and the adventure continues ...

Last Monday, Kristin and I decided, somewhat on a whim, to go to Doha for the weekend. I love the fact that I have such freedom to do that ... decide at almost last-minute to travel to another country. :o)

We decided to only stay for a weekend, arriving Thursday morning and leaving Friday evening (Oman is the only country in the GCC to have a Thursday-Friday weekend; everyone else is Friday-Saturday), and I kept wondering what there was to do in Doha other than visit the Al-Jazeera studios (which are closed to the public). Turns out that Doha was the perfect place to spend a weekend.

Doha is what I would call a typically Gulf city, with new skyscrapers constantly popping up in the ever-changing skyline, traditional dhows bobbing in the harbor alongside large oil and industrial tankers, roundabouts everywhere ... typical of Muscat in many ways, and yet in many ways, not. Doha's claim to fame is that it hosted the 2006 Asian Games, so many of the preparations for that - hotels, restaurants, things to do for the millions of people to arrive in this little town - were still hanging around. So Kristin and I ate well, and our hotel was right in the middle of the city, really close to the Doha Corniche and the souq.

Our favorite thing in Doha, hands down, was the souq, which was (re?) constructed to look like it did in the past, which means winding streets in which you can walk in one entrance, get completely lost and end up on the other side, with no idea how to get back to your original destination. It reminded me a lot of getting lost in the souqs of Marrakech and Fes in Morocco ... except Doha souq was cleaner! And there was only one donkey running around, and he was giving little kids a ride, with the help of a nice Qatari man hoping to make some spare change from tourists. There was even a live performance of traditional singing and dancing (all by Qatar men, of course), and artisans were actually outside on mats making wares for sale -- helwiyat (sweets! good word to know in Arabic), fishing nets, date palm mats, even falcon traps!

We also spent some time in the desert (as is obligatory when one lives in the Middle East), catching a glimpse of Saudi Arabia (closest I'll ever get to it) before bumping back over the dunes back into Doha.

When we told our hotel manager that we were both living in the GCC, he quipped, saying that Doha is much like any other city in the area ... and I retorted, saying that Oman has mountains! And wadis! And no skyscrapers! And more native Omanis than foreign workers! (Well, actually I only said that there were mountains.)

Hmm ... I wonder what my next international adventure will be ... Dubai mayhaps? :o)