Doha City Tour

I have been in Doha now for 4 days and its beginning to feel like I have always been here. Life is easy and laid back, the Qatari people are nice, even if they do drive erratically and you feel like your putting your life in your hands when you get on a bus or in a taxi but its all good.

The school have kept us busy by providing different things to do each day and today (Saturday) is actually our first 'free' day.

The first thing that we did on Wednesday was a city tour. We were picked up by the buses and taken to Al Mana, which is another place where they house staff. When there, we all got on to 2 coaches and were taken off around the city with a guy at the front speaking broken English, so we didn't quite understand what he was saying. Now, I hadn't actually been anywhere apart from the City Centre Mall until this point, so it was actually quite good to see Doha from the confines of an air conditioned bus. The one thing that I did observe though is that Doha is, quite literally a building site. It is still very up and coming and wherever you look there are cranes and scaffolding. So don't be deceived when you look at the pictures on Google and think WOW.. because its not all what its made out to be. However, the buildings that are up and are complete are absolutely incredible. The high rise buildings dominate the skyline and are just amazing. On our way to the first stop, which was the Museum of Islamic Art, we passed through what can only be described as shanty towns! Everyone was sort of looking at each other thinking, oh my word! But when you see the Museum from the outside it was just amazing. (The picture doesn't really do it justice)

We were dropped off here and given time to wander around and look at the place. Inside it was amazing and we all sort of wandered around together, looking at the artefacts and different things on display. However, it was the first time that many of us had seen each other since the flight and meeting on the first day, so a lot of people spent the time talking about their accommodation e.t.c. I ended up sitting in the cafe with Jason, Adam, Heather and a couple of others as they had been placed miles away from everyone else and there only seemed to be 6 of them in their building. We all compared stories about getting here and our apartments it seemed like we had all had similar experiences. But we all agreed it was onwards and upwards from now on! 

Leaving the Museum, we got back on the buses and headed to the Souq. The Souq is a market place in Doha and it is just a crazy place. They sell all kinds in this place from food, to clothes, to shoes to even animals!! There is a fun fair, places to eat, and a place to have a 'shisha' which is the favourite pastime here, as the Muslims can't drink. A shisha is a tobacco based water pipe which is smoked. It is also called a 'Hookah' which I think would probably cause some problems if you said that at home... 'I'm just going for a Hookah..' WHAT?! :) 

We were taken right through the Souq and then given 20 minutes to have a look around. It was pretty insane, and I had to keep reminding myself to close my mouth as I was just like a fish!! A group of us just wandered around together looking at all the different things and making a mental note of where everything was! However, when I do get a chance to get back down there I really don't think that I'm going to remember where everything is!! 

After the Souq, it was beginning to get dark. We all piled back on the bus and headed to our final destination, which was to be The Pearl. The Pearl is the only place in Doha that Foreign Nationals can own a property, so lets just say that this place has serious money. When we pulled up in our coaches, on one side of the road was a Ferrari Showroom and on the other a Bugatti Showroom. So obviously this isn't a place where we are going to go shopping every week! We walked through the Mall part and there was all the shops that you could only shop in if you were a millionaire. There was even a pool in the middle of the mall! It was crazy! We then headed out to the harbour and had a lot of fun picking out the boats that we would like if we were living the life! Some of the boats were totally insane, so huge and totally blinged out. At this point it was going dark, so we all headed back to the buses to go back to the apartments. We didn't see a lot on the way back - but the city skyline looked pretty impressive. When we went through the city to get back, the guide told us that the city is only 30% completed. They aim to have 300 skyscrapers up in the next 10 years and he also said to prepare ourselves as one day we might be walking or travelling down a road, and the following day the road might not be there because they have closed it to make way for a building. I find that really crazy how they can just shut a road because they want to build something on it and no one has any say in it. Can you imagine that in England?! Not a chance!!