14th October – Doha, Qatar
Our final day in Qatar. We’re leaving for Beijing at 2am tomorrow morning. Our stopover deal conveniently means we don’t have to check out of the hotel until 7pm, 96 hours after we checked in.
The one thing we both really wanted to do here was to visit the Museum of Islamic Art, so we ventured out into the mid-morning heat with that as our target. Daylight hours here are roughly 5am to 5pm right now, so 11am actually has the strongest sun. Firstly, though, breakfast. By the time we’d walked the 15 minutes to the other side of the souq, I’d visibly sweated through my t-shirt. At least I know to wear a different one now when we get this sort of heat!
Breakfast was taken at the first restaurant in Qatar (at least in modern times) set up by a woman – Shams Al-Qassabi – and she had photos all around the place with different famed visitors. We tried three different types of regag – plain, sugared, and a thyme zaatar. They were crispy and tasty, but not as filling as we’d thought! I paired mine with a Qatari coffee. This was green rather than black with a strong cardamom flavour. Each tiny cup was moreish, especially when sipped alongside the sugar regag.
Afterwards, it was time for another very sweaty walk along the dhow docks. It’s such an interesting view with the West Bay skyline beyond, although today there was a little bit of smog. We’d given ourselves 3 hours for the museum, but this actually turned out to be barely enough. The curation told the history of Islam through exceptional pieces from across the extent of the Islamic world at each point in time. It’s one of the best museums we’ve ever visited and the quality of exhibits was astounding. The Mughal jewellery in particular blew me away in its sheer shininess. I’d heard about the peacock throne and the incredible number of giant gems which embellished it and everything else in their court. To see just a few small pieces in person gave me a whole new appreciation of the almost unimaginable treasure they possessed.
The food options here are fantastic, especially south Asian, due to the number of migrants from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Kaja wanted to take advantage of this for a final masala dosa before we left! I went for something different – two idly, with chutneys – and two parota with a creamy kuruma vegetable curry. So good! We also shared a typically South Indian salty sweet lemon soda to balance the spice. Once aside, in every restaurant we’ve eaten in the food has arrived fresh within 5 minutes. I’m not sure how they do it! I’m very glad we chose to stop over in Qatar and experience a small amount of the culture and food here.
On the way back to the airport, we noticed that the metro trains were completely driverless! Despite the late check out and then dinner, we had 5 (!) hours at the airport. Then I remembered that I’d gotten 4 free airport lounge passes as part of my attempt at getting free flights home through points. I felt a little dirty walking in! I feel uncomfortable with anything where there’s any sort of preferential system. Anyway, it was a new experience. It wasn’t really any comfier (actually less so) than the usual waiting area and was very busy. It did come with free food and drinks though. As we’d already had dinner, we consumed copious tea and baklava.
Average budget in Qatar: £27.24 per person per day