Manama Souq offers international bazaar-like shopping experience

TDT | Manama                                                  

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com     

Reported by Zahra Ayaz  

The Manama Souq is one of the busiest and noisiest streets where you can experience a typical bazaar-like shopping experience while watching cars struggle to maneuver through crowds of people shopping.

Even if you are not looking for anything to buy, it is worth walking around the souq. From the colorful and most artistic way in which spices are kept, endless rows of brightly coloured clothes, and dimly lit cafes, the souq keeps surprising you at every turn you take.

One of the things the Kingdom doesn’t lack is modern malls featuring many of the same popular retailers found in the US or Europe. But in the souq here, ancient traditions meet modern lifestyles.

It’s chaotic with intense smells good and bad, coming from all directions: the trash bins in all alleys; Arabic sweets shops; bins of spices. Vendors spray potent perfume into the air as we pass, hoping to tempt us to enter their shops.

The Kingdom is known for its gold and pearls and within the souq there is the Gold Souq, a building with dozens of jewelry stores. The Daily Tribune explored the souq and discovered that it has evolved into a sort of international bazaar as well, with goods from Egypt, Pakistan, and India.