Douala through a Shopper’s Eye

Had we been talking about adventurous endeavours or wildlife exploration or let’s say, a hike to its peaks or any other outdoor adventure for that matter, it would have been very easy to spot a connection with Douala, the capital city of Cameroon. But as we’re gauging this otherwise marvellous African city for its shopping potential at the moment, it won’t be surprising to see a few raised eyebrows or blinking alerts for a doubt. Shopping in Douala? Does not sound attractive, right? Well, owing to the city’s far-reaching popularity for specializing in adventure and site seeing opportunities along with a fabulous blend of sparkling nightlife and amazing restaurants, its evenhanded potential for shopping activities is naturally overshadowed. However, if you’re a die heart shopping fan and are planning to book cheap flights to Douala, the city certainly has enough capacity to let you tag along bags full of goodies on your way back home. Let’s have a brief look what Douala can offer you in the sphere of shopping.

A typical scene at one of Douala’s famous market areas would make you feel like you’ll have to jump in a pool of people to fetch out great things; just like the case with shopping areas in big cities. However, soon after you would realize it was totally worth taking the risk, for Douala has a complete variety of what can make a wonderful shopping experience.

Ranging from imported foreign goods to the daily-life local brands and from those hi-fi international big names to the locally produced African style tags, Douala’s markets have almost anything a visitor could look to shop for. However, the most famous bargain amongst Douala’s shopping ventures is its locally crafted Handicraft items. Amongst the most cherished of the traditional handicrafts showcased in Douala are the fancily decorated pots and other lavishly designed pottery items, adorned cutlery ranges, fine quality earthenware bowls and astoundingly beautiful designs of rugs and fancy furnishing items.

Such items and a whole bigger collection of heart winning shopping delights are displayed on reasonable prices, provided you shop shrewdly,  at the tourist and craft markets found in large towns and city areas. The city area is precisely the best one selling souvenirs. Rest of the corners of the city provides handsome opportunities for fresh eateries, cheap clothes and accessories and household essentials.

However, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind before setting out feet for a shopping hunt. Firstly, it’s preferable not to carry along expensive accessories such as mobiles, cameras, iPods and laptops etc to the market area, for most of the African cities are notorious for incidences of theft.

Furthermore, while shopping one always has to stay vigilant and wary of pick-pocketers. Another thing to keep in mind, should you want to shop for antiques is that while many stallholders and shopkeepers would claim a certain distraught item to be antique, they actually aren’t! In Douala, Special permission is required from the Delegation Provinciale de Tourisme if one wants to take original and genuine antiques from the country.

For the best shopping experience in Douala visit the following areas; Marché Congo for cheap clothing, Marché Eko for fashion accessories and Score a western style supermarket.