Doha, Qatar: Back to the Middle East

The trip from Cape Town to Vancouver is a long one – maybe the longest one. As a favour to both my back and sanity, and never one to turn down an opportunity to explore, I decided to break it up with a stopover in Doha. It’s not as if one heads to Qatar for vacation, you know?

Qatar is in the Middle-East, beside Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Of course it’s mostly desert – but the ugly brown kind, not photogenic rolling dunes. As with Dubai, Doha, the capital, suddenly appears mirage like in an endless sea of brown and industry (oil, I assume). It’s quite a sterile city – the downtown core is one big construction zone. Very few pedestrians are found, just uniformed construction workers. Even more interesting, 80% of the population is immigrant labour from the Philippines, India, Pakistan…so you don’t actually see all that many Qataris. Which is a shame because I love (*blush*) seeing Arab men in their white robes and headdress. Like Rio, Doha has both a World Cup and Olympics looming in its near future. As such they appear to be constructing an entirely new city. From scratch. There are a few ‘older’ neighbourhoods, slowly being demolished to make way for a vast maze of space age skyscrapers, 90% of which are under construction and therefore empty. There are, no surprise, lots of shopping malls – though they lack that certain ‘extra’ of their Dubai counterparts, ie no indoor ski slopes…how lame.

While it lacks the exotic je ne said quoi that makes much of the Middle East so alluring (at least to me) – no matter how you feel about their politics…and their politics of gender – it is still a perfectly pleasant city. Like a smaller, more provincial Dubai, albeit with the traffic jams of its bigger counterpart. There’s no doubt of the ridiculous wealth in this country, but it lacks the utter ostentation that makes Dubai such a guilty pleasure. Anyway, the climate is perfect and it sits on the azure waters of the Gulf. In fact, they really tempt you to jump in…until you see the beach. While having to pay a cover charge to go to the sand is annoying, more so is the dress code. Mandatory black burqas really detract from the beach going experience.

The gulf is lined by a multi kilometre seawall known as the Corniche and, as I said, there are a couple of nice but completely deserted beaches along the route. The harbor, which dominates the city, is filled with old dhows; one side offers a panorama of the futuristic core, the other of the older city and the IM Pei designed Islamic Museum of Art. But mostly what you see is various construction workers and work zones. Among the few noteworthy tourist sites is the Katara Cultural Centre looks like a Disney-fied, squeaky clean interpretation of Middle Eastern life, complete with trendy cupcake bakeries - though I won’t knock the red velvet ice cream sandwich I ate there! The food was very, very good. There’s also the Souq Waqif, a bustling market place from which the Qatar Mosque, which resembles a snail, rises. The Pearl is a man-made island covered in semi constructed luxury condo towers and a few designer boutiques. There appears to be an underlying pearl theme running throughout the city, ie pearl statues, street art and this island. My favourite, besides wandering the streets, was the IM Pei designed Museum of Islamic Art. It’s a nice building, definitely, but what really impresses is their vast collection of ancient artefacts spanning from Turkey eastwards. The jewels of the sultans, old books, paintings, pottery, paintings, weapons. Well worth a visit, and it doesn’t cost a thing. And, because I love Middle Eastern food, I of course sampled at the restaurant. Really, really good! Oh how I’ve missed pistachio flavor.

All in all, the city feels a bit soulless, a bit sterile – though I imagine it isn’t a bad place to live. There is chaos. but it takes the form of construction, not the melee of hawkers and hustlers that make the Middle East what it is – what either makes you fall in love or despise it. Don’t worry, there’s still scammers, especially the taxi drivers – know your stuff before you go and don’t let them push you around.  I would consider Doha a day or two well spent, but beyond that…maybe check back in ten years.