Whenever you go to Mecca and Medina, one of the souvenirs that people will enquire to you is date. Dates are also the easiest form of souvenir to be distributed; just pack up a bunch in Tupperware per person and voila! There are many kinds; most of the kinds are pretty cheap (SR 15 per kg) be it the normal unpreserved or unprocessed ones or the candied ones. The only quirk is that they can weigh you down and easily end up as the extra kg that you have to fork out SR 60 per kg.
Anyway, these are from my tour to a date plantation in Medina, situated just next to the Quba mosque. The small shop at the plantation sold at least 30 kinds of dates, dried and fresh, and candied dates. Pricing, after comparing to Mecca dates bazaar, do not differ much so might as well get your dates in Mecca dates bazaar if Mecca is your last stop. You can still haggle; language is not a problem as most Arabs can speak Malay / Indonesian (thanks to the fact that they received thousands of pilgrims from these two countries). The trick is to reduce 1/3 of the price and to stare them down, two things that I left to my mom to do since she did most of the shopping. My job most of the time was to watch out for beggars as they really pestered you to your wits end.
Too many dates, can’t remember most of their names. According to our tour guide, there is a kind of date that can be eaten by men alone and vice versa. Something to do with virility =p There are other Middle East food products too like olive oil, dried fruits and nuts sold here.
Candied dates and chocolate dates.
Take a break with Arab tea. Sweet!!!
How the plantation looks like. To me, the date palms resemble oil palm.
A bunch of dates up on the tree.
A little note on beggars: in Medina you won’t see too many beggars on the street, but in Mecca they have conquered the roads to the mosque. They even deploy their children – many with limbs disfigurements – to beg. Some children are bold enough to come up to you singing and hugging, or cling to you as you walk around.
My advice, ironically, is to not give in. Once you give in to one, the others will clamor around you and mark you as a target. They go around absurdly saying "fisabilillah" while holding out their palms. At the end of the day, you can see a long line of them at any food outlet, with at least 5 children hanging around.
They are wary of policemen though; I suspect the policemen hit on them pretty rough because I once saw a beggar kid simply tore off at the sight of a policeman few yards away.
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