Doha experience

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My trip has started!!! As per normal, the last days were mad, and particularly leaving work happened in quite a rush. Goodbyes with all my lovely friends and colleagues were quite hard must say - you really made me feel special during those last London days.

I arrived in Doha, Qatar, at 6 yesterday morning. My friend Pia lives here so I'm staying here for a couple of days with her. I took a taxi from the airport - with no exact address as it 'just does not work that way in Doha' - and it took a little while to find the place. More precisely, after the taxi had taken me around the supposedly right block for a quite a few times i was left standing in the street corner hoping that Pia would find me.

It is pretty different here... I have never seen so many empty buildings or ones under construction. There are cranes everywhere and most of the houses look like no-one lives in them. Looks a bit ghostly. And it is all new - Pia showed me 'the old town' where the buildings date back to the seventies.

After a sightseeing tour that took some 20 minutes (by car as you don't walk absolutely anywhere here, lesson learnt in that street corner in the morning) we went to a mall, bought some lunch, and went on a beach. It is Pia's gym's beach and quite posh and also quite expensive. But so worth it. What a fantastic feeling to lie there on the beach chair, in temperature of some 25 degrees, and realise this is the FIRST day of the trip - and the new era in life - and there is quite a few wonderful days still coming up.

In the evening we went for dinner with a bunch of Pia's friends and colleagues. Being an expat you apparently eat and drink mostly in the big international five stars hotel here. We had drinks on the top floor bar of Ramada hotel followed by a very nice meal in the 'secret French' place that really had very exclusive feel in it. The night wouldn't have been perfect without a visit to a tacky bar with a Philippino band playing cover songs.

Today, Pia needed to work and had kindly organised me to go to the camel races with her other friends. Quite excitedly we drove to the desert and saw lots and lots of camels with riders, but unfortunately we missed the actual races, even if we were there early in the morning. However, we managed to witness the latest trend of the camel racing: the jockeys (who traditionally are very small boys) have sometimes been replaced with robots... There are sports you didn't know existed. Afterwards were drove for a long while in the desert, crossed the enite Qatar (which is not a big country) and tried to find a beach. We did find a beach but it was not too pleasant - saw quite a few dead fish amongst others.

Now I'm back in Doha - ears and eyes full of fine sand - and just about to go for a lunch.

P.S. Mukavaa syntymapaivaa, Iris!

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Photos

Finally on the road
Me and my far too heavy backpack

Financial centre
Under construction

Dirty beach
We drove all through the desert to find a dirty beach - and dead fish

Comments

[Jaana]

Vau!
Kuulostaa ihmeelliseltä, että sä olet siellä! Kuten kuulitkin varmaan, olimme meidän jengillä koolla eilen ja juhlittiin sun matkan alkua. Tuskin maltan odottaa, että nähdään ne kaikki kuvat, joita toivottavasti otat. Voi hyvin, täällä seurataan!

[Karoliina]

Kuvien kanssa ongelmia
Ma sain kuin sainkin tosi fantsun kamerakannykan laksiaislahjaksi mutta en ole tassa hassakassa ehtinyt viela perehtya kuinka siita sais kuvat tanne nettiin. Eli ongelmat on ennen kaikkea kiinni siita, etta mulla on aina noin 20 minuuttia nettiaikaa enka ole edes ryhtynyt yrittamaan.... Mut kun tasta paasen asettumaan aloilleni, niin ehka sitten saadaan niita kuviakin.