The menu bar in Safari has a Bookmarks button that you can use to access all of your bookmarks. It does not, however, list your bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar folder underneath the address bar like Safari on the desktop.

In Safari for iPad the content of the Bookmarks Bar folder is displayed (1) whenever you tap in the URL or Search fields (2).

You can use the Bookmarks Bar to quickly access your favorite sites. This screen shot shows a list of bookmarks that have been organized in a My Sites folder.

The items you see in the Bookmarks Bar are the items contained in the Bookmarks Bar folder in the Bookmarks button.

Here you can see the My Sites folder that I clicked on in the previous step.

If I tap on the My Sites folder I can see the list of bookmarks in the folder.