Matt and Lisa's Adventures

27 December 2024

We had a good flight to Doha and it was about an hour shorter than scheduled which was a welcome surprise. I took half a sleeping pill and got about five hours of solid sleep along with a few hours of dozing. This was probably my best economy sleeping experience. I watched Hail Cesar which was an easy watch and Radioactive about Marie Currie which was better than expected. We have flown through Doha several times but never stayed, so it was weird being in Qatar airport and not having an onward flight! Strangely Uber operates in Doha but is not allowed to do airport pickups so we caught a taxi to our hotel. 

The hotel was in the Souk Waqif (the main traditional market of Doha)and the area was amazing. Such a contrast in architecture and feeling from Australia! We had booked the hotel as a package with the flight and it was meant to be a 24 hour booking. However when we arrived at 7am they didn’t have any rooms available. We ended up having a shower in the gym which was a relief even if the water was barely warm. 

We wandered around the market which was very quiet due to the early hour and it being Friday which is a the weekly day of prayer. We had a drink and then met our tour bus for our tour around the city. Our guide was Andrea who was Czech and she was very good. 

• First stop was Katara cultural village. We went through a Roman/Greek amphitheater which was reminiscent of the coliseum. It could seat 5,000 people. It was very hot there (even though it was their winter) and wouldn’t have been usable in the summer. There were pigeon houses, which Lisa did not like especially when I suggested we get one for our backyard. There was a museum about the wooden boats (called “Dhows”) used in Qatar and the pearl diving which was a very important part of the early Qatari economy. We saw 21 High Street which has outdoor air conditioning to keep the temperature at 21 degrees – what a waste of energy!
• We then went to The Pearl which is an artificial island with residential towers. It had high end shops like Rolls Royce and Ferrari along with an amazing marina. Clearly where the rich people lived!
• We then stopped along the Corniche by the Islamic art museum for some photos. It had a great view of the harbour
• Final stop was back at the Souk. We wandered through the different areas including: camel souk, falcon souk, birds/pets and then the general restaurant area. 

It was then time for lunch which turned into a rigmarole as we wanted some familiar food but that was hard to find. We wandered for ages before settling on EL&N (which is a trendy cafe, I had never heard or nor appreciated). I had a Philly cheesesteak wrap that was in no way authentic but it did the job. 

We then went to the National museum of Qatar. This was in an amazingly designed building. Initially we went through a temporary exhibition about Pakistani art which had a few interesting pieces. The main exhibits went through the history of Qatar from the early animals and archeological discoveries through to modern times. It was well done with lots of movies and engaging exhibits. It was pretty light on details around oil. It seemed to jumped from the old economy based around pearls and being a poor country to suddenly being a rich country that wanted to get involved in lots of different aspects. 

We were getting pretty tired by this stage but managed a walk to the park fountain (disappointing), flag parade (which didn’t have a New Zealand flag) and onto the old docks. Lots of people were out and about enjoying the weather which made it feel vibrant and exciting. 

Observations about Qatar

• Population is three million of which about one million live in Doha. However only three hundred thousand are Qatari with the rest being expats. 
• There were lots of stray cats in the souk. They seem to live there and were fed by the locals. They were originally released due to a vermin problem and are highly valued in Islam as Mohammed was a big fan of cats. It was quite surreal coming across them all the time and a little difficult when there was a tiny black kitten that looked like Enid (RIP)
• Getting around in Ubers and taxis was very cheap although the drivers had no interest in chatting. Food did seem to be expensive though. 
• We were told that there was essentially no crime in Qatar. From what we saw everyone was very trusting – shop keepers left their products in the alleyways and one shop keeper went for prayers and just left a chair across the door to indicate it was closed. I can’t imagine anywhere else in the world where people would be so trusting! 
• Service people were very friendly and efficient. We had a lot of help when we arrived at our hotel – our bags were taken everywhere and we even had a ride in the golf cart to get to our eventual hotel. 
• Everything was very clean, no graffiti or rubbish anywhere. We could see people cleaning the walkways in the souk in the morning and were told they did it at least twice a day. 
• We were here in winter when temperatures are quite nice – mid twenties during the day. In summer it can get into the forties and even to 50 degrees. Even at night the temperature rarely gets below 35 degrees. It sounds horrible and clearly not a lot happens in the city during the middle of the day. I would not survive here in summer! 
• There were people here wearing 100 times more clothes than some people on the GC! Despite being reasonably warm nearly everyone was in long pants and we changed from shorts to jeans to fit in. It was a requirement in most places to have “modesty dress” which included having the shoulders and knees covered
• They have “public beaches” but you have to pay to use them and there are not many. It stands in contrast to New Zealand where everywhere is a public beach. 
• The city feels very artificial but nowhere near as extreme as Dubai. I also liked it more than Dubai – easier to get around, efficient service and some interesting things to see. 

One day was a good introduction to Doha, I would have liked to have spent another day here but the flight schedules didn’t enable that.