Mawaleh Fruit and Vegetable Market

Back in the good old days when Cush and I had a cool apartment in an interesting neighbourhood (Dundas West and Roncesvalles, if you've been, you know what I mean) in Toronto we used to go to the fruit and vegetable markets on our street. There wasn't just one or 2 markets but maybe 4 or 5.

We usually went to all of them to see which places had the best deals on what, and one of the markets was almost exclusively organic.

Also on our street were butchers, bakers, cheese shops, restaurants, bars, clothing shops (used and new), and since it was at one time a predominatly Polish neighbourhood there are still the Polish shops selling oom pah pah music and sweets you never heard of. It was always interesting, always lively and always my favourite way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

Some days we could barely carry all our stuff back up the street, made even more difficult while trying to eat an icecream cone or popcicle.

So, now having lived here for 3 and a bit years I thought it was time we go check out the Mawaleh Fruit and Vegetable Market. (Click this link for a news article from the Oman Observer about the market and pictures, pictures are always handy, I should have taken some...)

Cush and I set off not really sure exactly how to get there or what were going to buy or what the deal was.

We found it easily enough by driving on the SQ highway to the Nizwa turnoff and then just follow the signs. There's 2 offramps for the market. The first one is for trucks, and the second is for cars.

As it so happens Cush and I have used both, the first time we went we took the truck offramp by accident, the second time we took the car offramp.

I'm not sure which one was worse because it was so busy and no where to park and nothing was very clear so we ended up the first time parking close to the actual fruit and veggies market hall and then got blocked in.

The actual market hall is an open sided building with a white tin (aluminium ?) roof.

The second time we took the 4x4 and parked a good 5-10 minute walk away but we saw more, like the little shops, which were a bit confusing, because they sold fruits and veggies as well but were not in the main market hall, obviously because we were on foot and people drive like wankers in there.

Ok so here's the deal. You can buy anything locally grown like lettuce, peppers, melons, herbs, radishes, cucumbers, Salalah bananas and stuff like that. They also have some imported things like grapes, strawberries, bananas (Philipines), pineapples and apples.

The problem I have is that while you get everything for an absolute steal (2 lbs of red seedless grapes for 1 OR, 2 boxes of strawberries for 1 OR, huge bags of fresh herbs for 300 bz, 3 lb bananas for 1 OR, etc) I don't know that I can consume all that before it goes off.

And while it is super cheap, the sellers do not want to barter, it's the only place I've ever been here where the prices are not listed but they won't negociate. Which is wierd because since we've moved here it's like expected that you barter.

And they all want to sell in bulk to get rid of everything which I understand but for the average consumer, unless you have a very large family (which a lot of Omani's do) or a restaurant, it's just too much. I can't see going there anymore.

And now that I know it's there, why do I see so many people bulk buying vegetables at LuLu when they could go to the market and get much more fresh, beautiful, unbruised, and cheaper fruits and veg. I don't get it.

So while I love the market, and the sellers calling out "madam! madam! cucumbers! radish! melon!" it's just not suitable for my little family of 2 (+2 cats who won't eat fresh mint and parsley.)