Perched up in the foothills of the Hajar mountains, one hour’s drive across the desert landscape from Dubai sits the trading town of Masafi. It straddles the now border of two emirates – Fujairah to the east, and Ras Al Khaimah to the west – and once served as a trading post and refuelling stop before highways were built in the 1970s. Famous for its mineral water – the town’s name in Arabic actually translates to “pure water” – but nowadays more famous for it’s Friday market. Well, it’s actually a daily market, not just on Fridays, as we found out on our Saturday adventure.

The market itself (or Souk Al Juma’a to give it’s proper name) is a terribly unassuming strip of dual carriage highway leading into Masafi town, consisting of a number of permanent and semi-permanent shops and stalls selling toys, souvenirs, plants, carpets and rugs, pots, fruit and vegetables and all sorts of things you never knew you needed, and a lot you probably don’t. As incongruous as it first appears, it seems that this humble location was strategically chosen – as the numerous speed bumps on the road helped to slow traffic allowing the local farmers and vendors to sell vegetables and accessories from the backs of their trucks parked along the way. Very clever. Nowadays its has expanded to something much more permanent and has become quite a popular tourist destination. And it’s easy to say why. A complete breath of fresh air from the malls, supermarkets and chain stores of the city.

Although our visit was driven mainly out of curiousity, we were actually on the lookout for a good camping rug, so we pulled off the road and onto the kerb at the first block of carpet stores we encountered. And we were in for a treat! Carpets and soft furishings of all colours and textures lined the floors, walls and everywhere of these huge cavernous corrugated sheds.

These places were like giant warehouses, not exactly the humble roadside stalls of my imagination. And I guess the size of your shed is an important consideration when you consider the size of your wares. Check out the size of these “rugs” we encountered!

We wandered further in, attempting to dodge the eager Afghani salesmen with their assertive sales chat and hawk eyes – “just looking!” – but it was no use, like a moth to a flame we found ourselves lured into the futherest corner of the shed, and into a flurry of negotiation on this beauty…

A stunning Turkish number with the most soothing colour palate I’ve probably ever seen in a Persian rug before. Or even Turkish for that matter.

And the price, well let’s just say it got better by the metre. As in the distance we walked away from it. To say we were tempted was a bit of an understatement, but the last thing you want is to get all caught up in the emotion and get it home to find out it’s too small (gulp) for your room. Unlikely for us lol, but you do need to be rational with these things, so before our next visit we will definitely be getting out the measuring tape! But back to the mission at hand… camping… rug…go!

Now some might say a luxurious woven carpet might just be a little too much for camping. But not us! And certainly not the Arabs! And they are pretty much the experts at all things camping so let’s take a closer look…

Hmm, might be a bit glam for camping…

But this one sure is pretty! Something rather Arabian Nights about it don’t you think?

But perhaps we need to get a bit more practical. Like I said the desert Arabs certainly know a thing or two about camping, and luxury of course, so it’s not surprising that they’ve taken bedouin styles to a whole new level. Check this out…

These are fantastic (if you’re travelling with an offroader with a roofrack of course), it’s a foldable carpet-cum-chair combo – a perfect outdoor majlis, or lounging set consisting of a carpet, reclining floor chairs and arm rests. Just add some coffee and dates, and voila! Might be a bit fancy for our needs, but there certainly is a vast range of choices available here for every kind of camper…

Some even with built in drink rests! Well most likely for arms…

And all with matching accessories…. cushions, mattresses, you name it!

… I was in soft furnishing heaven. But by this stage perhaps I was the only one….

Overwhelmed, indecisive and at saturation point it was time to move on, and search for a some refreshment, in the form of a delicious fresh young coconut? Yes please!

The mainstay of the original market was of course the fruit & vege stalls, and disappoint they did not. I say they, for there must have been at least a couple of dozen separate stalls and vendors each vying for your attention and your wallet.

But the produce was absolutely glorious, from the everyday…

(Well perhaps tiny bananas from Oman aren’t exactly your everyday)…

To the exotic!

These are date palm hearts! But what are these??

Oh, date palm flowers, I see… Delicious apparently.

But NOTHING could be more delicious than this divine juicy mango could it Rem?

Amongst the gloss and the colour of the fruit stalls we saw lots of pre-cut fruits, so many, all sitting packaged with forks and spoons and tempting to the passerby, but we were a little confused as to what was going on, it’s a bit hard to walk and eat (as we were finding out), until we witnessed first hand how it all works here… road snacks!!

You drive along the highway, slow down over those judders, then pull in to your friendly fruit vendor, who then rushes up to your window to tempt you with a tray of their delicious wares while you sit in your airconditioned auto. A convenient solution for the modern commuting family, and a perfect one to beat the summer heat. Genius.

Onwards we mooched, through nurseries selling brightly coloured bouganvilleas, date palms and strawberries…

How about a potted plant for your garden?

…past shops crammed with coffeepots, cooking ware, pottery, fancy painted teapots (perfect for your camping stove)…

…and bakerlite telephones (?!)

And of course the ubiquitous range of children’s weaponry…

Pleasingly for a natural spring town, we encountered a good few things water related… urns, dispensers…

…and a few other interesting creations, which we assume were water features, but we felt would make awesome drinking fountains for our cats!

Down the end of the more interesting spectrum were these, um, coat hangers?

Took us a wee while to figure it out, but then it came to me… The gulf arabs LOVE perfume. They’ve been trading in it for centuries, probably millennia. You only have to pass a woman OR a man on the street to be enveloped in a cloud of a delicious, enticing and exotic scent. Local ladies have often told me how you are meant to put it in your clothes… the emphasis on “in” becomes apparent when you look at these crazy coat hangers…. you place your abaya (womens) or kandora (mens) over the hanger – and if my assumption is correct – one of these guys (below) UNDER the hanger, and let the scent of the burning oud permeate into your clothing. Genius huh?!

But this one was even more of a conundrum….

…aaah but we do all love a good pancake don’t we, especially when we’re camping!!

By now we were pooped. We’d literally reached the end of the road. The late afternoon call to prayer had started, an appropriate reminder that it was time to head back and make a decision! All eyes of the zealous carpet traders were on us as we slowly trudged back up the street past each of their cavernous warehouses. God only knows what they thought of us – a hot, sweaty and indecisive straggle of falangis.

But we made it back to our favourite man from Kabul, and got negotiating. And I’m happy to report that we closed the deal and came back from our Masafi Friday Market on a Saturday mission with our very own magic carpet and a pair of matching reclining lounger-with-armrest contraptions, super excited about our next camping mission!

We had certainly shopped til we’d dropped!