Last Updated on May 20, 2020 by PowersToTravel
When we travel, each night I download our photos to our tiny laptop. We select the best of the day and create a photo collage, and email it off to family and friends, and post it on Facebook – kind of like a newfangled postcard.
This means that I have an entire folder of our trip in a nutshell with pictures and text. All that is missing is the sounds and smells – and I often keep a log of those in addition! So, our gift to you is our 3-day Qatar layover in a nutshell, complete with the text we sent home, describing our days.
Day 1 – Arrival on Qatar Airways from Phuket Thailand
Hi!
We are certainly not in SE Asia anymore. After a very noisy 7 hour flight from Phuket, somehow filled with Russians or Ukranians, we arrived in Doha Qatar around noon Qatar time.
I guess tourism is a bit down here, because the hotel offered us a great upgrade to a Jr Suite (pic in collage). We’re right in the souq, with rows of restaurants below us. It’s only 8pm and we’re pooped but we can hear an Arabic singer going at it down the street. It sounds very eerie.
Our room also has a private rooftop terrace, from which Greg took the evening picture of the cityscape. The daytime picture was taken just a block from our hotel, as was the friendly camel. There were actually about 20 camels or so in the “Camel Pen” near the hotel. We’re not sure exactly why they are there, but they certainly looked happy with the 75 degree Fahrenheit weather we had today.
We took a short walk in the souq tonight, through the “bird section” where there were thousands of parakeets, doves and other birds in cages, plus rabbits and dogs as well. I would have included a picture of a rabbit in a skirt, however Greg insisted I include instead the evening picture of the building (which we don’t know anything about yet).
Hotel: Souk Waqif Hotel
Day 2 – Tour to Northern Qatar
Al Khor harbor, Zubara Fort, La Corniche, the Pearl, Falconry Center
Hi,
Qatar is a tiny country, and today we saw the North of Qatar, and it only took us 5 hours, total. We drove north on super highways which had just been constructed, and there were very few cars. We saw an old Fort at Al Zubarah (pic in collage) which was disappointing because it had been completely renovated. Then we went to a point where we could see the sea and mangroves, however nothing but a kayak (not included in our tour) could access the area. We learned that Qatar gets all its water from the sea, and in the desalination process returns the salt to the sea, so it looks VERY salty.
Then we went to a dhow fishing harbor at Al Khor, and fish market (fish market not very active since it was midday). Then they took us back to Doha where we got some good pictures of the skyline, but I didn’t include them because we already did skyline pictures yesterday.
Our guide “Jay” was a Filipino, and our driver was Nepalese. Jay was quite excited that Greg could speak Tagalog with him. We learned about the various minority groups in Qatar and a lot about the Qatari culture. Of course, a Qatari person would never have a job so lowly as to be a tour guide or work with tourists. That’s for foreigners who live in Qatar on work visas.
After the tour company left us, we did more wandering on our own, but this time with some information provided by our guide: We learned that the camels in the “Camel Pen” are the steeds for the Emir’s mounted ceremonial guard. That’s why they looked so well taken care of and happy, when we saw them yesterday.
We stopped by the “Pearl”, one of the symbols of Qatar, for a photo shoot with Greg.
We visited the Emir’s stables, where you can wander the corridors and get to know the horses which the ceremonial guard also use. The horses were particularly uninterested in me, once they determined I brought no goodies for them.
We visited a falconry center, which was really interesting, a large room with many falcons on display, for sale. We saw a Qatari with two small sons selecting and buying a falcon for the ten-year old son. Falconry is a really important sport for the Qataris.
Then we wandered the souk but did not emerge with a carpet, as we did in Fez, Morocco, several years ago. We didn’t even buy a frig magnet because we saw them in only two stalls, and the owners wouldn’t even bargain with us. We’ll probably go back tomorrow and just buy one.
Tour: North of Qatar Tour by Qatar International Adventures
Day 3 – Visiting downtown on our own
Mseireib Museum, Al Koot Fort, Corniche and the Pearl Monument, the Sheraton Hotel, “The Pearl” area, Souk Waqif
Hi!
Today was our final day of vacation, before getting on the big bird home.
We did our own wandering around Doha with the help of some taxi drivers. We strolled by the “Al Khoot” fort (couldn’t go inside), and then went to the Msheireb Museums. Msheireb is actually four museums in one, and was highly recommended by our guide yesterday so we gave them a try. They were splendid! Sadly, during our several hour visit we saw only one other small group of visitors. We were warmly greeted by hosts at each museum, and someone rather managerial looking, in the white robes, also found us and greeted us and asked us where we are from, etc. It is so sad that there are no tourists here now because Doha is a wonderful place to visit.
The four museums covered four topics – Slavery in the Gulf region, the history of Oil exploration in Qatar, a traditional Qatari home, and we hate to admit we didn’t go to the fourth museum as we got museum’d out. Each museum was very well presented with lots of short AV shows, and there was a special presentation of DNA and the history of life, with lots of hands-on displays to interact with.
After all that, we took a taxi to the downtown, financial district where we took nice pics of the buildings. It was so surprising to see all these buildings and so very few people. I expected a busy bustling city and it looked like a ghost town. We struggled to find a restaurant for lunch, and finally ended up in a “Quick Bites” at the Marriott Hotel where we had a very bad lunch for a very high price.
Then we took a taxi to “The Pearl”, that man-made island where so many luxury condos and shops are located. We dropped by the Rolls Royce dealership because Greg wanted his pic next to one, and they wouldn’t let us take a picture. We wandered around a while, looking for good pictures, but it was frustrating because there were no maps and long distances to walk, with really dull shops (dull for us!)
Finally we took a taxi home to the Souq, and took a nap.
We took a final wander around the souq, (bought more stuff), and packed the suitcases.
It’s time to go to bed.
