Qatar Interlude

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I've thought for years that airline stewardesses get a rough deal on looking good. The uniforms are reasonable except for KLM whose shade of blue suits nobody, but often the hats are ridiculous. For example, Servisair in the UK used to give it's check-in girls these awful boaters with a wide-brim; they looked like gauche public school girls - "I say, do you play Lacrosse?". I seem to recall BA had a corker some years back, a variation on a bowler hat I think, which has thankfully disappeared now. Anyway, I can't remember which airport I was in but a couple of years ago I saw some Emirates stewardesses and couldn't stop looking at them. The hat is an ordinary pillbox affair, but the scarf doubles as a veil and loops upwards over one ear and finishes inside the hat - the whole effect is so unusual its gone all the way past 'outlandish' and re-emerged on the other side as quite chic. I've decided I'm quite a fan.

So I was quite pleased to be getting flights into and out of Qatar with Emirates and Etihad. Suave hats and asymmetrical veils all round and both airlines have a camera in the nose of the plane they feed through to your TV so you can play pilot during take-off and landing ("Vee-one....... Vee-two... there we go...."). The seat upholstery is all pale sandy colours but I'm marking Etihad down just a touch as their dimmed cabin lights cycle through colour changes during the ascent - I think colour changing lights are are starting to get a little overdone now.

I stayed with Gary and Liz, who are into cheese. You can tell people are into cheese when you open the fridge door and they've got that translucent orange one. Mimolette, I think it's called, it's hard like Parmesan but doesn't smell of feet quite so much. Spending time with my friends along the way is R&R time. Friends have computers at home I feel safe to use for my most personal stuff, so it's online banking to make sure the accounts are okay, that I have enough money to last until my planned return home, and I check no-one's managed to get my credit card details. I use the washing machine - I do wash clothes on the road by the way, I'm not smelling my way around the world. But I get to hang it all out without fear of it getting nicked, that's the bit I enjoy. Also I copy photographs to their hard-drive. I'm carrying a 4Mb card inside the camera, and a portable 120Gb disc which I intermittently fill to clear the card, but if I lose my luggage at any point, I lose the photos too. So I copy everything over as a precaution and they will delete it after I get home safely. And of course I spent (too much) time on the previous Vietnam entry.

They took me to a fantastic Moroccan restaurant called Tajine in the (not so) old Souq where I got the best cinnamon lamb I've ever eaten. I'm convinced that Cinnamon has more uses than just sweet stuff like danish pastries and cheesecake. It's good in savoury cooking too but every time I go to an Middle-Eastern restaurant or try a recipie from a book there's never enough cinnamon in it and you can't taste it's there. Not so at Tajine, and on the way back to the car we passed "The Best Cinnamon Rolls in the World" bakery and of course you couldn't stop me from going in to get tomorrow's breakfast.

Also ate at a Lebanese place called Assaha, had a look around a couple of the new apartment/marina/shopping developments. Like much of the rest of Doha they're full of cranes and building work. They all had and prestige shops too: a Maserati and Ferrari dealership for one, with a sign announcing a Rolls Royce coming soon.

And unfortunately, I can't say a lot else. I didn't go out too much because I spent a lot of time in the house. I was only there for 4 days so what little sightseeing I did was nice, but there wasn't that much of it, and all too quickly it was time to pack again and catch my next plane. I'll be back soon with the next update.

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Photos

Doha 'The Pearl' Development
Most of Doha is like this, new 'prestige' skyscrapers and apartment high-rises all trying to outdo each other. Cranes all over the skyline, and down at ground level there's traffic cones and concrete dust everywhere.

Old Souq market stalls
The 'old' souq isn't actually that old, it's a complete re-build, but it follows the old layout so it's a re-construction, rather than a fake. And it was never that busy whenever we walked along, so I couldn't get any fantastic pictures of the market action.

Comments

[Walshy]

Hoots mon!
Hi there Mart! Can't believe you are still at it!! You still having fun too by the looks of it! Mind you don't get sold for a few camels out there! Have a safe trip and look forward to the next installment! x

[Cinnamon O'M]

so true....
Couldnt help but smile at the cinnamon section..... :o) welcome home M - I will miss reading about your travels though! oh - http://www.gaumarjos.co.uk/ - tried an tested website for wines (hic)