I took advantage of a stopover and spent a couple days in Doha, Qatar. This city seems to be in the process of a transformation and I’m excited to see how the it changes over the next few years.
In 2022, the World Cup will be held in Qatar. The country seems to be developing new areas, buildings, and prepping for the tourism that this event will bring.
Doha has an incredibly beautiful skyline. Within the downtown there appears to be large businesses, embassies, and business hotels. As a tourist, walking around this area didn’t seem super exciting… but walking from Hotel Park along the Corniche is a great way to see the impressive skyscrapers. And the Corniche would have been a fabulous run if I had only had one more morning….
The Corniche is a 7 km long pedestrian path along the sea from downtown to the Museum of Islamic Art.
The Museum of Islamic Art has items like plates, vases, rugs, books, and a few paintings from the surrounding areas with an Islamic history.
Near the museum is the Souq Waqif. This market is beautifully designed, and hosts various shops. I saw souvenirs, fabric, Persian candies, and colorful lamps. There are also camels, falcons, and Arabian horses.
The Souq has a variety of restaurants as well including Syrian, Indian, Turkish, and an over the top luxurious Persian restaurant.
Karata cultural village was kind of a strange place to visit. It’s an area with nice new buildings for television studios, theaters, and restaurants that have attentive staff… but no customers. Which is great but feels strange, but when all the tourists come for the World Cup, they will be ready to serve them.
I headed outside of the city on a tour to see the desert. We stopped at a setup where they gave camel rides. I’m not really impressed with this part. The camels take person after person for a short (like 5-6 minutes) ride. The camels mostly are getting up and down over and over. The rest of the tour was great.
The guide deflated the tires of our vehicle and we headed into the sand dunes. We cruised up and down at daring angles and it was quite thrilling. I hadn’t expected to enjoy this part nearly as much as I did.
We took a break from dune-bashing for some pictures surrounded by sand.
Next we made our way to some taller dunes for sand boarding. I only had the chance to go down twice as our whole trip was on limited number of hours. They told us it was easier to go backwards when sitting on the board…. which seemed scary, so I went forwards and tumbled over within 5-6 seconds. So I took their advice for round two, and success! I made it all the way down!
Our final stop was the Inland Sea to watch sunset. Here you can see Saudi Arabia across the water. Then we headed back to Doha. That sums up all I managed to see/do during my quick visit. Wonder how the city will change over the next few years…. maybe I’ll get a chance to return and find out!
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