Originally Posted by
Sweet Willie
Cheetah_SA, how was your trip to Doha ?
Well, it wasn't really a "trip" so much as 2 fleeting stopovers - one planned, the other compliments of a missed connection and QR. And we didn't do much except explore our hotels and wander about a huge shopping mall.
QR put us up in the Moevenpick when the flight from CPT came in late and we missed the only flight to MLE. It was more than adequate. The check-in - at 5am with a bunch of others who had suffered similar fates on different flights - was very efficient. Obviously they do this for QR a lot.
The room was large but dark. The buffet meals were wonderful and full of tempting middle eastern and western dishes. We even got coupons that bought delightful cocktails in the lobby cafe. We used their top floor pool and health club - great after an exhausting, delayed flight - and then went back to the airport for an overnight flight to MLE.
On our return we stayed overnight at the Sheraton. Nice enough, lovely grounds with beach and pool, and a swanky restaurant with views (which was closed the day we were there). The flight path of planes approaching DOH came right passed us and was quite exciting as the planes seemed almost to skim the tops of the skyscrapers.
The weather in Jan was too cool for swimming - actually a bit foggy and drizzly at times! So we just wandered around a bit admiring the explosion of huge new buildings and buildings-in-the-making. Being a pedestrian in Doha is made all but impossible with all the construction going on. Even without it I doubt anyone walks; we felt rather conspicuous on foot.
We visited a huge mall and is was, well, a huge mall. Not much sign of anything you wouldn't find in huge malls anywhere else. Didn't visit the souk. We had just returned from Oman and were a bit souked out. (We are souk wimps!)
Perhaps the most notable feature of Doha for me was the absence of any interaction with anyone Qatari. All the taxi drivers were from Kerala and the hotel staff was a mix of Asian and European, but nary an arab. This was in stark, and IMO unfavourable, contrast with Oman where almost every person we dealt with was Omani and keen to share insights into their country.
DOH is a circus of Roman proportions. When you are closeted in the comparative calm and elegance of the premium terminal it is lovely. But if you enter the country you are forced to queue for immigration (although on one pass through someone somehow noticed we were F pax and opened a new priority line - there were no signs) and battle the hordes at the exit (mercifully there was a chap with a Sheraton board who popped us into a taxi that was charged to the room - nice facility!).
Well, that's it. Not much of a trip report, I'm afraid. Sorry we were such lazy visitors to what I am sure must be a more interesting city than I have managed to convey.
