Qatar - The Desert and the Opulence

Doha skyline from the Museum of Islamic Art.

Qatar gave visa-free access to Indians following the blockade from their GCC neighbours. This made it the only visa-free country for Indians in the Middle East. And Qatar is not UAE. It's way more conservative and far less touristy. Much like any other Gulf nation, it's filled with Indian immigrants, particularly from Kerala. Doha is a mid-size city with a beautiful skyline and a couple of interesting places to check out. And as with any other oil-rich nations, they have enough wealth to build 7 air conditioned soccer stadiums for FIFA 2022. We decided to freak out on this weekend trip. We had all private tours and accommodation in Hilton Doha. There's little that one can do without private tours as the country has little to no public transport and there's no other way to dune bash.

Zekreet, western Qatar.

Richard Serra sculpture with a Toyota Land Cruiser next to it for scale.

The Arabian Oryx.

We flew into Doha by IndiGo via Chennai at around 2AM. The immigration took time in Doha and we were out of the airport in 1.5 hrs. Hilton sent a driver to pick us up at the airport. As soon as we arrived, we were allotted a room on the 20th floor which had a partial sea and city view. The Pearl Qatar was clearly visible from the room. We hit the bed for a good 5 hours of sleep. Waking up at 9AM, we had a solid continental breakfast in Hilton's Mawasem restaurant. Our vehicle for our first tour arrived on time at 10:30. This was a tour of western Qatar, right up to the west coast. The highlights of the tour were the rock formations of Zekreet, the film city and the Oryx reserve. Zekreet is a unique place which has limestone sticking out of the earth. This limestone was shaped intricately by the elements across the centuries. This provides a very unique landscape, and given the fact that this less touristy, we were the only people on this vast alien landscape. The film city is a setting which looks like a traditional Bedouin nomadic settlement. It's directly facing the protected reserve which has several wild animals and so is currently used to house the forest department authorities. We saw wild Arabian ostriches in the reserve opposite to the film city. The oryx reserve was created to preserve the endangered Arabian Oryx and to prevent it from going extinct. The oryxes are cared for in a farm before being trained for the wild and being let out. Zekreet also has Richard Serra's abstract art. These are 4 gigantic steel rectangles in the middle of the landscape. One meaning behind it could be to include some perfect shape in a landscape which otherwise has only irregular shapes formed by eroding limestone.

An ornate cenotaph. Museum of Islamic Art.

Turkish warrior from the Ottoman empire.

Trying out the thobe in Souk Wakif.

The driver dropped us at Villagio mall, which is a European themed mall in central Doha. This mall has a theme park called Gondolania, which is modelled after Venice, complete with gondola rides through canals in the mall. The entire mall has a sky-themed roof and is completely air conditioned. We had lunch here in an Indian restaurant and did the gondola ride. Unlike Venice, this place has motorised gondolas, which are simply steered using the long stick. We caught a Karwa taxi from the mall to the Museum of Islamic Art, which is main highlight of Doha. This place was designed by the same architect who designed the louvre museum in Paris and houses the highlights of Islamic art and calligraphy across civilisations ranging from Istanbul to Delhi. It contains cenotaphs, carpets, astrolabes, ceramics and calligraphy from across the centuries. Even its very architecture follows the Islamic principles of symmetry. This place is right next to the dhow harbour and has a series of arches, from where one can get a great view of the city skyline. It looked exceptionally beautiful in the sunset. We walked from here to the Souk Wakif, which is the main market of Doha. This souk, set in the traditional bedouin way of mud huts, is a general market for locals and foreigners alike. Everything can be bought here, ranging from fridge magnets to falcons and dresses to camels. We bought a few souvenirs such as magnets, a Turkish lamp and the mandatory flag for the flag collection. We had dinner at a local restaurant in the souk and caught a Karwa back to Hilton, where we ordered a Tiramisu and coffee. We then called it a day.

The dhow pulls into the harbor near the MIA.

The Museum of Islamic Art.

We got up at 7AM on 29th and had the same continental buffet breakfast and got ready for the next tour. We booked a Doha city tour by sea via Qatar Airways. This was supposed to be on a bedouin dhow and organised by Discover Qatar. This tour started at sharp 9:30AM and a pickup came for us. The dhow ride was pleasant and we had a few co-passengers from Taiwan and a Philippine host. We were served hot and cold beverages on the boat, which sailed from the dhow harbour near the MIA to the Pearl Qatar before turning back. It pretty much covered the entire length of the city and we could see the skyline up close. Even our Hilton was clearly visible from the dhow. We reached the hotel for lunch at 12:30PM. We had a pizza Margherita and an arrabbiata pasta and took some rest before leaving the hotel for the next tour. We checked out at 2PM and went on the half day desert safari with the luggage. The desert safari lasted for about 4 hours with over an hour of dune bashing. After the initial one hour of driving on roads, we reached a place where the road abruptly ends, towards the south. After having some tea and deflating the tires of our land cruiser, we set off to the inland sea by riding the dunes. The inland sea is a tiny inlet of the Persian Gulf that separates Qatar from Saudi Arabia.  This is one of only two places on earth where sand dunes directly meet the sea. I collected some sand from here as a souvenir. The driver then dropped us off at the airport by 6PM to catch our return flight, scheduled to depart at 11:30 PM.

One of the upcoming soccer stadiums for FIFA 2022.

Sand dune deserts to the south of Qatar.

We waited for the check-in gates to open and when they finally did after an hour, we learnt that our flight has been delayed by 40 minutes and will now depart at 12:10 AM. We were a bit concerned about the connection that we have from Mumbai to Bangalore, but we figured that we'd have plenty of time anyway. Doha's Hamad Intl. Airport is ranked the best in the world and is home to Qatar Airways, the best airline in the world. The facilities were indeed the best we've seen. We had heavy snacks in some restaurant at the airport itself and took some rest in one of the quiet rooms near our gate. After a while, we learnt that our flight was further delayed and will now leave at 1:30AM. Now we were sure that we'll be missing our connection to Bangalore. As if the delay wasn't enough, they changed the boarding gate to one on the ground floor. The aircraft finally arrived at 12:40 AM and boarding did begin at 1AM. I never expected to board a wide body aircraft using buses and a staircase. The ride aboard a Jet Airways A330 was my first wide body flight after the return from Istanbul (again from the same Hamad Intl. Airport) in 2015. The delayed aircraft was not given clearance soon and we sat on the tarmac for an hour, finally taking off at 2AM and reaching Mumbai at 8AM. Our connecting flight to Bangalore at 8:30AM was missed as we had to clear immigration and customs before we connect. Jet Airways owned up to it and put us on a 2:40PM flight on Bangalore and provided us with meal coupons to be redeemed at a food joint at the airport. This flight was delayed as well and we finally reached Bangalore at 5:30 PM and home by 7PM.

Vegetation in the sand dunes.

The 6 million dollar bronze teddy at Hamad Intl. Airport.

Except for the flight delays, this trip was the best we had so far. It was certainly the most opulent and we received the best of the Arabian hospitality. Ironically, this was our shortest international trip ever and also the most expensive. We're crossing Doha yet another time this September on Qatar Airways, enroute to Nairobi for our upcoming African safari.

At the inland sea, near the Saudi-Qatari border.