bargaining in my life so far. Take your time to buy things. The act of looking at something automatically engages you in the wonderful dance of negotiation i.e. you will not be left alone to do window shopping, but you can always say thank you and walk away if you are not interested. Bargaining is a must otherwise you'll be paying more than double. This seems weird but after a few goes it almost becomes second nature. The good sellers are the ones who manage to keep you interested and amused, but again, you can always walk away. Sometimes beginning to walk away helps as a seller will shout out a lower offer. I managed to get someone down from £78 to £28 by being genuinely disinterested, so I'd fool myself into actually BEING disinterested but not going anywhere to get the best price.

Sound and Music: It's really really nice to be woken up by the Muslim call to prayer in Morocco. It would start with one person and then other criers in other mosques would join in - a bit like the Mystics in 'The Dark Crystal' but better - really atonal, sonorous and beautiful stuff. Refreshing to wake up to. We kept hearing about this music called Gnawa which didn't seem interesting until a drummer explained it to me; it's based around the heartbeat and the music is neither major or minor - more a constant galloping that is VERY hypnotic. Especially with a bit of Moroccan hash which it seems is absolutely vital to having a Gnawa jam. Gnawa is traditionally trance inducing and takes years to master. I had a go joining in with an acoustic guitar and had NO idea where I was, but enjoyed it alot and it changed my opinion of HOW to jam too.

Directions: You are going to get lost at least once. Don't ask for directions, just get lost. Have a map to get oriented ONLY and if you need to pay a grinning local 10 -15 dirhams (1.5 euros) to take you somewhere specific nearby then bear in mind you might wind up at his cousin's shop on the way - don't get angry - it's all part of the fun! If you are the typical man who cannot BEAR to ask anyone for directions and relies on his map and "senses" you are going to break up with your long suffering girlfriend and end up dying in the gutter alone. The streets are full of amazing twists and turns, sights and smells, and maps only go so far. There are always cabs around to get you back on track if you are truly stuck about 3 euros anywhere within the city walls.

Food: We'd pass shops that consisted of single doorways with unidentifiable bits of meat on display. Mmmm! The best place we found to eat in Marrakech is stall number 4 in Jemaa El Fna (Marrakech's main square), we also ate in little street grills in the non-tourist market near the palace. As you enter the market your inexperienced whitebread money smell will attract hordes of touts screaming at you to eat at their stall in different languages depending on what you look like. And there are STRANGE stalls selling snails which aren't really very nice, and lamb gut sandwiches which we didn't have the stomach to try :-). Stall 4 (opposite the most popular, better looking but shite stall 1) is on one of the food market corners. It was the only stall that WASN'T touting feverishly and was run by old men with kind eyes. Order the aubergine, sardines (morocco fishes the most sardines in the world), conge (a cod like meaty fish in batter), lamb kebabs, fries, calamari, spinach thingy and the fish tagine is also pretty good if a bit strange (sometimes fish guts). Don't have the bread as you won't have room to eat as much as humanly possible. It's awesome and sooooo cheap.

Poncey Overpriced Shite Places: We had some very good advice from our Riad guide corroborated by the locals we met in our guesthouse by the Sahara. The rough guide or whatever might recommend a few restaurants called things like "Hotel Villa des Orangers". Never go to ANYWHERE that is recommended by the rough guide in Marrakech. We found them also on local tourist maps and both promise the decadent sanitised high end of Moroccan food. Don't go unless you want to spend £50+ on an safe, sanitized "authentic meal". And people do it, because the rough guide or whatever tells you so and you want to have one meal that is "the meal" of Morocco. Before being told this by our desert guide we almost were going to spend about £60 in a really beautiful place. We soon left because these places really didn't feel like Morocco, they felt like ugly traps.

Finally... Mud, the desert and living in the Present: I couldn't really understand why anyone would build anything out of mud. And around me everywhere were buildings falling apart because after heavy rain dry mud tends to turn back into wet mud. And no-one likes windows at all, so most places would just be hot and dark. I instantly dismissed everyone in Morocco as silly, until near the sahara we saw a Kasbah (Bounou) that had been moved two miles to the right because they needed to be nearer a river that had changed course and then moved back again for similar reasons. Water is everything. Like, absolutely everything. And it might be gone tomorrow, this is true beyond a doubt near the Sahara. So when it is there you build simple and you build fast, then look for the next bit of water. You grow your crops where you can, when you can.

For me this state of being seemed to filter down into everyday life. We stayed in a wonderful guest house with the Sahara on our back doorstep - like really - 5 minutes walk and then... dunes! Lunch was always ready an hour after they said it was ready, the water worked intermittently, there were no locks on some of the room doors and sand got EVERYWHERE. Contrary to stressing me out - after about a day I started to relax like never before, and for that I can only be thankful. This is while every so often catching a glimpse of some jeep convoy with a load of idiot tourists having their safe, sanitised and very expensive desert non-experience. The place we stayed in is called Dar Sidi Bounou btw - I'd recommend it. Sorted.

Thanks for reading if you got this far and I hope this helps if any of you go to Morocco.

Unclesammy x

PS: Mud IS good to build with. Well ideally - mud, straw and limestone and then you let the straw decompose inside the mud walls before drying so it binds stuff together and doesn't fall down (the limestone is to prevent termites eating your home). You just need big, think walls to employ thermal mass. Thermal mass is when a wall absorbs heat by day and then cools slowly by night - giving Moroccans the best of both worlds. Then there's the way the hot and cold air move around the building which I won't even pretend to understand.