Souq Al-Mubarakiya

Souq Al-Mubarakiya is the Gulf's most alive old market: two centuries of trading on the same ground in the heart of Kuwait City, named for Sheikh Mubarak, burned in the invasion of 1991 and rebuilt on its own plan, and still the place where the city comes at night to eat. Its lanes are sorted by trade — the date merchants with their pyramids of Sukkari and Khalas, the spice and saffron sellers, the oud and perfume alley, the gold souq, the vegetable and meat halls, and, at the far end, the fish market where the zubaidi, the silver pomfret that is Kuwait's pride, lies on ice —; between them the old cafés where men play dominoes over glasses of red tea, and the courtyard of restaurants where machboos and grilled zubaidi come to plastic tables at prices the towers have not touched. Around it stands the city's memory: the Grand Mosque of 1986 and the Seif Palace with its clock tower on the seafront, the Sadu House of Bedouin weaving, the National Assembly that Utzon drew like a tent, the Al Shaab gate of the vanished wall, the Liberation Tower of 1996, and, along the bay, the Kuwait Towers of 1979, three needles and two blue globes that are the country's signature.

The traveller comes at dusk, when the day's heat lifts off the concrete, and eats first: the courtyard, a plate of machboos or a whole zubaidi off the grill, bread from the oven, a glass of tea; then the lanes — the dates tasted from the merchant's hand, the saffron weighed, the oud smoked on a wrist, the gold glanced at, the fish market for the theatre of it —; a café for the dominoes and the second tea; the walk to the seafront for the Grand Mosque and the palace's clock, and, by taxi or the long promenade, the Kuwait Towers at night with the bay lit; and, the next morning, the Sadu House and the National Museum, or the boat to Failaka island for the ruins and the empty beaches.

The Guide's honesty: Kuwait is dry in every sense — no alcohol anywhere, and a heat from June to September that empties the streets by day —, and the souq is a night place in summer and an evening place the rest of the year; the country receives few tourists and treats them kindly and without fuss; the visa is online for most; taxis are metered and cheap; the dress is modest and the manners are Gulf manners — courtesy back is enough; and a plate of zubaidi at a plastic table with the dates men shouting their prices behind you is the Gulf's oldest pleasure, which is why the Guide keeps this page hot from the grill.