Riyadh Tent Souk

The other day we took a car and went off in search of Tent Souk and Ladies Souk.  I had never heard of either of these two places and would never have thought to go on my own, but when asked if I wanted to go, of course I said YES!  Crystal is usually the one who finds these things and figures out how to get there.  Honestly, if I have half the gumption that woman has I will be fine in this life.  She is fabulous!  I really don't care where we go, I am just thrilled to be invited to go along.

So five of us ladies piled into a car along with the driver and headed off first to find Tent Souk.  Now I had no idea what to expect but that is half of the fun here.  I tend not to ask too many questions and just go along for the ride.  As it turns out, Tent Souk is actually where you would go to buy a tent!  Who would have thought? (I thought perhaps it could be a souk inside a tent.)  But, aside from tents, you can actually find quite a lot of other things.  Most of them have to do with camping, but it was still good fun.

In addition to tents you can also have just about anything that you want made out of canvas.  I needed a yoga bag so we decided to see if we could have one made.  I chose a bag style and we gave the man the measurements and he said that he could have it made in one hour.

Here is the shop where I had my bag made.  I also ended up buying the backpack hanging on the upper left corner.  I'm not sure why but you just never know when you will need a backpack!

We came back to pick up the bag and it still wasn't done. (He was working on something else.)  So we stood there and he finished it in about 10 minutes. This is a picture of him making my bag.

And here is my bag.  I just love it!  There is a super big pocket in front to hold my wallet and pockets on both ends.  LOVE IT!! And only 40 riyal.  ($10 US)

While we were waiting for my bag to be made, we went looking at the camping equipment.

Here are Crystal and Tiffany looking at sleeping bags.

We also found some very interesting bags to keep food and drinks cool.  They were made from recycled materials and we all quite liked them.

 Crystal really liked this one bag that she saw hanging up so she asked them to take it down for her.  She really liked it until she flipped it over and saw this:

Honestly, I laugh every time I see this picture.  So funny.  Who is this guy? And why is his picture on the bag? He isn't even good looking! Needless to say, she didn't buy it but Tiffany and I liked the other ones so we purchased them.

We thought that they were very cool.  So here we are with our super cool "cool bags."

After that, we went off to find Ladies souk, but alas, we had no such luck.  Still, we were able to find some cushions that Tiffany quite liked.

 This particular cushion was deemed to be quite comfortable.

I think this one is the winner.  She looks quite happy with it doesn't she?

But in the end prayer time started up and so our shopping for the day was done.  But that is OK because tomorrow is another day!