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Friday souq
While a city sleeps late, a little corner wakes up to commerce and fun

Frantic voices reach fever pitch as most of Muscat sleeps through yet another Friday morning. Nestled between the twin walls of mountain that contain Wadi Kabir, Friday market is in full swing, as hundreds bargain, buy, sell, eat ice cream and kick start their morning. They are treated to a range of products that will shame any hypermarket into submission – from dusty Land Cruisers to orange BMWs, refilled water bottles to fake snakes, abayas to underwear.

Welcome to the Wadi Kabir Friday market, a dynamo in the sun, where everything is for sale. It doesn't matter what your product, how old it is or how long it's going to live. TVs from the 1980s, at their last grainy flicker, used dolls and slept-in beds are all fair game, and for a couple of notes they could be yours.

Orange BMWs and loudspeakers
Others are even more enterprising. You have middlemen too, and one jumped on the back of a pickup, loudspeaker and mulkiyas in hand, extolling the virtues of the vehicle under him and a Lexus parked beside. Cars are left open in the sun, and customers can walk around the dusty parking lot, sitting inside vehicles, turning them on, checking kilometre readings and looking under the hood. Apart from a bit of tapping along the bodywork – a characteristic local trait – there's not much more they can do. Deals are confirmed by handshake, and the next step would be a transfer of papers and money. The great thing about the market is its absolute freedom, open to the sun. Absolutely anyone can drive up and sell anything, on any terms.

Fake snakes and used dolls
Where the dust and fervour of used cars starts to settle, the shade of stalls begin, their wares spread out on the ground. We were tempted by the charm of a TV set that could easily date back a quarter century, and if its desaturated colour images and faltering sound excite you enough it could be yours for RO10. After a couple of hours walking around this de facto flea market you might need some cologne, so why not go all the way and buy Hugo Boss, all four bottles for an entire rial. These are called ‘Busso Boos,’ but if you stumble on the spelling you've missed the point anyway. Now that you've acquired a taste for the finer things, you might as well go ahead and buy a Wadi Kabir Rolex. Three rials later, it's yours for life.

Not everything is so high-end, though. For some good fun straight off the street invest in a fake snake – a rather masterful design, with each section moving independently of the other. This means it can twist and turn so naturally it'll scare the daylights out of a herpetologist.

Other fake things that move include birds with batteries, Hawaiian dolls and a pair of magnets that buzz into each other, producing a sound worse than fingernails over blackboard.

Everything you ever wanted
We couldn't possibly list every type of product on offer. There are a million things you never knew you needed. Bicycle reflectors, cell phone covers, home made jeans, frankincense, jewellery, tool kits and cushion covers are just a fraction of the range. But you don't come here because you need something. You do so for entertainment, to haggle and stare, to tap on the side of cars and lick a mixed flavour ice cream softy that you bought off a mobile van for 200bz. It is the thrill of the ridiculous, a surreal world energetic under the summer sun, while the rest of Muscat is sleeping late on the one day of the week they can. That might be more sensible, but it isn't half as much fun.