You know it's not going to be a high-class hotel when they try to sell you drugs as they hand over the room key. It is unusual for the Ritz bellboy to help you roll up a reefer. The Four Seasons concierge is unlikely to help you cook up.

I was travelling with a friend in Morocco, and we were greeted in a now-familiar manner by the owner of the Hotel Toubkal in Meknès: the quick glance around, the sudden hunch towards us, and the somewhat sleazy Moroccan accent: 'You wan' some hashish?' It was something like our hundredth offer of the week, and now we had a hotel manager to add to a list which already included bartenders, street sweepers, bus drivers, passers-by, and people shouting from the other end of the street.

Everyone seemed to deal in kif on the side, although I hesitate to make it sound too appealing, because buying anything from an unknown hotel owner could well result in being thrown into a pit and having your passport confiscated. We refused politely and were shown to our room, which was at the end of a dark, gloomy corridor. The room was simple, with a sink and two unremarkable beds, although Simon was convinced there were pubes on his pillow, and insisted on the use of his sleeping-bag.

We were working at a university in Rabat, and this was about the first chance we'd had to get away for a weekend and see some of the country. I was suffering from the obligatory diarrhoea, which was intermittent but violent enough to rival a certain scene in Dumb And Dumber, and was to go on for a further six weeks. I found the toilet a few doors down from our room, consisting of a hole, a tap and a bucket. The bucket was for 'flushing' and the tap for washing your left hand after you'd used it to wipe. Hole-in-the-ground toilets, I was assured by all Moroccans, were better for you 'because of the angle'. But that didn't account for the fact that you had to have a particularly fine aim, particularly with diarrhoea.

As I emerged, I saw a weasely local just going into his room. He said hello, and I took the opportunity to practise my French with a little smalltalk. He seemed friendly enough, if a little strange, and even invited me in for a drink.

Maybe my judgement was slightly clouded because I'd had a bit to drink that evening, but the offer seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Mix with the locals, integrate myself into the culture, this was what I was here for! So I followed him happily into his dingy room, congratulating myself on having found an Interesting Local to talk to.

As soon as I got into the room, my new acquaintance shut the door, bolted it, and turned off the lights. Unusual, I thought. But there was moonlight coming in through the window, and perhaps it was just a quaint North African custom to receive guests in a secure, darkened room. I was ushered to a chair in the middle of the room while Rachid busied himself in the kitchen area, and I began to wonder if maybe my local was a bit more interesting than I would like.

He reappeared and thrust a glass of red wine in my face. I took it and sniffed it suspiciously, while Rachid offered me a plate of what looked like very ill sardines. I declined, always a bad move. 'You don' like?' 'I'm...allergic' I improvised, and vaguely produced my asthma inhaler as some kind of proof. He seemed inordinately interested in this, and crouched down to stare intently at where I had just produced it from my hip pocket. I eyed the door surreptitiously, calculating how long it would take me to jump up and unlock the bolt.

Suddenly, and entirely without any kind of seductive preamble, he leant forward and began vigorously massaging my chest. This, I thought, is a Dear Diary moment. It was so unexpected as to be surreal, like the sort of thing that happens in a dream; not that I dream about molesting tourists in hotels. Guessing that this wasn't his therapeutic response to the discovery that I had asthma, I thought I should maybe leave, but I was so shocked I found myself just sitting there for a further five seconds. I even began to laugh. Then his hands began to move steadily lower, and I stood up abruptly, leaving Rachid looking forlornly up at me. 'You don' like?' he said.

'No no, it's lovely,' I gabbled, 'I'm just going to get my friend, and we can all have a party, yes?' I moved to the door while Rachid looked at me narrowly. 'Party?' I was scrabbling at the lock. 'Yeah, dancing, wine...' The door opened, and I pushed Rachid quickly out of the way, still protesting, and retreated quickly to the sanctity of my own room. Simon had assumed I was suffering from a particularly heavy bout of the runs.

We slept with a chest of drawers in front of the door. What I found most bizarre about the whole thing were Rachid's pathetic attempts at seduction: a bit of moonlight, a glass of wine, and bang! He clearly needed to brush up on his technique--now if we'd had some light music, maybe a bit of dancing...