Doha

Doha, Qatar

If you are taking a long haul flight out of Madrid, the airport is one of the most difficult to navigate that I've ever seen. The new terminal 4 (new to me, at any rate) requires you to check in in the North section and depart from the South, which is connected by a train three levels down.  From the time you clear immigration and passport control, you still have an 18-minute journey ahead of you on escalators and trains.  It is very inconvenient.  We had used all of our points to fly business class on Qatar from Madrid to Doha and continuing on to South Africa and then finally back to Dulles next month. Our plane for this flight was a relatively new Boeing 787 and the seating was 1-2-1 so Cindy and I opted for two window seats, one in front of the other. The service was very nice but certainly not on the same level of excellence as Singapore or Emirates or Etihad. They had great wines but served them all at the same temperature, warm, which was okay for the reds but horrible for the Champagnes and whites. Promises of a quick chill never panned out so we reverted to using ice in the glass, which is a real shame with such wonderful wines.

Upon arrival in Qatar at 6 pm we had the privilege of paying $35 each for a visa, and then took a taxi to our hotel, the Marriott Marquis. This is a classy hotel with great rooms and a lovely lounge for breakfast, snacks and canapés, and cocktails. We arrived in time for the last half hour of cocktails and had a drink and 'tapa' in a very, very crowded room.  We went down to look at the restaurants and decided on the Italian one called Cucina for a small meal since we had eaten well on the plane. It was a good thing we had, since the prices nearly knocked us off our chairs. I suppose we had been lulled into a false sense of modest prices during our ten days in Spain but this was a real shocker.  A glass of very average white wine cost $15, instead of the $2.25 in Spain. My small but tasty bowl of pasta aioli was $13 and Cindy's small eggplant dish was $10.  Needless to say, we were not happy that we had this to look forward to for four days!

The next morning we woke up late and when we opened the curtains we were amazed at how much Doha had grown since our last visit in 2009. There are high rise buildings everywhere and they are all interesting from an architectural point of view. However, it is still Qatar and it is grey, dusty and hot. The city seems to be in a constant state of imminent sandstorm; it just depends on the strength and direction of the wind. It is a country where you can only drink in hotels, not in any of the scores of malls with their hundreds of restaurants. It is ruled by one family and thus those members of the royal family can do what they wish whenever they wish to do it with no fear of penalty.  For instance, it appears that the royal brats like big motorcycles and on the weekends, Thursday through Sunday, they race them on the main streets of Doha from dusk 'til dawn.  We are on the 36th floor and could hear them all Thursday night. When I asked about this I was told that all of the hotels have complained about the noise, not to mention the danger, but nothing is done about it.  When the main component of the tourist industry complains about the same thing and nothing is done, it is because the authorities do not want to do anything about it!

We cannot enjoy our usual long walks here, it's too hot, dusty and dirty. Instead we go to the torture room and use the inquisition machines, me a treadmill and Cindy on the elliptical. After that we clean up for breakfast, having made the mistake of going into the club in shorts the first morning. While it appears men can wear shorts, women cannot since it offends the local Muslim men. We forgot how much we really don't like this area of the world but thought we were going to be meeting friends here and when that didn't work out, we already had plans that could not be changed. 

We have become Mall Rats in that we take several walks each day and we have seen some very interesting things in the Mall. On Thursday afternoon, the start of the Qatar weekend, the mall was filled with BLIPs (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indian, Philippine) workers who were standing in long lines at all the ATM machines to take out the money that had been deposited in their accounts by their employers.  They then headed to the large Carrefour Supermarket for their food needs.  The market is similar to the one I shopped in while living in Bahrain and I just had to take a look. I can assure you that the carrots from Australia are still the best looking in the whole world.

 At best this is a stop for us to recharge, at worst it is a place that reminds me never to come again.  We have another crack of dawn start on Sunday, having to leave the hotel at six in the morning for our 8:20 flight to Johannesburg and then connecting to Cape Town and arriving at 8 pm.  It will be a long day, but this is the trip we really planned and it will be lovely I'm sure.