Head to the souks for shopping as competitive sport

"I'll be honest, we need your money."

That was the most refreshingly honest of all the lines I heard enticing me into shops in the souks of Tunis. I had a marvellous time, though it didn't take long for me to decide that the difference in shopping styles is perhaps the biggest gulf between Arabic and Western culture.

The souks are little more than winding alley ways, perhaps 8 feet wide. They are all covered, most with high barrel vaults with small, occasional holes to let in the light. You realise the wisdom of this the moment you step into full sun. There was a 10 to 15 degree difference between inside and out. Stores are mostly small, some no bigger than an American walk-in closet, the biggest perhaps the size of a two-car garage. And outside each shop is the keeper, always male and doing his utmost to get your attention and lure you in for a browse.

I will admit to being a sucker for a flirting man in any culture. So, unlike Lisa and Hillary who'd perfected their "ignore everything and stride straight ahead" stares, I was ready to exchange words with anyone who told me I had pretty eyes. This did not lure me into any unwise purchases, but I did talk to more people and admittedly slowed us down a bit. The banter rarely bothered me and I never felt threatened. The only times the attention got mildly uncomfortable was mostly when the younger shopkeepers were directing their attention directly at Lisa. There are few circumstances in which being thin, blonde and beautiful can be considered a disadvantage, but I think wandering the souks of Tunis is probably one of them.

So what is there to buy in this warren? Tunics, robes and belly dancer costumes of every design. Pottery. Tiles. Hammered brass and silver. Gold jewelry (like gold sellers around the world, these guys had the prettiest shop interiors, some with really ornate carved ceilings.) Lanterns. The tacky triumverate of chicha pipes, tee shirts and stuffed camels. Perfume. Spices.

It was the last two that were my objective today. One of the souks is actually called the souk of the perfume makers, and though there's more than that there today, there are still many shops selling scents. I picked a tiny, beautiful cubbyhole that ONLY sold perfumes. No stuffed camels here. I negotiated a third off the price. Which, frankly, says little for my bargaining skills. But 1/3 off was already so far below London prices that I didn't bother. My percentage of discount on the saffron was much better, starting with 12 dinars a pack and buying at 3 packs for 10. In comparison ... 10 dinars is about £3.50. A tiny box with approximately a teaspoon of saffron in it is almost £3 at Waitrose. Each of these packets had about 10 times the Waitrose portion. In both cases, I wished I'd bought much more after I left. But the souks meander and there was no going back.

At the heart of the souks is the Great Mosque. As both infidels and women, there was no chance of us seeing the interior of the prayer hall. But you can pay 2 dinars (about 40 pence) to get into one of the arcades to see the courtyard. If shopping emphasised our differences, the mosque made me contemplate our similarities. Swap the marble courtyard for grass and the architectural decoration for gothic, and it could have been a cloister in any monastery in Europe. Columned arcades formed a square around the central court. The minaret stood high over one side, serving exactly the same calling to worship purpose as a medieval bell tower. On the other side, doors opened into the prayer hall, clearly magnificent from the elusive glimpses we got through the doors.

The crowds were intense on the main route between the old town gate and the Great Mosque, but fell away to almost nothing the moment we tried another route. We were the only Westerners in sight when we were invited upstairs to the tiled roof of a shop that overlooked the sprawl of the whole souk area. The same applied when we took a break in a tiny coffee shop walled in vivid tiles and topped by a towering arabesque dome.

In addition to the regular tourist souks, we purposely took a wander through local areas. Used clothes markets, shoe makers, junk recyclers: the cheerful heckle of shopkeepers immediately fell away in these areas, where it was obvious we did not fit and were not potential patrons. Eventually we found ourselves wandering through entirely residential streets. Not the wealthy suburbs of Carthage but a decrepit, narrow, garbage-strewn district of breath-taking antiquity. The architecture crushed in layers like geological strata. It was obvious people had just been building on, up or around for centuries. We kept going through covered passageways supported by columns that were only 4 feet tall, topped by corinthian capitals almost worn away, implying that the street level was at least 4 feet further down when the passageway was originally built. We felt perfectly safe in these backstreets. In fact, everyone just ignored us. But it was a pleasant validation of our map reading skills to emerge from those native passageways into the tourist hum of the Place de la Victoire.

The final shop on our excursion was Mains de Femmes, not in the souk but on Avenue Bourgiba, the so-called Champs Elysses of Tunis. No tourist could ever stumble upon this shop without being directed here specifically. As we were by the Lonely Planet guidebook. It barely has a sign and is on the second floor of a non descript office building. The appeal? This is the outlet for a fair trade cooperative for women artisans. And it's fixed price. It's lovely, after the relentless masculine hard sell of the souks, to be able to let your guard down, have a nice chat with the women running things while knowing that the money we spend goes directly to the women who make the stuff. This seemed particularly relevant in light of the one thing we haven't liked about Tunisia: the women seem to be absent (at home?), running errands or working, while scores of men pack the coffee houses doing absoutely nothing for hours at a time. The only shame about Mains des Femmes is that their selection is so limited: most women's desire to spend money here will probably outstrip the small selection of cothing, rugs and knitted toys on offer here.

Back to the hotel in a taxi. Now that we've figured the system out, we realise that the three of us can get to Sidi Bou for less than £5. So while we're glad we had the early experience of taking the second class train with the locals (3 for less than a pound) we've settled in to treating ourselves.

And on the subject of taxi drivers, I should relate a salutory tale. Even though I feel it's almost a rite of passage to be ripped off by a taxi driver in every country you visit, it's still good to be warned. Tunisian dinars are made up of millimes. Not 100 of them, as is standard in most Western currencies, but 1000 of them. Which means there are three numbers behind the decimal point. You may not notice this the first time you get in a taxi. And when the meter reads 02875 your brain will immediately put the decimal point between the 8 and the 7. You'll round up to 30 dinars, do a quick calculation and realise you've gone all the way across town for £12, which seems reasonable in comparison to London. It's only after you take a few more rides that you realise the fare was less than 3 dinars and the driver let you overpay him by a factor of 10 without giving you a hint of your mistake. C'est la vie. I hope he's saving to send his kids to college.

Back at the Dar Said, we had a late lunch at the pool while waiting for our transfer to our next hotel. At 4 we set off, driving for an hour down the coast. A bit like yesterday, we drove through miles of exansive, gentle hills covered with olive groves, mountains in the distance. But today the sea was always to our left, and long miles of landscape were flat, marshy areas.

We were prepared to enter a different world at Port el Kantaoui, and we were right. It's a bit like Florida with Arab architecture. After settling into our room we walked over to the port and had dinner at the recommended Le Mediterranee. Good food, good views, not exceptional.

I'll refrain from describing the hotel today, as I suspect we won't be moving far beyond it tomorrow.