Why Doha:
My flight from Amritsar, India back to the US was delayed by 12 hours causing me to miss my connection in Doha.
Surprise 93:
My flight from Amritsar was delayed by 12 hours due to heavy fog and a bird strike, but we safely landed at Doha’s Hamad International Airport at 16:30. Most of the plane was connecting so the airline had numerous representatives there to help us.
I was placed on a flight for the next day to San Francisco and given a free transit hotel in downtown Doha. Normally Americans must pay a $21 entry fee, but this was waved by the Qatar Airways.
The immigration line took nearly an hour. It was staffed completely by women who kept taking breaks to gossip to each other. Funny but I was in a rush. Eventually, I was stamped into the State of Qatar, my 93rd country. I was not planning to enter Qatar on this trip, but it was a nice surprise!
After clearing immigration, I had to wait 20 minutes for a free hotel shuttle. However I wanted to do some exploring to “really see the country” so instead, I took a paid taxi. The cost was about $15 for the 10-minute ride. The perfect road was lined with purple lights matching the beautiful Qatari flag. Very few countries have purple in their flag and that’s a shame.
The driver dropped me off at the Museum of Islamic Art. Designed by IM Pei, the museum is meant to look like a dhow, a traditional boat. It is considered one of Qatar’s most famous attractions.
After entering the museum and checking my bag, it was time to explore. The museum has four floors of exhibits.
The main two and a half floors contain the permanent collection which covers Islamic history and Islamic art around the world. Some of the most impressive artifacts are a 14th century Kiswah (cloth used to cover the Kaaba stone in Mecca) and the sword of Shah Jahan (builder of the Taj Mahal). But the whole museum’s collection was mind boggling. The special exhibit was on Morocco.
Since the museum was in central Doha, I decided to continue my journey on foot. My next stop was the Corniche, the coastal pathway along the harbor. Lots of dhow were parked here with drivers ready to take you on a scenic party boat ride around the harbor.
From the Corniche, I crossed via an underground causeway to Souq Wafiq. This is Qatar’s main souq (market) and tourist attraction. The original souq was built in the late 1800’s, but the current structures date to 2008. It feels traditional but is super modern.
The stores were an interesting mix of traditional clothing boutiques and restaurants.
Most of the restaurants were from Islamic countries, but there were a few Italian restaurants in the mix. Based on the recommendation of a Qatari friend, I got shawarma from a famous Amman-based shop and knafeh from a Nablus, Palestine-based shop. The knafeh was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten.
While Qatar does have its own unique culture, the natives make up a tiny fraction of the population, so it feels like more of a mix of many cultures. I encountered a similar thing in the United Arab Emirates, but Qatar is definitely more conservative. While in the Emirates, alcohol is easy to find, I did not see any alcohol at Souq Wafiq. Additionally, most non-Western women were wearing black robes with about 1/3 wearing niqabs with just the eyes visible through a slit in the garment.
Qatar is also one of the wealthiest countries in the world so through those eye slits, I could tell that the women were very done up and looking their best!
It was impossible to ignore all the signs in solidarity with the Palestinians (and to a lesser extend the Lebanese) in their current conflict against Israel. Qatar has long been a home in exile for Hamas’s leadership and until recently was hosting the moderation talks between Israel and Hamas until about a month ago when they stopped the talks due to “lack of motivation” by the parties. Qatar is also the home of Al Jazeera, the largest media company in the Middle East. Of the 8-ish hours of Al Jazeera news I watched during this trip, at least 80% of it was related to the conflict or Israeli sports teams. Even though Qatar is not at war, it sure felt like it with all the signs, billboards, and exhibitions. I am sure that it is at the top of the minds of all the residents too. This stands in stark contrast to every other country I have visited this year which appears agnostic.
Next to Souq Wafiq is the Doha Fort, the one real piece of history remaining. The fort was built in 1880 by the Ottomans and rebuilt by a Qatari sheikh in 1927. It is currently a museum of Qatari history but it was closed.
Continuing west, I walked through a district known as Msheireb. This is a planned commercial district that started construction in 2010. It is walkable and has a streetcar at its center. When I walked through, it was completely dead, but most commercial districts around the world are likely equally dead at 21:00 on a weekend.
To get back to the airport and catch the free hotel shuttle, I took the metro. To enter the station, I had to open a heavy metal blast door – presumably to keep the extreme heat out in the summer. I then discovered a pristine shiny mall-like metro station. Doha’s metro opened just in 2019 and is probably the cleanest, fanciest metro system I have ever ridden.
The trains have carpeted seats and wooden floors. Swanky! At the same time, the fares are very reasonable: a day pass is less than $2 USD.
Back at the airport, I found the hotel shuttle which took me to a gorgeous 4-star property in downtown. I could have walked there from the souq! Oh well. The room was far nicer than anything I stayed in in India. All the meals were also included.
I then went to sleep and woke up at 5:00 to fly home.
Final Thoughts:
Four hours wandering around the center of the capital city is not enough to get a feel for the country, but here we go.
Qatar is not blessed with a rich history, stunning natural scenery, good weather or a strong culture, so it is, from a tourism perspective, at a huge disadvantage compared to other countries. That said, Doha is pristine and safe, the museums and attractions they have built are top notch, there is a greater sense of place than I was expecting. They really have done about as nice as a job as you can do given their situation.
Compared to the United Arab Emirates, the only other Gulf country I have visited, Qatar feels noticeably more conservative (a low bar compared to Dubai) and there seems to be far fewer Western expats. The rest of the foreigner mix of South Asian, Filipino and Kenyans feels the same.
The best way to visit Qatar is via the airline’s stopover program with gets you a free or heavily discounted hotel for up to 4 nights. I do not think that there is enough to do in Qatar to justify its own trip from out of the region.
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