Qatar

---

As I left Barcelona and Europe behind, I began the Asian leg of my trip around the world. I flew into Doha, Qatar at around midnight to a temperature of 37ºC and 75% humidity. I never knew that it could be hot outside at midnight. The airport was nice and air-conditioned, almost too much so. It seems the hotter the climate, the colder they like the air-conditioning. Either that or it's just so bloody hot outside it feels like it's a lot colder. After waiting in line for an hour or so, I finally got into the departure/transfer lounge to wait out my 22 hour layover. After getting a bit of sleep, I decided to pay the $30 visa a fee and explore Doha. I left the airport at 7am, to a warm, but bearable 35ºC. I didn't have a map, but I figured I'd make for the mass of skyscrapers on the other side of the harbour, not too far away. On the way I discovered that there will be eventually a cool looking national museum of qatar, but right now it's a big sand pit. I came across the Islamic Art Museum, but it didn't open until 10:30. I decided to make my way into an older area of the city, where there seemed to be some markets, while I waited for the museum to open. The spices smelt delicious and were pretty cheap. Not quite as many different ones as the spice market in New Delhi, but better than anything you'd find in Europe or North America. With being such a small country and having so much oil money, I figured that cheap local markets would be a thing of the past there; I wasn't expecting to be able to find a middle-eastern market with spices and cheap clothing, with men sporting turbans, and women sporting burkhas so easily. It was later I found out that a massive new airport is being built outside the city, so it'll be much harder soon to get out and walk around for a day, at least not without taking a taxi. Later on when I went into the more modern part of the city, I found the prices I was expecting.

Once the museum opened at 10:30, I wasn't sure what the temperature was, but it was noticeably warmer than earlier, though the humidity was starting to drop. Even so I was good and sweaty by the time I got inside. It was cold, colder than the airport, inside. A nice change to outside at first, but after an hour or two, I was actually starting to shiver. It was probably a combination of wearing a sweaty shirt, and colder than normal air-conditioning, but by the time I was ready to go, I was actually looking forward to getting outside. By 1:00 it was quite warm outside, though it seems that as it gets hotter during the day, the humidity drops. The skyscrapers were getting closer, but not close enough for that heat. I ended up getting a taxi to the massive shopping mall to look for a cookbook, after I read about it in the on-flight magizine. I asked the taxi driver if there was a book store there, and he assured me it had everything.

He wasn't too far off, it was big, not as big as the West Edmonton Mall, but big. It had mostly high-end jewellery stores, clothing stores, electronics stores and a massive supermarket, nothing I really needed. It had an amusement park, and a venetian canal, complete with a few gondolas. The store fronts were made to look like houses, with the ceiling a nice sky-blue with the occasional cloud, so you'd feel like you were outside. It did look pretty cool. I looked all over the index of stores, not a single book store was listed. I asked a security guard about books, the only books they had was a small section in the Virgin mega-store. I hoping to find a nice middle-east cookbook to add to my collection, but being a Virgin mega-store it had the smallest cookbook section I've come across, and of course, no Qatari or Middle-east ones. I was quite disappointed. Leaving the nice air-conditioned mall, it was now hot outside. I waited for a bus, with no idea how long I had to wait in that heat. A van drove up, the guy asked me if I wanted a lift, turns out there are tons of people in Doha who just drive around in their vehicle, with no set rate, but always less than a taxi, just so they can make a few extra bucks. I paid 50 Qatari Riyels to the mall, and got back to the airport for 20. Well worth not having to wait in that heat for a bus. According to his clock, it was 44ºC, but the humidity had dropped a lot from the night before. The driver told me a good bookstore to go to, but as it was Friday and it was the middle-east (their weekend is Friday and Saturday) it was closed. By this time I had had enough of the desert summer heat and went back to the airport and waited for my flight to New Delhi for the last 4 hours. That story will have to wait for the next blog.

---