Richard Millington

Richardfindsunfamiliarinthe familiar,

All we really need is a bit of kindness.

I went to Morocco recently. Now, regular readers of this column won't be that surprised by this news. A regular haunt and touring destination of mine for the last two decades, it's firmly on my list of favourite destinations. It's the closest faraway place. A world away from Western Europe, yet just an hour or so on the ferry from Spain. Berber, Muslim, African, it's a melting pot of culture in which all are welcome. So what stands out about this particular trip?

Well, this time there were no bikes involved. We had been recruited by a car manufacturer to assist them with a press event. Get a fleet of vehicles across the border and down to Marrakech ready for some of the great and good of the motoring world to fly in and experience the cars. Plan some routes, provide route notes, details of sites to see, places to stop, great roads and photogenic backgrounds.

Driving supercars through Morocco is quite an experience. Frankly, driving a 600 horsepower twin turbocharged V8 anywhere is a red letter day for me, but leading a convoy of them into Marrakech makes quite a sight. The burble and crackle of the exhaust, the kids waving, the £6,500 upgraded sound system playing Floyd, and the air-con humming away repelling the heat and humidity outside the tinted windows. But - and while it seems petulant there is a but - it wasn't as engaging as arriving on a bike.

Motorcycling for me these days is as much about travelling as it is about riding . I rarel y find myself out on a Sunday visiting a local set of corners. When I get on a bike I want to go somewhere as well as ride. It doesn't have to be somewhere new, but there does need to be a destination. Maybe it's my early onset OCD. I want a 'you have arrived' moment on a ride. Sitting behind the wheel of a bright red supercar rolling through the lunchtime traffic of Marrakech with the medina walls echoing with the 'tuned' exhaust definitely lets everyone know 'you have arrived: A line of them oozing several thousand horsepower is frankly ostentatious . 'Tuned?' There is a button you can press to make it sound better (read: louder and raspier). It's like swapping end cans on the move. They might as well call it the Akropovic button. But... oh yes, back to the but.

But, while the kids were impressed, the teenagers positively leaping around, the older generation just watched us idle by. We had arrived in their city, with foreign number plates in the outrageously OTT vehicles. Just one would cost more than many of these people would see in their entire lifetime, or their children's, or their children's. It can be embarrassing arriving on a big adventure bike when people ask

'How much is it?' • 10,000, •20,000, it's beyond many of their wildest dreams, but the number is comprehensible. When the number is six figures; when it's more than the price listed on the boards of the swish new gated villa complexes on the outskirts of Marrakech, it exceeds comprehension and it left me more than a little uncomfortable.

Sometimes as a rider you feel a bit spaceman like. The helmet, boots, suit, gloves, they all make you look very different to everyone else. This is especially true in cultures where the scooter rules and the only hat tip to safety is a cheap helmet, more often carried than worn . However, I have never felt more other, more isolated from the people and the country, than behind the wheel of my supercar . The air-conditioned massage seats did help me feel a little better, but it wasn't the same. I travel to experience a place, it's smells, sights and culture, not to view it like the backdrop of a video game.

As we were heading home, I spotted more motorhomes than usual, or maybe I just noticed them more as I had longer to wait in the customs queue. No filtering through for us toda y. It occurred to me that their experience must be as, if not more, remote. The same isolation from the environment through which they are travelling and then arriving at a camp site, typically out of town, populated by fellow campers? Is their experience really of Morocco, or is it of a diluted Moroccan style? Now, I do get the camper thing and have rented them in the past and am doing so again this year, but it requires an effort to leave the site, or choose to wild camp and get out and really experience the country you are in. Unless, of course , you have just come for the view from the cab?

We at least stayed true to our philosophy and stayed in a Riad in the medina walls of Marrakech. Obviously the cars were left elsewhere at a safe, secure and very luxurious location for the media types.

Once out of the cars, into a petite taxi and heading to the medina, we all felt much more like ourselves. Down with the people, at one with the warmth of the city. Dinner with our favourite street food vendor on Jemma el Fna awaited.

So what's the moral of the story? I am not sure there is a moral, other than motorcycles rule . No matter what the power output, the noise, the quality of the reproduction of David Gilmour's solos, or the joy of being warmly massaged in the lower back as you travel, motorcycles are still best.

However, I would do it all again in a heartbeat given the chance. Did I mention the 600 horsepower?