Small tours of Doha

I shouldn’t blog when I’m pissy so I’ll focus on yesterday instead of today… Yesterday was fantastic. Me and 2 ladies from the office went off base… they had only been off for official duty so I was their tour guide. After finding out I am getting a roommate, I cleaned out the other locker in my room and found a Doha guidebook in there from 2003 which made me the defacto expert in the office on Doha.

We started off the day wanting to do something cultural. One of the ladies wanted to buy gold, the other wanted to just take pictures. So we decided on a museum set in a Moorish style Castle that’s a couple hundred years old. Al Koot or something like that. Turns out the place was under renovation… so we just walked around the outside. It was nothing spectacular… The guidebook said the national museum was under renovation, so we opted to go searching for a photo op of the first “air conditioner.” It is actually a wind tower that somehow captures the breeze, cools it and directs it into the house… this thing is on some historical building that is set in the square of what we have dubbed the “cell phone souq.” Souq meaning “shop” and this strip mall sold nothing but cell phones with this historical thing in the middle… Talk about a juxtaposition of culture… We parked in a parking garage nearby, fighting the traffic inside it to get to the top hoping for a view of the city. What we got was walls and a late model jaguar decked out like a Tijuana taxi cab – there was crap all over this thing… Despite the walls, I managed to stick my hand through a slit in it with my camera and view the “air conditioner building” with my digital’s screen and took a great picture that probably nobody else has. The Colonel having this giant chunky digital got her hand stuck trying to do the same thing… dalp! She kind of reminded me of grandma… taking a picture after somebody else has already gotten that same picture.

Then we went out of the parking garage to get a closer view of the A/C thing… stopped into a very scary juice bar where a Pakistani – I guess they’d call them Qu’ran-thumpers instead of Bible beaters here – tried to get some money from me. NOT!

Anyway… Next time we go off base, I’m going to do some more research into the Camel races as our cultural activity.

From the cell phone souq, we went to the BAM – Big Ass Mall – because that’s the only thing open when the folks here take their siesta from 12-4. Plus they have decent and easily locatable bathrooms. We ate at a French café on the 4^th floor in front of huge glass windows over looking the diplomatic area of the city and the bay beyond that. Chicken and Mushroom crepes. Yum. I ordered what I thought was going to be a cold smoothie, but turned out to be what my mom used to call Magic Morning Drinks when I was a kid… basically a frothy banana juice cocktail. Cocktail as in the no-liquor definition.

In the BAM, we opted for one thrill ride at their mini amusement park… they have a 3-4 story slide made of ice that you fly down on inner tubes for 15 QR – about $4 for 2 rides. It was a blast… the first time down you think you’re going to break your neck… I went head first! We got some good pictures and this was the first time here that I was glad my camera has video capacity… All three of us decided this was the high point of the day.

From there, we split up and went shopping. I bought a pair of pants, tee shirt, and a few gifts for people when I return. I usually buy an outfit from wherever my travels bring me “This is my London outfit” (which I chucked… ). But I needed a decent pair of civi pants for a function on Tuesday so it was a necessary expenditure.

When we met back up, we went for a driving tour of the Lagoon… and got to see where the upper class lived. Then made our way back to the Souqs. We started off in the gold souq where I bought some gifts and then we went to the Black Market souqs where I bought 50 movies on 10 DVDs for about $30… ½ of these are for my sister’s collection. I’m told that some of the movies might be in Arabic… but I guess that’s the risk you take when you buy black market. From there, we were whisked down the street to the “purse” market for one of the ladies… You walk into a legitimate store, say “purse” and you’re all of a sudden going through this back room whose door is hidden behind fat lady dresses. These purses were really good knock-off quality so I’m told, but what got me were the stacks of watches… I had never seen knock off watches of this caliber. Having just bought myself a new good watch and had considered an internationally recognized jewelers timepiece instead of just some watch… I had done some research. This guy’s watches were magnificent! He gave me a lesson in knock offs and these were “class A.” The black market even rates their goods! I selected a Tag marked 900 QR -- $247 and talked him down to 300 QR. Fantastic watch and the bargaining was fun… You can’t get a POS decent costume watch from Ken Cole or Fossil in the US for this price. Big, clunky, thick brushed steel round face with a fat rubber strap… one black backlit clock where the yellow numbers come and go in this hypnotic rhythm.

From the Black Market souq, we hit up the pearl guy in the park and bought pearls and then to dinner. A bunch of people from the base were going to this one place, but we decided we were tired of base people and went in search of this other place… which ended up being closed… Much to my dismay, I hadn’t done any research into any restaurant but these 2, both being no-gos… so we ended up at Kebab King… which was good once, but upon our second visit… I wasn’t happy with the choice. It’s like an Arabic Chili’s… you go there when there’s nothing else.

From there, it was home… a great day all around.

Today is the 4^th of July. No fireworks for me, but I hear Dairy Queen is doing free Blizzards sometime today on the other side of base. I’ll skip that. Because America is closed today, I’m hoping that work will be slow and we can get out early. I hope that all my friends and family reading this enjoy their picnic and potato salad. I hope whatever is fried at the chow hall tonight makes me feel like I was there and maybe they’ll have some fireworks on the TV…

Strawberries for breakfast.

d