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Published: April 2nd 2011
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Photo 2
One of the new hospitals being built. There's not a lot new to report from our end. Weekends here are Friday and Saturdays. Friday is the religious day. Everyone seems to go out late Thursday nights here. Then Fridays, the streets are empty. Many people work 6 days a week, so Saturdays are somewhat in between.
On Friday, we drove west of Doha about 30 km I guess, to where the camel race track is. We were hoping to see some races, but they were not on. We found out when we got home that the races typically happen on Saturdays. The track is very large, with paved roads on the inside and outside of the track. The camels are typically younger/smaller camels, and nowadays are ridden by robots. The camel owner, and robot operator ride on the inside of the track, often hanging out the windows yelling at the camels while they control the robots. Spectators are able to ride buses on the outside of the track and follow the camels around the track...so you always see the action up close. In the past, I was told they used to tie small Indian kids on the backs of the camels. The kids would be scared and
Photo 3
Camels on their way back from training at the race track. cry and scream, scaring the camel to run faster. At some point, after I'm sure countless deaths, they got smart and switched to the robots. Again, we didn't see the races, but from what I've been told, it's quite the scene.
We did see some of the camels being led to and from the track for training. We took some pictures as we drove around the complex. It looked like a big event was soon to take place, as banners were up, flags out, and special areas roped off. Maria got a kick out of seeing Shell sponsoring the upcoming races.
Today (Saturday), the kids stayed with George and Maria - they eventually made their way to the beach where they had a fun day swimming and playing in the sand. It was very hot today - had to be mid 30's Celsius. Maria and I had a driver take us to the Gold Souq. This is an area in Doha that is made up of dozens and dozens of jewelry stores displaying endless pieces of mostly gold, and some silver. Some of the shops are larger, but they mostly are very small - some enough to fit
Photo 4
Maria's company is a sponsor of the upcoming races. maybe one person inside the store. While Maria was inside one store, a man was standing nearby, and we started to talk. He was from Toronto, and is a lawyer, I believe for Transport Canada. He is in Doha to finalize having direct flights from Doha to Montreal that are to take affect in June. Anyone from Canada traveling back and forth will find it much easier with that new flight.
The highlight of the day was leaving the Gold Souq with all the money we started with. I get nervous around gold.
Maria had a couple of places she wanted to see. With a map in hand, we started walking. We found a popular photo op in Doha...a large archway made of two large swords. This is definitely something you don't see back home. From there, she wanted to find an area that had two large anchors on display. We knew the direction we needed to head, and approximately how far we had to go...so off we went on foot. We criss crossed through several side streets to get to our next stop. There are probably very few tourists who walk the area we were in this
Photo 5
More camels coming from the barns to the tracks for training. afternoon, but it was very interesting to see. It wasn't the nicest of areas, and we took some pictures to show, but we never felt unsafe. Sure, we stuck out big time, but we got to see how some of the people really live.
We eventually made our way to the corniche, which is a boardwalk along the sea that runs for several kilometres. We certainly didn't walk the entire thing, but used it to get to a couple of other places on our to-see list. We made a stop at the Museum of Islamic Art. We had included a couple of pictures previous of the outside of the building in a previous blog. The building itself is designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei, famous for his "pyramid" at the Louvre in Paris, France. We are not big museum people, but it was air conditioned and free.
The museum was actually very interesting. You could easily spend a lot of time in there if you had the audio self-tour to explain about the pieces. The collection covers three continents, from Spain to Central Asia and India, with pieces on display from as far back as the 7th Century.
Photo 6
We had to leave our camels at this point to continue. A no camel zone. They had glass pieces still intact! I think the audio tour describes how the images show how different countries influenced certain areas over the centuries. I just walked around looking to find the oldest stuff. It was neat to see things from Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, India and so on from over a thousand years ago in some cases.
At a certain point in the day, we noticed the number of taxis decrease significantly. We realized, on our final ride back, that the World Cup final for Cricket was on. Cricket over here is a BIG deal. On Thursday, people took off work early to watch India and Pakistan play in the semi-final. Today, India and Sir Lanka were playing the Cup final. A good chunk of the taxi drivers were MIA. I read in the paper today, they expect over 1 billion people to be watching the match on tv today. It's interesting how different parts of the world are very sheltered from other parts. In North America, cricket is almost non-existent. Soccer is played in North America, but really not a popular sport to follow at the pro level. Anywhere outside North America, and cricket and football
Photo 7
A man sitting near the Gold Souq. (soccer) is all that is talked about. It is huge. The taxi driver on our way home this afternoon had the cricket match on the radio. It took about 10 minutes for me to realize that was what they were talking about. Part of the broadcast was in English, and part of the broadcast was in another language, and it was confusing to listen to.
We spend at least part of each day at the Hyatt, where the kids get a swim in, we have coffee, and grab a local newspaper. I like how their paper is set up. They have a few pages discussing local news, and then because there are so many people from other countries here, there are a page or two dedicated to different areas of the world. A page on America, a page or two on India/Pakistan, a page on Britain, other parts of Europe etc. There's always lots of news on cricket and football, and even a paragraph or two on hockey!
If I didn't read the paper, I wouldn't know of all the issues going on in countries around Qatar. There are deaths in Iraq, very close to here. A protestor
Photo 8
A public bus station. shot to death in Oman, also nearby. Afghanistan is across the Persian Gulf. Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc, all very close. Yet Qatar just plugs along. They are going to become more prominent in the world news I think. Yes, the 2022 World Cup will help, but they are very active in being "brokers" between the Middle East and the western world. They are heavily involved in bringing order to Libya as an example. The people here seem happy. For the most part, they make good money. From what I see or hear, they have great hospitals, education is very important, and there seems to be work for everyone. I have never seen so much construction in one area in my life. There are cranes everywhere. Every block, there are buildings rising. One of our drives told us that 10 years ago, there was not a downtown...maybe a few small buildings. Now there are dozens of tall buildings, with dozens more being built. I would love to see what this area looks like in another 10 years.
Still on our to-do list is a tour of the north part of Qatar, which we've arranged for Monday. I will be
Photo 9
A cellular repeater tower...run by diesel generators. The man whose responsibility to refill the diesel generators makes a pile of money. playing a round of golf at the Doha Golf Club, host of the Qatar Masters PGA tournament. We also plan on going back to the Souq Waqif.
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