This village in southeastern Morocco was recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site in 1987, the same year The Living Daylights was filmed here. Ait Benhaddou is also the filming location of many famous movies such as Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, Gladiator...
Located about 30km from Ouarzazate and nestled at the foot of the High Atlas Mountains, Ait Benhaddou is one of the top tourist destinations in Morocco. The village is remembered by international visitors for its distinctive architectural style called Ksar - a group of earthen buildings surrounded by high walls. This is a traditional living space of the indigenous people in the Sahara desert. The most typical are the Kasbah houses built of earth, 3-4 stories high. Inside the high mud walls are 6 Ksar areas and each Ksar has about 8 families living.
The houses are not too elaborate, but the upper floors are decorated with dense and detailed patterns. In particular, the tower blocks at the top of the walls are built entirely of bricks and mud in the traditional way. These towers are more elaborate when the homeowners are wealthy. Many tower blocks look like crowns. But because they are all made of earth, over time and rain, many houses here become old and look like ruins.
The higher you go, the more beautiful and poetic the village scenery becomes. The Kasbahs seen from above in the bright yellow sunlight are even more charming. For many visitors, the best time to visit Ait Bebhaddou is in the late afternoon and sunset. Perhaps, I am willing to trade many other pleasures to stand on the top of Ait Bebhaddou and look far away to enjoy the beautiful moment of the day.
Mohamed is a fire painting artist who has lived here for 30 years. With simple, primitive tools, through his skillful hands, he has created beautiful paintings of Moroccan culture and landscape. He shared that the main difficulty is how to create the "soul" of the fire painting. This requires meticulousness, perseverance and passion of the artist. With only two main colors: white of paper and yellow-brown of burned ink, Mohamed has created dark and light, bold and light strokes, making the painting have depth and a unique impression.
It seems that the simplicity of fire pen painting is very suitable to express the poetic and lyrical ancient scenes, thereby helping visitors feel and understand more about the famous places of Morocco in the past. He told me that fire painting requires meticulous precision because it cannot be erased if it is drawn wrongly. Therefore, first of all, the artist must have love for each stroke, then need diligence and hard work.
I ended my interesting experience in Ait Benhaddou with a hot cup of tea in a silver cup at a local tea house. Moroccans often welcome guests with three types of tea, each with its own flavor and meaning. The sunset here seemed to want to hold my footsteps to stay in this place longer. In Morocco, tea and kasbah are everywhere, but Ait Benhaddou is the place that makes people dream of returning once because of the charm emanating from the ancient space that is not mixed with any other place.
More information:
+ Visa:You can apply for a Moroccan visa at the Moroccan Embassy at 9 Chu Van An, Ba Dinh, Hanoi. The Embassy will issue you a single entry visa according to the time you intend to apply for when you arrive in Morocco.
+ Itinerary:From Vietnam, you can go to Morocco by using flights of Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways or Emirates Airways, prices range from 800 - 1,300 USD/round trip. Regular flights transit in Istanbul, Doha or Abu Dhabi, then land in Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco. From here, you can choose to take a bus or train to Ait Benhaddou. We drove ourselves, from Casablanca to Ait Benhaddou it took 7 hours. If you go by bus it will take about 9 hours.
+ Religion:As a Muslim country, tourists need to pay attention to some issues when traveling to Morocco. You should not use your left hand to do anything in public because this will easily offend the people when they think the left hand is unclean. Moroccans do not like to be photographed, especially women and the elderly, so you should ask permission before taking photos of them.
Most mosques in Morocco are closed to non-Muslim foreign tourists, except for the Hassan II Mosque located in Casablanca.
+ Sightseeing:Places to visit in Ait Benhaddou:
- Arab souk
- Kashba Taourit Temple Complex
- Hollywood Studios
- Drâa Valley: is a land of green palm and date fields. This region has won the "Golden Palm" award for agriculture with products made from dates and especially the famous Boufaggous.
- Boualouz Oasis: a vast plain, this place is also called ''Sarhro's arrow'' because the oasis was born from giant volcanoes, located between the mountains.
Article & photos: Thu Giang
