After many flights and long hours, we arrive in Doha is Qatar’s capital city and main financial hub, a country founded from an offshoot of Al Bidda in the 1820s before gaining independence from the British in 1971.

The winter temperature of twenty-five degrees Celsius that greets us at the Hamad International airport in Doha is pleasant—a far cry from the forty to even fifty Celsius temperatures that can be reached in the summertime

Doha originated from the Arabic term dohat, meaning “roundness”—a reference to the rounded bays surrounding the area’s coastline. And though Arabic is the official language, English is the unofficial second language as everything is translated.

As our driver took us to our hotel, we marveled at the illuminations everywhere. A joy of colours from the three hundred light masts welcome us on the highway that connects the airport to the centre of Doha. Then, Doha at night gives Hong Kong, Las Vegas and Times Square a run for their money as millions of LED lights show off their colours on the many high-rise buildings.

Our stay at the Intercontinental Doha Beach and Spa provides us lots of restaurants to choose from and a beautiful beach to recover from our jet lag. It is also where we spend New Year’s Eve celebrating 2024. Fun fact: New Year’s Eve has only started to be celebrated in Qatar in the last few years  and January 1^st is not a holiday.

To get a feel for the city, we hired a guide Abdul to take us on a city tour. We drive through the Pearl Qatar, a man-made island with an area of nearly four square kilometres! There is an area in the Qanat Quartier that is a Little Venice, completed with a canal, an Ponte de Rialto replica and colourful houses. This is also where we see the first Tim Horton coffee shop! There are plenty in Doha. The U-shape building in the photo is the Katara towers in the Lusaka district, which is shared by two hotels—the Fairmont and Raffles.

We stop briefly at the Box Park, an eclectic area filled with colourful recycled shipping containers and where our driver merely signals a coffee shop owner for two coffees and by the time we park, a man is at our window with our coffees! Now that’s a different drive-thru experience!

More surprises awaits us as we enter the fish market in the Mina District. Imagine such a market with no fish smell and an artistic feast for the eyes! Further inside is the Chabrat Al Mina restaurant.

Our favourite area is the Souq Wakif. Locals and tourists all mix to go eat at the many varied restaurants or try and haggle for perfume, spices, scarves or gold. We return the following day with Colleen and Hashim, our food guides from Doha Food Tours, as they take us on a food discovery journey making many stops at the Souq and throughout the city. Doha’s population is overwhelmingly expats with Qatari nationals forming a minority therefore our culinary journey takes a dive into India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Philippines and Bangladesh to taste dishes such as Secret taxi Masala chicken, Pakistani naan, mathrooba and of course try Kahwa coffee (it is actually boiling green tea with saffron, spices, nuts and rose petals sweetened with honey/sugar) with a chocolate date ball.

We take the brand new state of the art metro to walk the Corniche, a waterfront promenade along Doha Bay. Apart from the 2022 World Cup mascot proudly being displayed, there are plenty dhows (boats) ready to take you on a tour.

We also go to the Katara Cultural village where the multi-cultural architecture and activities meet. A Greek inspired amphitheater allows many to try their singing voice to test the acoustics.

We take a morning to go to the National Museum of Qatar. Its exterior was inspired by a desert rose crystal and is an architectural beauty. It was built around the former palace and all of its building have been beautifully restored. The interior brings to life the story of Qatar and its people but also the archeology and geology of the region.

On our final day, we take desert dune bashing ride with Saleem. Our first stop is the obligatory camel ride. We are ushered to our camels and before you can say 1-2-3, the camel see-saws us up in the air while we hang on for dear life.

A cup of hibiscus juice refreshes us before we head back to the Land Cruiser where Saleem has deflated the tires to give it purchase as he crazily bashes through the sand dunes. There might have been some screaming by one of us (ok, me) as we slide down the dunes sideways creating walls of sand to wash over us and what Saleem calls a “desert car wash”. We ask Saleem if any cars had ever rolled over coming down the hills and he replies that it happens especially with inexperienced drivers (or maybe when they are on the phone while dune bashing!). We learn the next day that one of the car actually rolled over on a dune while we were there and an air ambulance was called!

The scenery though, is spectacular as miles of sand can be seen. Afterwards, we are dropped off at a desert camp by the Inland sea for a buffet dinner. Dumping our gear in the geodesic tent we are provided, we hurry up the big sand dune nearby to catch the desert sunset.

Dinner is quick but delicious affair and before we know it, we are whisked back to Doha where our journey ends the next day as we board our 30 day cruise.

Doha is not ready yet with her surprises. As we arrive at the cruise port and enter the terminal, a giant aquarium greets us. It seems that the cruise port is also popular with locals who bring their children to visit the varied marine wildlife and watch a diver feed some fish.

Watch for our blog for our next stop—Abu Dhabi!