Doha Markets

When the weather cools down and you start to venture outside again, a great place to visit is the wholesale market off Salwa Road.

There’s no fancy layout – this is a place where fresh produce is piled high on all sides. Outside, men with wheel barrows and long white beards wait to cart your purchases back to your car. In the market opposite, squid, crayfish, prawns and fish from the size of your finger to higher than your head are spread out, often incredibly cheap. As you jostle with restaurant owners and shop managers, bargain hard to get the right price.

Behind the veg market is the Omani market, where there are sweet smelling spices and herbs, dried fish and strange brown things which the sellers claim are a type of mushroom. It shares a roof with plant stalls, where flowers, cactus plants and palm trees jostle for place.

In the veg market in particular, we’ve found it well worth while building up a relationship with a particular market seller. Not only does he give us good prices, if we need something he doesn’t have, he will locate it, bargain for it and obtain it for a better price than we could get ourselves.

But for me, the best thing about the market is getting away from the plastic artificiality of the supermarket where nobody ever knows you, and making friends with the friendly market sellers.

Also see: Qatar Shopping

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