This bazaar isn’t a highlighted place to visit when one comes to Erbil, but since I am living in Kurdistan on a budget, I love to visit Langa Bazaar to do my shopping. A seemingly endless maze of sights, smells, and sounds that leave one wanting more, Langa Bazaar is one of my favorite places to visit on a hot summer day in Erbil.
Currently, the Iraqi Dinar exchanges for around 125,000 for $100. As an American, I always feel like I have more money than I actually do stuffing the blue, red, and green colorful dinars into my wallet. But even with all of these bills, Erbil is not a cheap place to live. I have often found the prices of many items such as food products and household items in grocery stores and small markets to be hard to stomach at the cash register.
After six months of going to Home Istanbul and Holland Bazaar, I knew there had to be a more efficient, authentic, and cheaper way to do shopping and decorating for a small rented apartment in Erbil. So when I first heard of Langa Bazaar, I immediately put it on my places-to-visit list.
Equipped with a pocket full of dinars and basic Kurdish, I set out for Langa Bazaar with my Iranian girlfriend on a scorching Friday afternoon. As we struggled to find a place to park among the waiting taxis with our little Nissan Sunny, I was anxious to see what was hiding in this famed local bazaar. As I stepped inside, the sounds and smells of the bazaar filled my senses and warmed me with the feeling that I am in a truly local place.
I couldn’t believe how endless it felt as we strolled for hours through the walkways lined with shops selling shoes, clothes, bathroom mats, mirrors, aloe vera, converters for Western electronics, brooms, tools, Tupperware, makeup, spices, rugs, curtains, medicines, and kitchen supplies. The list truly does go on, as a person can spend an entire day wandering, looking, browsing, bargaining, and even arguing with shop owners throughout the endless array of shops that Langa will amaze you with.
One of the things I love about Langa Bazaar is the little rivers of water and trash that split every walkway. A feature unique to the bazaar, these little rivers of flowing garbage and cigarette butts give Langa a distinctive yet homey smell that can only be found while bargaining for the price of your shirt, mirror, or new trashcan. As you pass through, shop owners are yelling their prices in Kurdish or Arabic, or lying down in the middle of their stores for a quick rest during the heat of the day. As you flip through an endless selection of men’s shirts priced at 1,000 dinar each, kids push coolers full of water, soda, and energy drinks advertising their inventory.
Once your hands are full and you can’t carry anymore plates, silverware, and rugs, the delicious sandwich shops are ready to fill your stomach with falafel, chicken, meat, and delicious salads.
A few words of Kurdish go a long way in Langa. Knowing how to say numbers up to 100 and using friendly greetings can turn the price of a pair of jeans into a quarter of what you would pay in Family Mall. Langa Bazaar is a place where you can take 100 dollars and turn it into 500.
The place is teeming with deals, steals, and free gifts such as candies after you make your purchase. Langa is located on 100 Meter Road near the Rizgary Hospital. A true local experience if one ever does visit Erbil, Langa Bazaar holds its own different and unique experiences and encounters for everyone who wanders through its never ending maze of sights, sounds, and stores.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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