Hotel La Kasbah Kairouan [Tunisien]

The Hotel La Kasbah Kairouan can be a strange experience for a traveller unfamiliar with North Africa.

I searched for it on google maps and saw only an endless fortress wall.  That's where I'm going to stay?

The hotel website wasn't reassuring either.  It was only in French with no other language options, so I had to google what a kasbah was.

Turns out that a kasbah is a type of medina or fortress, which got me really confused.  Isn't medina a holy city in Saudi Arabia?  That medina is spelt with a capital M, while the non-capitalised medina refers to non-European part of a North African city.

The Hotel La Kasbah Kairouan is indeed located within a kasbah and is a mini-walled city unto itself.

I arrived at night and went straight to dinner.

The streets were rather dimly lit, and the hotel certainly didn't look welcoming from the outside, but it had the best (I have no idea what it was, but I thought it was some sorghum porridge, slightly sweetened) of all the hotels I stayed in Tunisia.

The exterior of the Hotel didn't look so intimidating the next morning when I checked out, and wished I had time to explore the hotel grounds instead of just seeing the restaurant, lobby and my room.

 I'm not sure if it is typical Tunisian style, but my room did surprise me with so many tiles on the walls!  I did try to read up on Tunisia, but apparently it is not a popular enough topic and I failed to find a single book on Tunisia in the local library, not even on the origins of the Arab Spring which sprung from Tunisia.

The room was comfortably big, with a TV and telephone and a sheltered furnished balcony which I didn't get to enjoy as I had to sleep quickly to get up early the next morning, by 6am...

The bathroom is a curious affair, where I initially couldn't locate the toilet.  Turned out that 1 single door served both the toilet and the bathroom itself.  When the toilet is occupied, the sink can be used at the same time by another person.  This was quite an interesting design that I had not encountered before.  

Another interesting piece of furniture is the stool in the bathroom.  What is it used for?  It was in all the hotel bathrooms, and the first time I've seen stools in hotel bathrooms.