Journey to the Middle East - Qatar

We arrived in Qatar on 20 Jan, on a work trip. It is the first time I have been in the Middle East and thus this visit was indeed much anticipated.

Our first morning was spent mostly in the hotel - settling in. We were staying at the Doha Marriot and our rooms overlooked the bright blue waters of the waterfront, called the Corniche. The Marriot is a modern hotel but it is telling that our car had to manoeuvre roadblocks and that we had to go through a metal detector upon our entry into the hotel. One of our party was also not too reassuring when she informed us that her hotel in Jordan had been bombed two weeks after her stay. In fact, when I got back to Singapore there was a report of a suicide bomber attacking the Marriot in Pakistan. Thank God we had a safe stay at the Marriot and in our whole time in Doha and Dubai.

After lunch, we spent the hot afternoon hours in one of the newer shopping centres of Doha- Landmark. It was interesting to see the mingling of US and UK High Street brands. There was Marks & Spencers, Zara and Mango, Mexx and many food chains such as Dairy Queen, Starbucks, Pizza Hut etc. The amusing thing about the clothes was the slightly different range offered - more long flowing skirts and caftan-type tops then one would get in Singapore :-) Guess this is what the women wear beneath their black robes. Sales people were largely foreigners - Filipinas mostly. There was also a decent supermarket in the building, with an aisle dedicated to international foods - Japanese, Thai and Filipino. Just goes to show what a large foreign population there is in Doha. What was really interesting was the large collection of sweet stuff including a goodly range of chewing gum.


After Landmark, we visited Souk Waqif, a more "traditional" shopping area. However, it had been newly renovated and hence had this slight air of unreality about it. The Souk is essentially a series of shops on either side of a wide pedestrian mall. The shops on either side of the mall were selling crafts, leather - there was also a fruit and nut shop. We went in the shop and there too was a large selection of chewing gum. Well, they certainly are attuned to the Singaporean market :-) Behind the first row of shops is a labyrinth of corridors with smaller shops; there were different sections for food, spices, hardware, etc. I liked the spice area best - their fragrant aroma wafted out of the shops and filled the air. However, the Souk was fairly quiet - wonder whether we were there at the right time? It was late afternoon but we were told that the Qataris generally come out in the later part of the evening. The merchants were not terribly excited about our presence either. Perhaps they recognised that the likelihood of making a sale was low.

Dinner was at Bukhara, a North Indian restaurant. Now I have been to Bukhara both in Delhi and in Hongkong. Perhaps it is a chain but the Delhi and Hongkong restaurants were both in the Sheraton Hotel whereas this one was standalone.

In general, it was a quiet day.