Shopping on the market: the Suq

"Is there no supermarket, you know, like a big mall?" a japanese woman asked - and indeed - there is none. Instead there is the suq, a big market about three kilometres long, where you can get everything, ripe and tasty fruits and vegetable, live poultry, meat cut with a sabre from the half of a cattle hanging between street and shop, at one stall fresh fish is brazed in tins for conservation, the soldering iron heated on coal.

Soft foulards, clothes, tea, herbs and frankincense bis as cobbles are offered in the narrow alleys of the suq. Children ask to polish shoes to earn money for their families, Juiceshops provide refreshments. For example "Assir Assab", juice from sugarcane pressed out of rods, two meters long, made in front of your eyes (see pictures below), and which is as refreshing, that most people drink it without setting the glass down inbetween.

And if your feet need a rest you should sit in one of the cafeterias, maybe to smoke a shisha, and take in all the impressions around you.