8 ms·

Notes on Tunisia

107 points by returningfory2 1y ago

acquisitionsilk 1y ago
[flagged]
- tupac_speedrap 1y ago
  Could you please not turn travel into a pissing competition? People enjoy different things in different ways, also you are making a huge number of assumptions with little information and ranting quite a bit which makes it hard to take you seriously since you take yourself too seriously.
  - sampullman 1y ago
    Maybe GP takes themselves too seriously, but I read article and the assessment seems valid. The article's thoughts on train etiquette came across to me as particularly condescending. The author decided to write an article about their experience and limited research, which opens them up to criticism.
  - acquisitionsilk 1y ago
    This response is quite the surprise - I am explicitly saying that I think this article reduces travel to "a pissing competition", as you put it, and that it is shocking to me to see it done so shamelessly. The author will be describing interesting things about the place in a neutral or respectful tone for a line or five, and then suddenly switch to a sort of review-and-compare-mode, as if it were not a real place with 12 million people in it, but a product that just arrived in the post with this feature and that. Or like a pokemon card, as I said, but for grown-ups. I have a Tunisia, it does xyz. It's good at this and bad at that. I mean that metaphor seriously, I think it really applies. I mention the idea of putting in the extra effort to interact with locals - through volunteering, or whatever - not to make some comment about myself, or make some appeal to purity, but rather because it's a very good way to avoid turning travelling into stamp-collecting. It's a way of forcing yourself to see the subtlety and variety in a place. The one assumption I felt myself to be making was that he reads Wikipedia, but that's hardly a heinous crime or anything. It was of no relevance to my point anyway. Otherwise, regarding ranting - that's just, like, your opinion, man
- ashoeafoot 1y ago
  well, its more then "smoked weed at the hostel for 3 days, all people there share my views and speak perfect english"
- badc0ffee 1y ago
  I had the opposite reaction - it's like a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of contemporary travel writing. It's honest. Sometimes you're not visiting a place to engage deeply with humans, but to take in the natural landscape and the historic sites, or simply to exist for a short time somewhere that's not like home. Sometimes while travelling (especially while travelling!) you have limited time and need to have a quick bite and keep moving, because long meals and deep conversations are not your priority. Sometimes it's ok to say "here's my brief impression of this place, and here are its highlights and its faults from my perspective" because at least that's expressing an opinion. I don't need another Instagrammer making the most vague statements about a foreign place, telling me how beautiful/resilient/spirited the people are despite their circumstances, and saying noting more concrete, because anything more specific will be met with offense that the traveller could never possibly understand the context of this people or that country, and is just a spoiled westerner.
bdbenton5255 1y ago
[flagged]
oa335 1y ago
I wish he write more about his day-to-day experiences and less about the history of Tunisia. I find his analyses of countries politics and history to be shallow.
- skybrian 1y ago
  It shows the limitations of what you can learn as a tourist. He would have to team up local residents more to go more in depth. The language barrier doesn't help either. Still, it's good to know about what your first impressions might be like without actually going there.
- fuzztester 1y ago
  Yes, same here. And I wish he had written more about Tunisian food, the non-fast food kind that he mentions. The history section was long and boring. Some of the other stuff was a bit interesting, though.
- arp242 1y ago
  It's really hard to do that from three weeks of travel. I like Matt's posts, but I always take them with a grain of salt. To really get an in-depth viewpoint you need to live somewhere for a year at least, and probably speak at least some of the local language. I've lived in a few countries over the years, and it's just such a different experience from just travelling for a few weeks.
melling 1y ago
Tunisia is on my short list. In addition to a lot of Roman ruins, it has been used in movie locations. eg Tatooine in Star Wars. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/star-wars-tunisia-film-locations-180960144/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/star-wars-tunisia-f... https://depart-travel-services.com/en/discover-the-iconic-star-wars-filming-locations-in-tunisia/ https://depart-travel-services.com/en/discover-the-iconic-st...
- ks2048 1y ago
  In addition to Roman ruins, one of the best museums I've been to - the Bardo, with lots of roman mosaics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_National_Museum_(Tunis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_National_Museum_(Tunis)
- devoutsalsa 1y ago
  I've been to Tunisia several times since 2021. If you like Roman ruins, here's my favorite sites that I've personally visited: - Amphitheatre of El Jem - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphitheatre_of_El_Jem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphitheatre_of_El_Jem - Dougga - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougga - Bulla Regia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulla_Regia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulla_Regia While itself not an amazing Roman building, I also enjoyed going to Ksar Ghilane - https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ru5sEqEtJDEWNg3R7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ru5sEqEtJDEWNg3R7. There's a small touristic oasis where you ran rent a quad bike, zip over some dunes in the Sahara, and then stop at the small Roman fort. It's fun to imagine being a Roman stationed at one of the southern most outposts of the empire. It's also fun to rent a 4x4 w/ driver and drive through the desert from Douz to Ksar Ghilane.
- tgaj 1y ago
  Turkey is a good place to visit too, if you like ancient ruins: https://lionsinthepiazza.com/ancient-ruins-turkey-southern-coast/ https://lionsinthepiazza.com/ancient-ruins-turkey-southern-c...
billfruit 1y ago
Is there any analysis why there was major violent conflict in colonial Algeria with the French, but there was not as much in Tunisia.
- csomar 1y ago
  The US asked France to get out of Tunisia. Then they created the country.
  - pier25 1y ago
    I grew up in Tunisia during the Ben Ali dictatorship in the 90s and the conpiracy theory floating around is he was a CIA trained asset.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    Was this before or after the Vietnam War? I’m not that familiar with this part of history.
    - csomar 1y ago
      Way before. Also it is worth mentioning that the North African campaign liberated North Africa and Tunisia from the Germans. The idea that Tunisia got its independence from France is shallow. It was more like Turkish -> French -> German -> American -> New Republic.
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  Probably just because Algeria was a way bigger deal to France than Tunisia was. It was considered an integral part of France (whereas Tunisia never was) and around a million ethnically French people lived there. Which would the US have fought harder to keep: Hawaii, or the Marshall Islands?
- jcranmer 1y ago
  The article mentions this briefly, but Tunisia just wasn't as important to the French as Algeria was. To France, Algeria (at least the populated northern coast of it) wasn't a colony, it was Metropolitan France--it received full representation in the French legislature, for example. (Note that this was in practice limited to the French settlers in Algeria, as the natives were largely excluded from civic participation--not unlike the apartheid system in South Africa). Given that native populations weren't particularly well-treated, especially after their lot failed to improve despite being the major backbone of the Free French Army in WW2, it's not much of a surprise that they resented French rule and chose to become independent. And quite like the settler colonies of other countries in Africa, the settler minority who held power in Algeria weren't particularly inclined to give it up to the majority they largely felt beneath them. And since it was a severe insult to national pride to let a core part of France become independent, the French government resisted to the point that it literally broke the government (the Fourth Republic fell because of it, leading to the Fifth Republic).
juniperus 1y ago
Great, but I don't see why it was necessary to present the situation surrounding Jeffrey Epstein or whatever as being a loony radical conspiracy theory. Clearly blackmail is a big component of western political life, he says he's from a western country, but I don't know if this is really a partisan issue. Making that sound like some Q cult alien belief is silly.
csomar 1y ago
I won't get into the politics, the author is way off base... > Tunisian cities are mostly ugly as hell. Bare a few touristic spots, yes. It is unfortunate as Tunisia could have looked more like Santorini and less like the nuclear apocalypse that it is today. I guess on the upside you have little to no homelessness? > The only problem with Tunisian niceness is that it blends into Tunisian mercantile craftiness. This is mostly a problem in touristic craft stores which I never visit. I guess tourists are attracted to the Medina; but most Tunisians "Medinas" have completely collapsed economically. > Informality Has Its Advantages Given how broken the system is, that's how anything can run in Tunisia. > Tunisian butcher shops tend to hang not just hunks of meat but animal heads in front of their stores This is kind of an ad that we just had the animal slaughtered now. Fresh meat. > Sorry Tunisia, but your mosque game is weak. He should have focused on Churches, Cathedrals and Synagogues. > There aren’t many bars in Tunisia, even in the major cities. There are lot of bars in Tunisia but the second major city is a conservative one. It is the last place where you want to have a beer. > Alcohol is still fairly taboo in most Arab countries, even in relatively liberal Tunisia, so they probably adopted cafe cultural norms. No, the cafe cultural norms came from the French. You can see a similarity with Vietnam in this regard. > but he was most excited to tell me that the U.S. Ambassador had just visited the House of the Governor two weeks ago along with his “black wife” who “wasn’t white like you and me.” Ok, then. You are reading too much into this. Tunisians are pretty chatty and gossip to unhealthy levels. > ... where there’s a lot of lingering resentment against their former overlord France was a popular (and the) destination until 10 years ago or so. France now sucks economically. It has nothing to do with it being a former overlord.
dzhiurgis 1y ago
> Note that “ugly” can still be interesting, as is the case with many Eastern European cities with their brutalist Soviet apartment blocks... As someone who grew up there... he's being generous here. I hated those buildings, extremely depressing. > he said he was from my hotel I've almost fell for this while in New Dehli. Friendly walk and talk until he lured into some travel agents shop proceed to sell me some trips.
- _1tem 1y ago
  > As someone who grew up there... he's being generous here. I hated those buildings, extremely depressing. As someone who did NOT grow up there, I understand why he finds them interesting. They can, indeed, be very interesting to the foreigner, especially when people invite you inside.
fuzzythinker 1y ago
Nice (very) long notes. The HUGE lake that's shown on GMaps does not exists??? https://maps.app.goo.gl/i8mFwGtpCNES6n2o6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/i8mFwGtpCNES6n2o6
- croisillon 1y ago
  dries up in the summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chott_el_Djerid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chott_el_Djerid
liendolucas 1y ago
One of the things that the article does not mention is how extremely dirty Tunisia is. I've been there two or three weeks not long ago. It was really sad to see how trash is all over the country no matter where you go. Dumpsters are extremely disgusting, full of trash left rotting for days in main streets. People throw away anything anywhere. I've been to Djerba island and litter is even on beaches. I've seen litter floating in the water which deterred me from taking a swim. On one occasion I even spotted a half broken umbrella pole rusted and buried in the sand, just waiting for someone to be seriously injured which I obviously removed. Broken glass in beaches is also common, so be careful and always wear flip-flops. This is a huge cultural and not so easy to solve problem as I've seen people dumping trash in front of me as if something completely natural. It is sad because if that problem is solved, it is actually a beautiful country. Other countries suffering exactly the same problem that I've visited are Vietnam and Maldives.
- curiousgal 1y ago
  > how extremely dirty Tunisia is These generalized statements make my blood boil. Djerba in particular has had issues with garbage [0]. This is akin to me saying the US is an extremely needle ridden country based on a long trip to San Francisco. That said, a lot of Tunisian cities do have issues with garbage management and littering but calling the country "extremely dirty" makes it seem like people are taking dumps in the streets which is not the case. 0.https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31174 https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31174
  - liendolucas 1y ago
    > These generalized statements Generalized statements? I've been walking an average of 8Km a day while on holidays in Tunisia, so I've been to plenty of places and cities and the pattern repeated over and over again. I'm not the typical tourist that is moved from place to place like a puppet through tours. What do you expect from me? To walk all over the country to prove my point? Djerba was just an example. Give me break.
    - ashoeafoot 1y ago
cess11 1y ago
One reason for grabbing onto tourists and pushing things into their hands is that a lot of the ones during high season got drunk already on the flight and then spend the rest of their visit at some point between hungover and intoxicated. They're both profitable and require intervention to bring their attention to whatever trinkets or they'll just amble along without spending any money. It was many years ago so it might have changed but my experience in Tunisia (as well as Egypt and other places around the Mediterranean) was that if you look and move like you belong in the area most merchants won't bother trying to push you around. I bought some of my favourite clothes in Tunisia and Egypt by asking tourist merchants about theirs and insisting that I want something like that and not the stuff in the souvenir market, many were willing to ask someone at a neighbouring stall to keep an eye on theirs and lead me to a 'real' shop in an area where locals trade with each other. That's where the good cafés are, and that's the place to meet honest people who might be willing to act like taxi and guide for a day or two, or even invite you to meet their family and share food with them.
decimalenough 1y ago
I'm seeing a lot of comments here about how the history/politics part is "wrong". Would more enlightened readers care to give a summary of what, exactly, he got wrong? My two cents: I haven't kept up on post-Arab-Spring politics, but the descriptions of Bourguiba (crafty politician, hopeless economics, then senile) and Ben Ali (thuggish, corrupt) seem pretty accurate to me.
riffraff 1y ago
> In contrast, when is the last time one of the greatest cathedrals were built? Probably not for hundreds of years. Our Lady of Good Health[1] in India is 1962. I think what the author means is "one of the famous ones in Europe", but the Sagrada Familia is still being built[0], tho arguably construction started two centuries ago :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Good_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Good_H...
- deleted 1y ago
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- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  I don't know what threshold to aim for here -- by the way, neither of those two minor basilicas are cathedrals -- but let's navigate a few Wikipedia categories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:20th-century_Roman_Catholic_church_buildings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:20th-century_Roman_Ca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_National_Shrine_of_the_Immaculate_Conception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_National_Shrin... (consecrated 1920; dedicated 1959; minor basilica 1990) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Our_Lady_of_the_Angels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Our_Lady_of_the_A... (1998-2002) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Cathedral_of_the_Russian_Armed_Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Cathedral_of_the_Russian_... (2018-2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Resurrection_Cathedral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Resurrection_Cathedral (Japanese Orthodox; consecrated 1929) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Cathedral,_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Cathedral,_Tokyo (1964) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Theresa%27s_Cathedral,_Changchun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Theresa%27s_Cathedral,_Cha... (2008) As for Italy? Get a load of this "crown jewel": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_Church (2003)
  - microtherion 1y ago
    A church is a cathedral if it's a bishop's seat, which GP's churches are not. But it seems silly to characterize the Sagrada Familia as "minor".
deleted 1y ago
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doix 1y ago
I lived in Tunisia for 3 months, mostly in Tunis. I'm surprised there was no mention of the doors there. They are pretty beautiful[0]. The Star Wars section is also pretty limited, if you're a fan, I recommend checking out the GalaxyTours map[1], the tours were outside my budget but the information they provide is extremely accurate and well researched. Chott el-Djerid [2] was my favourite, basically the outside of Luke's home located in the middle of a dry lake (on google maps it looks like water). Funnily enough, my favourite example of Wikipedia not always being right is also an alleged StarWars filming location, wikipedia claims[3] that Ep 1 was filmed at Ksar Ouled Soltane but GalaxyTours shows that it was not [4]. I'm also surprised there were no pictures of plants in the desert covered by plastic bags. It was pretty shocking, driving through the desert, nothing really around, but pretty much every tree/plant had plastic bags attached. I thought maybe they were intentionally put there to serve some purpose, so I stopped and got a closer look. Nope, just trash bags that blew away in the wind and got stuck there. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina_of_Tunis#/media/File:Medina_2012_5.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina_of_Tunis#/media/File:Me... [1] https://galaxytours.com/starwars-locations-tunisia-map/ https://galaxytours.com/starwars-locations-tunisia-map/ [2] https://galaxytours.com/starwars-tunisia-film-sites/chott-el-djerid/ https://galaxytours.com/starwars-tunisia-film-sites/chott-el... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane [4] https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunking-the-myth/ https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunkin...
bugsense 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
optimalsolver 1y ago
Also interesting is his Notes On The Gambia, which for some reason is the premier destination for female sex tourism: https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/ https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
mytailorisrich 1y ago
> But when I asked whether they wanted to move to the most logical foreign destination – France – they all said, “no.” Tunisia is yet another former French colony I’ve visited (including the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Benin, Togo, Mauritania, etc.) where there’s a lot of lingering resentment against their former overlord. All those countries are still close to France, with higher education in French and educated people speaking better French than most French. Arabs countries like Tunisia have adopted policies of Arabisation but French is still widespread. It is perhaps a bit like India: Nationalism in reaction to colonialism but with major cultural links and the old coloniser is a major emigration destination. France is the main emigration destination for Tunisians (55% if you look it up), with almost a million Tunisians in France (Tunisia's population is 12 million). > Throughout this trip, I talked to many Europeans, including Frenchmen, Italians, Maltese, Germans, and a few Brits, and from an American perspective, it was surprising how often the topic of conversation turned to immigration. Or rather, anti-immigration. Well, see numbers above. Anti-immigration sentiment is growing in Europe because of the numbers and negative impact. It should not be a partisan issue, really, but plain realism.
draw_down 1y ago
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computerthings 1y ago
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tuna74 1y ago
Regarding his section on leaving luggage at a museum, when I went to the British museum in London and the National museum in China they both had cloak rooms where you could store your luggage while you were visiting.
mikhailfranco 1y ago
Support for the Palestinian cause is to be expected in an Arab country. But perhaps the reported strength of feeling is correlated with the history of the PLO, who moved there after being expelled from Lebanon by the Israeli invasion in 1982. Israel then attacked the new PLO HQ in Tunisia in 1985. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization#Headquarters_in_Tunis:_1982%E2%80%931991 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organizat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wooden_Leg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wooden_Leg Correlation might mean causation in a couple of directions. Did the PLO move to Tunis because Tunisians already supported them sympathetically, or do they now support the Palestinian cause more strongly because they provided refuge and were attacked by Israel? Probably both.
computerthings 1y ago
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Notes on Tunisia

acquisitionsilk 1y ago

[flagged]

tupac_speedrap 1y ago
Could you please not turn travel into a pissing competition? People enjoy different things in different ways, also you are making a huge number of assumptions with little information and ranting quite a bit which makes it hard to take you seriously since you take yourself too seriously.
- sampullman 1y ago
  Maybe GP takes themselves too seriously, but I read article and the assessment seems valid. The article's thoughts on train etiquette came across to me as particularly condescending. The author decided to write an article about their experience and limited research, which opens them up to criticism.
- acquisitionsilk 1y ago
  This response is quite the surprise - I am explicitly saying that I think this article reduces travel to "a pissing competition", as you put it, and that it is shocking to me to see it done so shamelessly. The author will be describing interesting things about the place in a neutral or respectful tone for a line or five, and then suddenly switch to a sort of review-and-compare-mode, as if it were not a real place with 12 million people in it, but a product that just arrived in the post with this feature and that. Or like a pokemon card, as I said, but for grown-ups. I have a Tunisia, it does xyz. It's good at this and bad at that. I mean that metaphor seriously, I think it really applies. I mention the idea of putting in the extra effort to interact with locals - through volunteering, or whatever - not to make some comment about myself, or make some appeal to purity, but rather because it's a very good way to avoid turning travelling into stamp-collecting. It's a way of forcing yourself to see the subtlety and variety in a place. The one assumption I felt myself to be making was that he reads Wikipedia, but that's hardly a heinous crime or anything. It was of no relevance to my point anyway. Otherwise, regarding ranting - that's just, like, your opinion, man
ashoeafoot 1y ago
well, its more then "smoked weed at the hostel for 3 days, all people there share my views and speak perfect english"
badc0ffee 1y ago
I had the opposite reaction - it's like a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of contemporary travel writing. It's honest. Sometimes you're not visiting a place to engage deeply with humans, but to take in the natural landscape and the historic sites, or simply to exist for a short time somewhere that's not like home. Sometimes while travelling (especially while travelling!) you have limited time and need to have a quick bite and keep moving, because long meals and deep conversations are not your priority. Sometimes it's ok to say "here's my brief impression of this place, and here are its highlights and its faults from my perspective" because at least that's expressing an opinion. I don't need another Instagrammer making the most vague statements about a foreign place, telling me how beautiful/resilient/spirited the people are despite their circumstances, and saying noting more concrete, because anything more specific will be met with offense that the traveller could never possibly understand the context of this people or that country, and is just a spoiled westerner.

bdbenton5255 1y ago

[flagged]

oa335 1y ago

I wish he write more about his day-to-day experiences and less about the history of Tunisia. I find his analyses of countries politics and history to be shallow.

skybrian 1y ago
It shows the limitations of what you can learn as a tourist. He would have to team up local residents more to go more in depth. The language barrier doesn't help either. Still, it's good to know about what your first impressions might be like without actually going there.
fuzztester 1y ago
Yes, same here. And I wish he had written more about Tunisian food, the non-fast food kind that he mentions. The history section was long and boring. Some of the other stuff was a bit interesting, though.
arp242 1y ago
It's really hard to do that from three weeks of travel. I like Matt's posts, but I always take them with a grain of salt. To really get an in-depth viewpoint you need to live somewhere for a year at least, and probably speak at least some of the local language. I've lived in a few countries over the years, and it's just such a different experience from just travelling for a few weeks.

melling 1y ago

Tunisia is on my short list. In addition to a lot of Roman ruins, it has been used in movie locations. eg Tatooine in Star Wars. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/star-wars-tunisia-film-locations-180960144/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/star-wars-tunisia-f... https://depart-travel-services.com/en/discover-the-iconic-star-wars-filming-locations-in-tunisia/ https://depart-travel-services.com/en/discover-the-iconic-st...

ks2048 1y ago
In addition to Roman ruins, one of the best museums I've been to - the Bardo, with lots of roman mosaics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_National_Museum_(Tunis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_National_Museum_(Tunis)
devoutsalsa 1y ago
I've been to Tunisia several times since 2021. If you like Roman ruins, here's my favorite sites that I've personally visited: - Amphitheatre of El Jem - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphitheatre_of_El_Jem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphitheatre_of_El_Jem - Dougga - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougga - Bulla Regia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulla_Regia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulla_Regia While itself not an amazing Roman building, I also enjoyed going to Ksar Ghilane - https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ru5sEqEtJDEWNg3R7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ru5sEqEtJDEWNg3R7. There's a small touristic oasis where you ran rent a quad bike, zip over some dunes in the Sahara, and then stop at the small Roman fort. It's fun to imagine being a Roman stationed at one of the southern most outposts of the empire. It's also fun to rent a 4x4 w/ driver and drive through the desert from Douz to Ksar Ghilane.
tgaj 1y ago
Turkey is a good place to visit too, if you like ancient ruins: https://lionsinthepiazza.com/ancient-ruins-turkey-southern-coast/ https://lionsinthepiazza.com/ancient-ruins-turkey-southern-c...

billfruit 1y ago

Is there any analysis why there was major violent conflict in colonial Algeria with the French, but there was not as much in Tunisia.

csomar 1y ago
The US asked France to get out of Tunisia. Then they created the country.
- pier25 1y ago
  I grew up in Tunisia during the Ben Ali dictatorship in the 90s and the conpiracy theory floating around is he was a CIA trained asset.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  Was this before or after the Vietnam War? I’m not that familiar with this part of history.
  - csomar 1y ago
    Way before. Also it is worth mentioning that the North African campaign liberated North Africa and Tunisia from the Germans. The idea that Tunisia got its independence from France is shallow. It was more like Turkish -> French -> German -> American -> New Republic.
School-Cotton 1y ago
Probably just because Algeria was a way bigger deal to France than Tunisia was. It was considered an integral part of France (whereas Tunisia never was) and around a million ethnically French people lived there. Which would the US have fought harder to keep: Hawaii, or the Marshall Islands?
jcranmer 1y ago
The article mentions this briefly, but Tunisia just wasn't as important to the French as Algeria was. To France, Algeria (at least the populated northern coast of it) wasn't a colony, it was Metropolitan France--it received full representation in the French legislature, for example. (Note that this was in practice limited to the French settlers in Algeria, as the natives were largely excluded from civic participation--not unlike the apartheid system in South Africa). Given that native populations weren't particularly well-treated, especially after their lot failed to improve despite being the major backbone of the Free French Army in WW2, it's not much of a surprise that they resented French rule and chose to become independent. And quite like the settler colonies of other countries in Africa, the settler minority who held power in Algeria weren't particularly inclined to give it up to the majority they largely felt beneath them. And since it was a severe insult to national pride to let a core part of France become independent, the French government resisted to the point that it literally broke the government (the Fourth Republic fell because of it, leading to the Fifth Republic).

juniperus 1y ago

Great, but I don't see why it was necessary to present the situation surrounding Jeffrey Epstein or whatever as being a loony radical conspiracy theory. Clearly blackmail is a big component of western political life, he says he's from a western country, but I don't know if this is really a partisan issue. Making that sound like some Q cult alien belief is silly.

csomar 1y ago

I won't get into the politics, the author is way off base... > Tunisian cities are mostly ugly as hell. Bare a few touristic spots, yes. It is unfortunate as Tunisia could have looked more like Santorini and less like the nuclear apocalypse that it is today. I guess on the upside you have little to no homelessness? > The only problem with Tunisian niceness is that it blends into Tunisian mercantile craftiness. This is mostly a problem in touristic craft stores which I never visit. I guess tourists are attracted to the Medina; but most Tunisians "Medinas" have completely collapsed economically. > Informality Has Its Advantages Given how broken the system is, that's how anything can run in Tunisia. > Tunisian butcher shops tend to hang not just hunks of meat but animal heads in front of their stores This is kind of an ad that we just had the animal slaughtered now. Fresh meat. > Sorry Tunisia, but your mosque game is weak. He should have focused on Churches, Cathedrals and Synagogues. > There aren’t many bars in Tunisia, even in the major cities. There are lot of bars in Tunisia but the second major city is a conservative one. It is the last place where you want to have a beer. > Alcohol is still fairly taboo in most Arab countries, even in relatively liberal Tunisia, so they probably adopted cafe cultural norms. No, the cafe cultural norms came from the French. You can see a similarity with Vietnam in this regard. > but he was most excited to tell me that the U.S. Ambassador had just visited the House of the Governor two weeks ago along with his “black wife” who “wasn’t white like you and me.” Ok, then. You are reading too much into this. Tunisians are pretty chatty and gossip to unhealthy levels. > ... where there’s a lot of lingering resentment against their former overlord France was a popular (and the) destination until 10 years ago or so. France now sucks economically. It has nothing to do with it being a former overlord.

dzhiurgis 1y ago

> Note that “ugly” can still be interesting, as is the case with many Eastern European cities with their brutalist Soviet apartment blocks... As someone who grew up there... he's being generous here. I hated those buildings, extremely depressing. > he said he was from my hotel I've almost fell for this while in New Dehli. Friendly walk and talk until he lured into some travel agents shop proceed to sell me some trips.

_1tem 1y ago
> As someone who grew up there... he's being generous here. I hated those buildings, extremely depressing. As someone who did NOT grow up there, I understand why he finds them interesting. They can, indeed, be very interesting to the foreigner, especially when people invite you inside.

fuzzythinker 1y ago

Nice (very) long notes. The HUGE lake that's shown on GMaps does not exists??? https://maps.app.goo.gl/i8mFwGtpCNES6n2o6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/i8mFwGtpCNES6n2o6

croisillon 1y ago
dries up in the summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chott_el_Djerid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chott_el_Djerid

liendolucas 1y ago

One of the things that the article does not mention is how extremely dirty Tunisia is. I've been there two or three weeks not long ago. It was really sad to see how trash is all over the country no matter where you go. Dumpsters are extremely disgusting, full of trash left rotting for days in main streets. People throw away anything anywhere. I've been to Djerba island and litter is even on beaches. I've seen litter floating in the water which deterred me from taking a swim. On one occasion I even spotted a half broken umbrella pole rusted and buried in the sand, just waiting for someone to be seriously injured which I obviously removed. Broken glass in beaches is also common, so be careful and always wear flip-flops. This is a huge cultural and not so easy to solve problem as I've seen people dumping trash in front of me as if something completely natural. It is sad because if that problem is solved, it is actually a beautiful country. Other countries suffering exactly the same problem that I've visited are Vietnam and Maldives.

curiousgal 1y ago
> how extremely dirty Tunisia is These generalized statements make my blood boil. Djerba in particular has had issues with garbage [0]. This is akin to me saying the US is an extremely needle ridden country based on a long trip to San Francisco. That said, a lot of Tunisian cities do have issues with garbage management and littering but calling the country "extremely dirty" makes it seem like people are taking dumps in the streets which is not the case. 0.https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31174 https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31174
- liendolucas 1y ago
  > These generalized statements Generalized statements? I've been walking an average of 8Km a day while on holidays in Tunisia, so I've been to plenty of places and cities and the pattern repeated over and over again. I'm not the typical tourist that is moved from place to place like a puppet through tours. What do you expect from me? To walk all over the country to prove my point? Djerba was just an example. Give me break.
  - ashoeafoot 1y ago

cess11 1y ago

One reason for grabbing onto tourists and pushing things into their hands is that a lot of the ones during high season got drunk already on the flight and then spend the rest of their visit at some point between hungover and intoxicated. They're both profitable and require intervention to bring their attention to whatever trinkets or they'll just amble along without spending any money. It was many years ago so it might have changed but my experience in Tunisia (as well as Egypt and other places around the Mediterranean) was that if you look and move like you belong in the area most merchants won't bother trying to push you around. I bought some of my favourite clothes in Tunisia and Egypt by asking tourist merchants about theirs and insisting that I want something like that and not the stuff in the souvenir market, many were willing to ask someone at a neighbouring stall to keep an eye on theirs and lead me to a 'real' shop in an area where locals trade with each other. That's where the good cafés are, and that's the place to meet honest people who might be willing to act like taxi and guide for a day or two, or even invite you to meet their family and share food with them.

decimalenough 1y ago

I'm seeing a lot of comments here about how the history/politics part is "wrong". Would more enlightened readers care to give a summary of what, exactly, he got wrong? My two cents: I haven't kept up on post-Arab-Spring politics, but the descriptions of Bourguiba (crafty politician, hopeless economics, then senile) and Ben Ali (thuggish, corrupt) seem pretty accurate to me.

riffraff 1y ago

> In contrast, when is the last time one of the greatest cathedrals were built? Probably not for hundreds of years. Our Lady of Good Health[1] in India is 1962. I think what the author means is "one of the famous ones in Europe", but the Sagrada Familia is still being built[0], tho arguably construction started two centuries ago :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Good_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Good_H...

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AStonesThrow 1y ago
I don't know what threshold to aim for here -- by the way, neither of those two minor basilicas are cathedrals -- but let's navigate a few Wikipedia categories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:20th-century_Roman_Catholic_church_buildings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:20th-century_Roman_Ca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_National_Shrine_of_the_Immaculate_Conception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_National_Shrin... (consecrated 1920; dedicated 1959; minor basilica 1990) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Our_Lady_of_the_Angels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Our_Lady_of_the_A... (1998-2002) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Cathedral_of_the_Russian_Armed_Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Cathedral_of_the_Russian_... (2018-2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Resurrection_Cathedral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Resurrection_Cathedral (Japanese Orthodox; consecrated 1929) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Cathedral,_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Cathedral,_Tokyo (1964) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Theresa%27s_Cathedral,_Changchun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Theresa%27s_Cathedral,_Cha... (2008) As for Italy? Get a load of this "crown jewel": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_Church (2003)
- microtherion 1y ago
  A church is a cathedral if it's a bishop's seat, which GP's churches are not. But it seems silly to characterize the Sagrada Familia as "minor".

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doix 1y ago

I lived in Tunisia for 3 months, mostly in Tunis. I'm surprised there was no mention of the doors there. They are pretty beautiful[0]. The Star Wars section is also pretty limited, if you're a fan, I recommend checking out the GalaxyTours map[1], the tours were outside my budget but the information they provide is extremely accurate and well researched. Chott el-Djerid [2] was my favourite, basically the outside of Luke's home located in the middle of a dry lake (on google maps it looks like water). Funnily enough, my favourite example of Wikipedia not always being right is also an alleged StarWars filming location, wikipedia claims[3] that Ep 1 was filmed at Ksar Ouled Soltane but GalaxyTours shows that it was not [4]. I'm also surprised there were no pictures of plants in the desert covered by plastic bags. It was pretty shocking, driving through the desert, nothing really around, but pretty much every tree/plant had plastic bags attached. I thought maybe they were intentionally put there to serve some purpose, so I stopped and got a closer look. Nope, just trash bags that blew away in the wind and got stuck there. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina_of_Tunis#/media/File:Medina_2012_5.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina_of_Tunis#/media/File:Me... [1] https://galaxytours.com/starwars-locations-tunisia-map/ https://galaxytours.com/starwars-locations-tunisia-map/ [2] https://galaxytours.com/starwars-tunisia-film-sites/chott-el-djerid/ https://galaxytours.com/starwars-tunisia-film-sites/chott-el... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane [4] https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunking-the-myth/ https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunkin...

bugsense 1y ago

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tomhow 1y ago
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

optimalsolver 1y ago

Also interesting is his Notes On The Gambia, which for some reason is the premier destination for female sex tourism: https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/ https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/

mytailorisrich 1y ago

> But when I asked whether they wanted to move to the most logical foreign destination – France – they all said, “no.” Tunisia is yet another former French colony I’ve visited (including the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Benin, Togo, Mauritania, etc.) where there’s a lot of lingering resentment against their former overlord. All those countries are still close to France, with higher education in French and educated people speaking better French than most French. Arabs countries like Tunisia have adopted policies of Arabisation but French is still widespread. It is perhaps a bit like India: Nationalism in reaction to colonialism but with major cultural links and the old coloniser is a major emigration destination. France is the main emigration destination for Tunisians (55% if you look it up), with almost a million Tunisians in France (Tunisia's population is 12 million). > Throughout this trip, I talked to many Europeans, including Frenchmen, Italians, Maltese, Germans, and a few Brits, and from an American perspective, it was surprising how often the topic of conversation turned to immigration. Or rather, anti-immigration. Well, see numbers above. Anti-immigration sentiment is growing in Europe because of the numbers and negative impact. It should not be a partisan issue, really, but plain realism.

draw_down 1y ago

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computerthings 1y ago

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tuna74 1y ago

Regarding his section on leaving luggage at a museum, when I went to the British museum in London and the National museum in China they both had cloak rooms where you could store your luggage while you were visiting.

mikhailfranco 1y ago

Support for the Palestinian cause is to be expected in an Arab country. But perhaps the reported strength of feeling is correlated with the history of the PLO, who moved there after being expelled from Lebanon by the Israeli invasion in 1982. Israel then attacked the new PLO HQ in Tunisia in 1985. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization#Headquarters_in_Tunis:_1982%E2%80%931991 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organizat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wooden_Leg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wooden_Leg Correlation might mean causation in a couple of directions. Did the PLO move to Tunis because Tunisians already supported them sympathetically, or do they now support the Palestinian cause more strongly because they provided refuge and were attacked by Israel? Probably both.

computerthings 1y ago

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