Doha, Qatar

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My brother David and his wife have been living in Doha for 2 years on a development called The Pearl which has a harbour full of magnificent boats and great views to the city. It is very peaceful as not many of the apartments in the 31 blocks seem to be occupied and therefore neither are the shops but those that are are very up market, including a Steinway piano shop.

David took Sian and I on a walk around The Pearl and then a driving tour of Doha (at 15p a litre no one worries about fuel consumption here and David has a huge 4 litre Toyota). Big and expensive cars are the order of the day seen cruising and racing about. Doha is one massive building site of both residential, retail and office accommodation. They are also busy building roads and planning a metro, not to mention preparations for the football world cup in 2022. We visited a development on the beach which looked like a film set for Venice (Qanat Quarter) - Venice because of the design and a film set because it was deserted - very few residences occupied.

One of the highlights of our driving tour was a trip to the camel racing track where although there was no racing going on we were there at the right time to see hundreds of camels being exercised/trained. The jockeys were in charge of several camels each and some took photos of us and most waved and called cheerily to us as they passed - we think it was a novelty for them to have an audience. It was amazing to watch them thunder past, necks extended, lips flapping as they sprinted the final straight in front of the grandstand.

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