My First Solo Trip To The Manama Souqs

This was a BIG day for me, guess you can say I feel completely at home with Bahrain (or incredibly insane) because I went into the souqs downtown by myself. I felt completely safe and actually enjoyed the chaos that surrounded me.





The entrance to the souqs is located off a pretty busy street and the parking is off site across the street. The country tried to "spruce up" the image of the souqs by building a great entrance and fancy facades (pictured above) to draw in the foot traffic. Once you get about 1/8 of a mile in there the old souqs (pictured below) are what you find. I prefer the older souqs because they give you the "full souq experience".





First things first, as my friend Katy taught me and a I will teach you... you must start the souq shopping experience by visiting Sueneil at his juice shop called Muntaz Juice which in Arabic means Good Juice (pictured below). Bahrain houses the best tasting juices in the world and Sueneil's shop is NO exception. He is friendly, gracious and personally brings his cute female patrons a plastic stool to sit on while he makes their beverage of choice. My favorite drink is MintLemon (think Mojito without the liquor) it is DELICIOUS!!!! Gavin enjoys the banana juice when Mommy agrees to indulge him.








Following the wonderful refreshment one can stroll through the back alley feel of the souqs or make a fun detour to the gold souqs. There are two gold souqs that I like to visit one is called fittingly enough The Gold Souq and the other is Gold City. Today I visited The Gold Souq to see my friend Shyjal at Joanna Silver to pick up an order. I took a photo of a shop called "Tiffaney" but even the signature blue can't fool me - it's like nobody here has ever heard of trademark infringement (laugh)!!






Hope you enjoyed the tour, come visit me and I'll buy your juice!!