QATAR: Camels and Souqs (markets) in the Dollhouse city of Doha

Doha, Qatar… an ultra-modern city erected - from nothing but flat desert sands - by sheer will and a tremendous amount of money. It’s a city without much history or depth.  Doha feels like the MGM movie scene setting… impressive when you look at it but - if you peak around the front – you discover it’s just a pretty façade with nothing of substance behind.

We arrived in Qatar mid-afternoon and – even though Bill opened the Qatar leg at 3 PM – we opted to not leave the hotel that day.  Jordan got very sick on the plane (with roasting fever) so I had the hotel put a cot in my room and put Jordan straight to bed.  I had to wake him several times over the course of the evening and night to give him medicine or have him take a warm bath to control the fever (which came and went and came again ... over and over).  Finally, the next morning – after 14 hours of sleep – he woke up feeling great.  I’m not sure what ailed him to begin with but I’m just so happy it passed.

Saturday morning we headed out to see everything we could of Qatar in one day. Clothing has obviously changed completed. Gone are the beautiful saris. Here only women’s eyes are on display. 

And sometimes not even that. 

Let's be clear: if black is not your color, this is not the country for you.
The men clearly got the better end of this fashion stick with comfortable, thin, white (as opposed to hot black) gowns.  

 Our first expedition was to the Inland Sea (literally a sea or lake-like body of water inland and South of Doha).  Saudi Arabia is on the other side of the water.

To get there we had to go over sand dunes in 4 wheel vehicles and “dune dash” which means that our jeep would come to the edge of a dune cliff and then just slide right over the edge – almost sideways. It was like a scary roller coaster ride. The teens loved it. I was hanging on for dear life: convinced we'd be upside down any moment. 

The drivers actually took air out of their tires before entering the dunes so the tires would grip the sand better. There are stations to replace the air once you leave the Inland Sea. 

Along the way we stopped to ride camels.  After all, one of the recurring challenges to is to ride a Four-Legged-Beastie. So, having done elephants, we now tried our hand at camels.

Here’s Erik Walker: the camel whisperer

Next stop: Souq Waqif (the large market in the center of Doha). 

It is supremely clean (a shock after Nepal) and divided into sections.  Bill loaded us up with things to do at the Souq so we spent much of the afternoon there wandering around. I loved the spice section. 

And the bird section where they were selling brightly colored chicks.

But the most interesting parts of the market:  The Falcon Souq.

Falcon hunting is a popular  – and very expensive – sport in the Middle East.   The birds can cost up to $250,000 and they travel to international competitions in their own plane seat with their handler sitting beside them.  The airline covers the seat with a plastic cloth and installs a wooden bar across the seat handles. The falcon sits there (outside of a cage) free and wearing a hood to blind it so it does not just fly around in the plane. 

Competitive falcons even have their own passport.  And if they get sick… they go to the Falcon Hospital which is far nicer, fancier and better equipped than any human clinic we’ve seen anywhere in SouthEast Asia.  

It’s certainly 16 rungs above the hospital Savannah had to go to during the India rickshaw race in January. At the hospital, the birds can be operated on or have X-Rays

There is a full lab so the birds can have complete and comprehensive blood analysis 

And the bird pharmacy has literally dozens and dozens of different medications.

We also visited the Grand Mosque which was a rude awakening to the second class citizenship of Muslim women.

Women cannot enter through the front door: our entrance is on the side and towards the back.  Women cannot pray in the main prayer hall: our prayer area is on a balcony above the men’s area where you can peek through the holes in the wood and watch the men below.

Women cannot even wash their hands at the same ablution sinks as men.

I felt my inner “I am Woman, Hear me Roar” yelling for an audience even though I recognize that this is their culture and beliefs.

We had to eat a McArabia at McDonald’s (a shawarma type chicken wrap). 

What was clear is that fast food (including all of the saturated fat issues of such food) plagues Qatar the same as it does the U.S. The place was packed. 

A scavenge was to try “Hubbly Bubbly” or flavored tobacco from a water pipe. Jordan’s experience was obviously far better than mine or he was faking better in order to look cool:  

And one of the last scavenges of the night… a sunset boat ride along the Corniche or Doha boardwalk in a Dhow.  Doha is built on a curved bay so the skyline is beautiful from the water. We got to see the lights as they came on after dark to highlight the buildings. 

My two favorites on the skyline: the building that appears to be wearing a tea cozy of lace

And the blue criss-cross building (Isn't this a great photo from Rainey? With the blue building and the tea cozy building reflecting in the highrise to the left).

What’s weird?  Most of these buildings are totally empty.  The Qatar Emir is determined to have a skyline that rivals (or beats) other major cities so dozens of skyscrapers were erected in the past decade.  He’s achieved his goal of a cool photo op but the available office space far outpaces the need. It gives Doha the aura of a dolls house or a façade… elegant to look at but nothing of substance underneath. Let’s hope the adage is correct: “if you build it, they will come.”

I loved this food booth in the market…. It obviously sells poultry but the smell of the food was – in fact – “foul.”

 And a great photo of Booth with his “gear.”  

He’s got hand sanitizer, a hat, a camera, 2 heavy duty clips and his passport and money close at hand plus a backpack with rain jackets and flashlights etc. on his back. No-one can ever accuse Booth of not being a boy scout: always prepared. Thank Goodness. Because I can then carry very little.

We now start the European Leg of the trip.  This leg is a Par 5 and is the hardest part since you have to travel with your luggage every step of the way. Luckily I did good this year and did NOT pack a lot.  My suitcase is small and very manageable. I suspect the competitors with large bags will be cursing every extra pound over the next 5 days. We may be out of contact for a few days as we travel along but I’ll post again as soon as I can.