Discover Qatar Part 1
Our trip home was planned with a 3 day stopover in Doha, the capital of Qatar. It is a country steeped in tradition and is well worth a look if you want to break up your trip. Our travel agent advised us that Discover Qatar had some great deal on to entice people to stay a bit longer with their stop overs. We got a magnificent room on the 7th floor of the Horizon Manor Hotel for a mere $141 for the 3 nights. Compare this to the kennel we had in Amsterdam and they were chalk and cheese.
We arrived in Qatar late and by the time we got to the hotel it was 2 AM so a comfortable bed was a welcome sight. Even though the nightclub on the 14th floor was jumping we still managed to get to sleep pretty easily.
Later that morning we ventured out for breakfast (9:50 AM) and decided to have it in the hotel. I guess this is where they make some of the money back. A breakfast will set you back 50QAR or around $22 AUD. You do get the chance to eat as much as you want and the coffee was pretty good for machine coffee.
After breakfast we organised a day tour with the hotel concierge for 1130 AM. We needed some Qatari money to pay so over to the bank for a withdrawal.As luck would have it the ATM was being repaired but they said 10 minutes and it would be fixed. True to his word, 10 minutes later I was getting money out of the machine. Our day tour was costing $600 QAR ($260) so I got 1000 out to cover any unexpected extras.
Our tour was with Desert Rose Tours and our guide was Shabbir. We were taking the half day city tour and as the souk closed during the middle of the day that was our first stop. This is also walking distance from our hotel but having a guide talk us through the souk was really helpful. A souk is a type of market place. This souk sells pretty much everything from perfumes and spices to falcons and horses. It is the oldest one in Qatar and no visit to this small state is complete without a visit here.
After the souk we went to the national museum. this is a relatively new building and is built in the shape of a desert rose. From there we drove around the city taking in the sights on the Corniche, The Pearl, and Katara before stopping at the Museum of Islamic Art. The artworks in there date back to the 10th century and the work on some of the swords and rifles must be seen. There is some information in there about the Quran as well as some ancient scriptures but in general this is about the art and it is a credit to the people of Qatar.
Our half day tour finished and we were dropped back to the hotel where we took some time to freshen up a bit. We were planning on heading back to the souk for dinner and a look at night. The souk is closed between 12 and 4 PM due to the heat so it makes sense to open at night. On our return the place was buzzing with horse and camel rides also on the table as well as ice cream vendors everywhere. We decided to stop at the Desert Rose Cafe for dinner and take on the mixed grill for two. There was enough food there for 4 people we thought, when it was brought out. We gave it a red hot go but there was no way we could fit it all in. The meal was excellent and reasonably priced as well.
We had to walk it off now so we ventured back into the souk. it was really interesting to see all the colours and smell all the spices. Photographs do not do it any justice. The Mosque was also lit up at night and is a prominent building here. In all day one in Doha was pretty impressive.
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