A STOPOVER IN DOHA, QATAR

We flew to Ukraine with Qatar Airways who use Doha, Qatar as their hub. They offer one free nights accommodation in a 5 star hotel in Doha, with the option of a second night for $100 US, so we decided to break the trip and spend two nights there. The night prior to the flight Elizabeth had a brainwave and suggested we upgrade our flight from Sydney to Doha to business class. This made for a very comfortable and pleasant flight with both of us sleeping for a large percentage of the time. Their business class is amazing! It has a separate bar area where you can lounge with drinks and snacks, very civilised! Walking out of the airport into the Doha humidity was not fun but was expected. We picked up our hire car and headed for our 5 star accommodation knowing that this will be the last time we get to treat ourselves this way for sometime.

Disaster Strikes !!

OK I exaggerate a little but we did run into some car trouble. We decided to go for a drive to take a look at Al Zubara Fort. This restored fort and its surrounding 60-hectare archaeological site is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is apparently one of the most extensive and best preserved examples of an 18th–19th century settlement in the region. It covers the remains of a walled coastal town that once ranked as one of the Gulf’s most important pearl diving and trading centres with links extending to the Indian Ocean.

After the fort, we continued to the top of Qatar and had lunch on the side of the road near a very old, run down village. As we started to make our way back to the city the car started to make a loud and then very loud screeching sound. We stopped and did what most people would do – opened the bonnet and had a look around, with no real idea what we were looking for! Seeing nothing amiss, we decided to keep going and just drive a little slower. We did not get very far. After about 500 m the noise stopped and within another 500 m the temperature gauge was sitting on maximum, not a good thing, that much we knew! A second inspection clearly showed that the fan belt had snapped. Oops!!

So we pulled over under the shade of an overpass, which we were very grateful for as the outside temperature was 40 deg C and very very humid. We tried to call the hire car company but we had not bothered to get a local SIM card for a two day visit and our Australian SIM was not getting a signal. Thankfully, we quite quickly managed to flag down a passing motorist and luckily one them spoke enough English to help us out. They called the hire company who told us to just leave the car there with the keys under the mat and that they would deliver another car to our hotel. They then kindly took us the 50 km back to our hotel. The kindness of total strangers has started already.

Souq Waqif is a traditional Bedouin market that has been in the same location for centuries. It sells spices, vegetables, perfume, tools, clothes etc and has numerous restaurants. The part that was fascinating to us was the Falcon Souq, where they sell falcons. Apparently these birds can be very expensive and are a somewhat of a status symbol. The souq had heaps of birds for sale as well as all the accessories required. All the birds wore hoods as they say that the first person a falcon sees will be their master. There is even a falcon hospital in the area. 

Was it worth the stop? Yes. Two days were plenty as there is not a lot to see there, but it did give us a feel for what a middle eastern country is like and it certainly broke up the inevitable, horrendously long trip from Australia to Europe!