Aside from hearing about Doha in recent news with regards to the world cup I know practically nothing about it except that it was where I was getting my connection to Tokyo. But with a whole 24 hours, minus getting to the hotel at 4am, I thought I may as well have a little look around. Really though there isn’t that much reason to go there unless you are super rich and even then it looked like you would be better off going to Dubai as Doha isn’t even very nice to look at. There are some amazing skyscrapers in a little patch of the city but there doesn’t really seem to be anyone actually working there, except for constructions workers building even more skyscrapers. Google informed me that the number one thing to see in Doha was a long 7km waterfront with a view of the skyscrapers across the water, and while it is pretty, a main road on one side and 7km of concrete wall by the water it’s not exactly the greatest of attractions. A small collection of classic American and British cars as part of a temporary display was the only interesting thing along the water front. The national museum was similarly disappointing it being a block on the edge of a roundabout.
The skyline from the water front is quite impressive though and then in the evening one of the buildings lights up in the sun.
So after walking along the walkway, a popular place for men to jog and the women to struggle along in burkas which don’t allow much freedom for jogging I thought I’d check out the local souk (market place) which had recently been done up to appear more
“Monsieur”
like a shopping centre rather than a messy market.
“Monsieur”
But there really isn’t that much there anyway except for carpet stores
“Monsieur”
“Oui?”
“Are you French?”
“No”
“Ah but you speak French, would you like me to show you around, I’m here looking for work, but I have lots of free time and I don’t have any friends”
“Uh sure, why not?”
And so I met Mounir, a friendly Tunisian who was apparently looking for work in Doha who kindly showed me around the interesting parts of the souk including the galleries of local artists and the local animal market which included some rather cute baby turtles swimming in a fish bowl, plenty of colourful birds and some rather odd baby rabbits.
After showing me around the souk we stopped for some tea and Mounir proceeded to tell me about his voyages around France and Germany where he apparently slept with a variety of young men and women and I finally realised that perhaps he wanted more than just to show me round the market and that previous suggestive comments weren’t just me misunderstanding his French. So I decided to make my excuses and go back to the hotel, although not before he gave me his telephone number and told me to call him once I got to Japan, even though I told him I wouldn’t have a phone.
So it was quite an interesting day in somewhere I would have struggled to find on the map. At least my hotel was nice.
