Key areas
Kuwait City centre is tightly packed and the outskirts are large, sparse areas. Commercial districts In Kuwait City these are between Kuwait Bay and First Ring Road. Most luxury hotels are in the commercial districts or on the coast to the south-east of the city.
Arabian Gulf Street is the main coastal route, running almost parallel to the coast and looping and bending round to the shopping district in Salmiya. Many of the nation’s core organisations are located along the coastal road, including the National Assembly Building, Sief Palace, the Grand Mosque and National Museum.
Fahad Al Salim Street is the main shopping street and the major fashion shops and plazas are dotted along the route leading up from Al Jahra Gate.
Ring roads The main arteries are the ring roads (numbered 1-6): Istiqlal Street (the Fahaheel Expressway), the Maghreb Expressway and Arabian Gulf Street. Fahaheel, Jahra and Shuwaikh are notorious for their bustling markets.
Getting around Taxis are the easiest way to travel in the city. Call taxis are radio-controlled 24-hour cabs which are booked by phoning the company’s office. Fares, based on distance, are cheap—a standard KD1 (£1.90) for a trip originating and ending within the same area. Fares get progressively more expensive as trips extend across area boundaries, late at night or on public holidays. Regular clients can usually negotiate a discount and credit may be given. Orange cabs aren’t renowned for their presentation or driving excellence, but they’re cheap and quick and, most importantly, all have air-conditioning.
Shopping
Traditional souks still survive in Kuwait, notably in Fahaheel and Jahra. Courteous bargaining is essential. Several open-air Friday markets (souk al-juma’a) operate from early morning until around 8pm, selling some fine silver plates and elaborately designed ornaments, encrusted in jewels—an excellent present in the form of a jewellery box. Major souks al-juma’as are in Al-Rai just off the 4th Ring Road, in Jahra and in Fahaheel. The main large souks for fresh foods (meat, fruits and vegetables) are in Shuwaikh and in Fahaheel. Though these are essentially wholesale markets, the vendors welcome all buyers. Prices are cheaper than at the large private supermarkets. The main fish souks are on Arabian Gulf Street (just east of the Seif Palace), in Shuwaikh and in Fahaheel. There are gold souks and gold shops, which both buy and sell gold, in most of the shopping areas in Kuwait. Arabic, Indian and Italian styles of jewellery are available to satisfy most tastes. Most gold jewellery sold is 21 and 22 carat and must be hallmarked and inspected by the government for quality. Always ask for an official receipt, clearly showing the purity and weight of the gold. Gold jewellery is priced per gram plus a charge for workmanship. It is advisable to ask the price of the gold content, which tracks world market prices and fluctuates daily. The price varies according to how intricate the design is, but if you have something to be copied, the workmen will produce a perfect replica.
Main malls include the Salhiya Complex in the city, Al-Watiya behind the Sheraton Hotel, the Zahra Complex and Laila Galeria in Salmiya, the Muthana Complex across from Le Meridien, and the Al-Othman complex in Hawally. Villa Moda, a luxury bazaar and architerctural treasure in an unused dockland area of the city, is where you should go if you have money and plenty of it. This 100,000 square foot all-glass mall carries Prada, Gucci and Fendi, and sometimes holds art exhibitions.
The yearly Hala February Shopping Festival offers great discounts and sales on many products, and restaurants and malls offer incentives to tie in with the festival. Look out for some very cheap electrical goods.
Things to do
For a country with so much coastline (290kms) in relation to its size, Kuwait has relatively few public beaches and only private hotel beaches and beach clubs have consistently clean sand and shower facilities. It is possible to become a member or take a daily pass to most of the private beaches. Prices start at £340 per year at the Messilah Beach Hotel. Most resorts include water sports as well as gyms and indoor and outdoor swimming pools.
The Swedish-designed Kuwait Towers has become Kuwait’s most photographed building and rightly so. The upper globe houses a two-level observation deck and overlooks the emir’s Sief Palace.
The largest tower’s lower globe has a restaurant, coffee shop and banquet rooms. For the best effect, walk along the Gulf road at night—when the weather is bearable—and stroll from the port to the Towers, breathing in the sea air. Kuwait Towers opening hours are 9am-12am and 4pm-8pm every day except Friday (Tel: 531 7358).
Offering a plethora of treatments and therapies, Elysium Health Spa (Tel: 245 3930, near Souq Sharq) is the best spa in the city and includes a swimming pool, restaurant and sports facilities. Male and female facilities are separate.
Situated opposite the Sief Palace, the quite amazing Grand Mosque was inaugurated by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah on 8th June 1986. The mosque has a main prayer room with a dome that is 85.8 feet in diameter and 141.9 feet high and is decorated with Arabic calligraphy and Isfahan ceramics. The main prayer room can accommodate 5,000 worshippers, with room for an additional 7,000 in the courtyard.
Sadu House (website: www.sadu-house. com) is a museum and cultural foundation dedicated to preserving Bedouin arts and crafts. The house itself is built of gypsum and coral, and there are beautiful decorative carving around the courtyard. It’s also one of the best places in Kuwait to buy Bedouin goods.
The first wall around the city was built in the 1760s, the second in 1814 and the last in 1920. The latter was demolished in 1957 but its five gates were left standing as monuments to the past. These are Maqsab Gate ( by the Seif down from the Sheraton Hotel), Jahra Gate (inside the roundabout at the bottom of Fahd Al-Salem Street), Shamiya Gate (at the start of Riyadh Street), Beraisi Gate (at the end of Mubarak Al-Kabeer Street), and Bneid Al-Qar Gate (in Bneid Al-Qar, in the green belt between Soor Street and the 1st Ring Road).
Located near the National Assembly on the Seif, the National Museum comprises four buildings and a planetarium. It houses the As-Sabah collection, one of the most comprehensive collections of Islamic art in the world. Other buildings house relics, artefacts and archaeological material from deep sea explorations and excavations on Failaka Island.
Excursions
Al-Ahmadi was built to house Kuwait’s oil industry in the ’40s and ’50s, and was named for the then emir, Sheikh Ahmed.
It remains largely the private preserve of the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC). The Oil Display Centre is a small, well-organised introduction to KOC and the oil business. Al-Ahmadi also has a small, pleasant public garden that’s worth a look. It’s about 20kms south of Kuwait City.
Failaka Island is the home of Kuwait’s main archaeological site and is definitely worth a visit, though it requires a bit of extra caution. The Iraqis turned Failaka into a heavily fortified base and filled the area with mines. The island’s history goes back to the bronze-age Dilmun civilisation, which was centred in Bahrain. The Greeks arrived in the 4th century BC in the form of a garrison sent by one of Alexander the Great’s admirals. The Greeks lived on Failaka for two centuries. The centrepiece of the island is its temple. Failaka is about 20kms north-east of Kuwait City’s centre and is well served by ferries, which depart daily from Arabian Gulf Street, just south of the city centre.
Al-Jahra is located 32kms west of Kuwait City. It is where invading troops from Saudi Arabia were defeated (with British help) in 1920. The town’s only conventional site is the Red Fort, a low rectangular mud structure near the highway that played a key role in the 1920 battle. Al-Jahra is also the site of the Gulf War’s infamous ‘turkey shoot’—the Allied destruction of a stalled Iraqi convoy as it attempted to retreat from Kuwait.
Doha Village is the site of several small dhow-building yards and a fishing village of squalid shacks. Buses from Kuwait City make the trip to Doha, 20kms to the north-west.
The Green Island is an artificial island near the Kuwait Water Towers. It’s a nice place to take a walk or spend an evening with the kids. It has an amphitheatre, two restaurants, a viewing tower, a children’s castle and a wide landscape of greenery and flowers. The entry charge is 50p. Camel racing at Al-Atraf Camel Racing Club, Salmi Road, west of Jahra, has made a big come-back in recent years as a spectator sport in Al-Atraf, J’leeb AlShuyoukh and Ahmadi. Up to 60 camels participate in a single race. Main races are up to 6kms long. Most of the races take place on Thursdays or Fridays.