After a solid week of football, this weekend was to have been our break from the game. We’d booked a side trip for a couple of days in Muscat the capital of Oman a couple hours flight south of here. The more I read about Oman the more I was looking forward to that part of the trip. Fascinating country. But…..then Qatar changed their COVID rules to require that fans be tested before entering the country and we didn’t want to risk being stranded in Oman and so we cancelled. It didn’t matter that Qatar flip flopped and finally didn’t require a COVID test. The damage was done and so our trip to Oman didn’t happen. So…..
For the last 24 hrs we’ve played tourist in Qatar and gone done some sight seeing.
The Souq Waqif was a bizarre bazar. We’d like to believe it’s ancient facade had been here hundreds of years. Maybe there were a couple of rug stalls here back in the day, but in reality I think this was only built recently for the World Cup show.
Still: Jimmy of Arabia cut quite the style with his trusty companion Dave
Camels and dosa completed the tourist experience
But you’re never far from the football. The Argentinians dominated the Souq and we finally found the ubiquitous ‘Tic at the World Cup. Ran into a crowd of my people in the metro line – Senegal! I made the mistake of telling them I was supporting them and spent the next 20 mins fending off their insistent attempts to sell me Senegal stuff. Lol!!!
Today we rented a car and ventured out of the city for the first time. Nadine, our delightful apartment manager, from Chennai, India has just been so helpful!
Qatar of course is a tiny country so our tour only took about four hours! And in all honesty there’s not much to see! Qatar is a big dusty desert!
First stop was Al Gharaya beach. Nadine had originally suggested we reserve a sunset desert tour with our own tent and cook out. Very romantic! But while I like Dave a lot – we politely declined. As it turned out the beach wasn’t very romantic anyway: almost deserted, very “rubbly” and set in the shadow of an abandoned, half built resort hotel. The only people in the water were a group of Arab women dressed in full body niqab. Unusual to our eyes but they seemed very relaxed and happy. We did wonder why they hadn’t gone to the “women only” beach which we’d seen signpost on the way in. We kept a discrete distance but dipped our toes in the Persian Gulf anyway, realizing that, about 100 miles or so over the horizon was the coast of Iran. Interesting part of the world!
Another 1/2 hr round the coast is Al Zubaraj fort. A world heritage site. The area around it was the site of a pearl fishing industry going back hundreds of years. The fort itself wasn’t so old and has recently been restored – I suspect as part of the World Cup “show”. It’s the closest Qatar had to history! But that said, it certainly gave you a little bit of a feel for the region,
And back to Doha. To be honest not really worth leaving the city but it was nice to get a change of scenery. Qatar is Doha and Doha is Qatar. Modern vibrant city. Hard to believe most of what you see here didn’t exist just 30 years ago! My overriding question about this place – how did they get to be so wealthy?!?!? (well we know how – gas – perhaps the better question is why?)
What! Scotland Qualified!!! 