City Post: Hammamet

Hammamet is a beautiful resort town on Tunisia's East coast. Unlike Tunis and some other cities, it hasn't been overrun by Western businesses or tourist-oriented local shops. Especially in the old city, it is mainly locals and long-term expats once you get just a little bit away from the resorts. If you are in the Middle East / North Africa and need a relaxing getaway on the water, Hammamet is a great place.

Now, back to our travels...

We took the train from Sousse to Hammamet. As we said in the Sousse post, this was quite the experience. We bought our tickets at the train station, were assigned a platform, coach, and seats, and told it was delayed. Not a big ordeal, as delays happen everywhere.

When the train finally arrived in Sousse (about 45 minutes late), everyone bum rushed the train. People hadn't even managed to get off yet, and people were cramming on, jockeying to get on first. Now, we had our bags with us, so we did what we thought was the courteous thing and let the passengers without bags get on before us. Turned out courteous was not the way to go.

We soon found out why everyone bum rushed the train: it was oversold. Way oversold. In fact, no one knew which coach was which. It was literally standing room only. We ended up crammed in the well where the toilet and doors were sitting on our bags! We learned that the coaches and seats are just printed on the ticket. They sell tickets to anyone who asks for one.

So we had a stereotypical, third-world train experience. People were smoking on the train, the doors were open at times, and people were sometimes sitting in the doorways. We couldn't help but laugh quite a bit. Fortunately, the train ride itself wasn't that bad. A little bumpy here and there and no air conditioning, but otherwise not unpleasant. What was funny in it all was everyone we met in Hammamet, upon hearing we came by train, exclaimed, "Why would you do that?!" Apparently its reputation and our experience was widely known and even locals who had the means didn't like taking it.

When we finally made it to Hammamet, we both wanted to 1) eat and 2) sleep. And that's exactly what we did.

We generally took it easy for our few days here. We spent time at the beaches, ate and drank at beachside restaurants and bars, and had no agenda. One day, we decided to explore the medina, which was minutes away by foot. Unlike other medinas we'd visited, it was quite small and...vacant. There were a few local merchants, but by and large it was deserted. It was truly a residential old city.

We took taxi to the resort side of town one afternoon. We were surprised that it wasn't overrun with shops. Jack commented that it seemed very much like Aruba or Cancun, where the resorts occupy the beach and there isn't much public access. Even so, we found one, and ended up on a vast, empty beach for lunch. Luckily, we ate at a pavilion, so we just sat there and enjoyed the sun and the sea before heading to Tunis.

The water in Hammamet was decently cold, but once it got to midday, it warmed up a bit, so Jack went for a swim. We learned that the continental shelf is pretty far off, and the sea is pretty shallow all the way out to that point. He could see in every direction in the clear, shallow water. It was both beautiful and a bit freaky at the same time to see the same, vast, aquatic expanse as far as you could see.

One thing we did that was unique in Hammamet was register with the local police. Luckily, our host helped us with this (otherwise we wouldn't have even known to do it). It was pretty easy; just take passports and paperwork to the tourism police, but our host told us that if we had done it ourselves, it would have taken hours instead of minutes, because they would have questioned us about our time in Tunisia.

Leaving Hammamet for Tunis was a bit problematic. We went to the bus station to ask for bus tickets at 12h30. In French (Jack speaks a bit). The guy refused to give us a ticket for 12h30, and insisted we take the 11h30 bus. We explained that we didn't have our bags, and wanted the next train, but he wouldn't have it. When we went to walk away, he yelled at us for not paying for the ticket, because he had already printed it. It was only something like 4 USD, so we paid it, but it definitely rubbed us both the wrong way.

Our host, luckily, helped us get a shared mini bus to Tunis. It was faster, cheaper, and a lot less hassle. Our host was really well regarded in the town, as he used to guide the U.S. military in Tunisia, and when heard of our issue at the bus station, he told us he was going to go have a chat with them, because that's not how they treat tourists.

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