Cruising the Corniche in Doha

The next morning, we packed up and headed out to explore the city for several hours before our flight. 

We decided to walk a bit to find a place to have breakfast/lunch, and found a Pret a Manger near the Doha City Center (a large development near our hotel.  We sat enjoying coffee, yogurt, sandwiches, and took in the lovely fresh air and sights of the skyscrapers across the street from us.  We then continued walking towards the corniche, which is a large semi-circular bay that is the edge of much of the downtown area.  It is several miles from one end of the corniche to the other, and out in the center is a small man-made island with a simple sculpture on it that was created for the 2022 FIFA World Cup which was held in Doha in 2022.  The sculpture can be seen from everywhere on the corniche.  In preparation for the World Cup, Qatar invested heavily in making the city an attractive venue to host the games, and entice people to come back.  They have left many of the World Cup related installations in place along the

Breakfast at Pret a Manger

corniche.

Aimee and I looked at renting either scooters or motor enhanced bicycles.  As many US cities now have Lime and Bird have placed hundreds of scooters around Doha (as well as several other competing brands.)  We struggled for quite a bit trying to figure out how to get the related app and the bikes to work, but felt better when another couple of middle eastern descent was next to us having the same issues. We joked with them trying to figure out how to get them to work.  Eventually we were all successful.

We spent about an hour and half riding the motor assisted bikes down the corniche and stopped several

Sculpture on the Corniche

times to take pictures of the various sculptures and artwork along the way.  Our destination ultimately was the National Museum of Qatar.  Unfortunateloy as we got within about a mile of the museum, our bicycles “dinged” and we noticed they were no longer motorized.  We weren’t sure if they were out of power or what was happening.  However when we checked the app which indicated we were in a “red zone” where the motor was disabled and we were not allowed to leave the bicycle (our only guess was that Lime decided this was because of a lot of construction on the path---yet the other companies had scooters placed throughout this area.   The app showed if we continued a bit further we’d get out of the red zone.  We did, but found we were now in a “yellow zone” and were not allowed to leave the scooters there.  It appeared we could either continue quite aways to get back to a green zone, or go back a bit to where we left the green zone.  The museum we were heading to was not in a green zone, so we decided to head backwards, drop the bikes off and Uber the rest of the way to the museum.

When we arrived at the very modern and brand new looking museum, we quickly learned its unique shape was meant to look like a “desert rose” a sand and crystal structure that “grows” and is common

out in the desert.  The inside of the museum was a series of complex rooms all of which had “living walls” that showed videos and had surround sound videos that provided further illustrations of the

exhibits within each room. 

The first few rooms covered wildlife.  Aimee of course has been most interested in this trip (as she greets everyday at home hoping) to encounter new cats everywhere.  The first display had taxidermized

This is Friend Shaped

samples of some of the desert dwelling cats (and other animals).  I reminded her we did not get a rabies vaccine, and these would probably be the best option to get close to, and she begrudgingly agreed.

Much of the rest of the museum explained the history of Qatari civilization, wildlife, culture, and progress over the centuries.  Some of the videos were fascinating, as they had older locals talk (in Arabic, with English subtitles) about the life their grand parents experienced between pearling in the gulf, and dealing with the various conditions of the extreme heat of the summer vs. the cooler winter months, and migrating back and forth from the coast to the desert.  While the landscape and culture is different, it reminded me much of hearing grandparents share stories of growing up on farms and

working with livestock, and woodfire fueled heat and cooking.  Aimee and I sat for a good 20 minutes in just the one exhibit listening to the stories given by over a dozen people ranging from the royal al Thani family to commoners as well.  There were a few reference to “a simpler time” before technology and modern conveniences.

We had to rush through the museum a bit, so that we could cross town back to our hotel, pickup our suitcases, and go all the way back to the airport (which was right near the museum).  We were going to Uber, but a cab driver caught us first.  Given the short time in Doha, and the modern nature of it I had planned to use credit cards everywhere and hadn’t gotten local currency.  I asked if he accepted credit and he said yes and that he’d take us back to the hotel for the equivalent of $20. This was not a bad price.  While driving he said if we had US$ we could just pay that.  We then mentioned we were going straight back to the airport and he said for $40 he’d wait and take us back, so we accepted-with one caveat-he give us enough Qatari Riyals to tip the bellhop (as I hadn’t figured out yet how to do that with no local cash.  He agreed.  We talked quite a bit as he was from Bangladesh, but had been in the middle east for around 20 years.  He had begun in Dubai, but had been in Doha for the past 8 years.  He talked about his brother who was a chef at a restaurant in New York City and said cities like New York and Dubai were too big for him, but that Doha also is getting to be a very big city.  We enjoyed the discussion and his flexibility in getting us back and forth and offered him one of our boxes of Nashville Goo Goo Clusters as well.  He appreciated it and thanked us. 

Broken Bear Sculpture in Doha Airport

He helped us out of the car at the airport, wished us a safe flight, and we continued on to the next leg of our trip.  A flight to Nairobi where we would arrive shortly after midnight.

On our flight from Doha to Nairobi, we were reminded how much when you travel you represent your country.  On a plane that was filled with about 90% Kenyans, 5% Americans/British, and 5% other, each of us gives a small snippet of what our culture is like.  Unfortunately, sitting behind us was an older husband and wife and a boy that was about 10 or 11.  For the entire 5 hour flight, the boy was telling the mother how much she was annoying him, and how angry he was that she was asking him questions, and telling his mom how stupid of a country Qatar was, and wanted to know if Kenya was a dumb country too.  The mother was equally as obnoxious in her interactions with the child.  The father (or more likely seemed like an uninvolved step-father) seemed to just try to avoid the interactions other than when the boy started telling the man how he doesn't do anything for anyone.  I resisted my own desire to turn and smack the incorrigible little turd.  Unfortunately, he provided a terrible stereotypical caricature of the entitled and ignorant American youth, to the other Kenyans around us that were unfortunate enough to listen to his nonsense the entire trip.

Fortunately, the child's detestable blathering was brought to an end by our landing.  We headed to baggage claim at midnight, and awaited our bags.  The plane was a very large one with several hundred people crowding in the baggage area.  Unfortunately since we deplaned about the same time as the family behind us, we got to witness the mother trying to convince the airport personnel that her bags were certainly lost (after only about 20 bags had come around the carousel).  Fortunately her bags showed up not too much later, and they left.  Our bags unfortunately showed up about an hour later, among the last to get unloaded.  We called our Uber, for the hotel, and went out to wait for it.  Not unexpectedly, there were throngs of taxi drivers soliciting us.  We turned them down saying we had an Uber.  One woman very pleasantly said "If they don't come, I will drive you."  As I looked for our Uber, the woman talked quite a bit with Aimee, and said she would help us find our driver.  She appologized to Aimee for how pushy some of the other drivers were, and said since this is the last flight of the day, many of these people had been waiting for many hours for work.  She said they sometimes get a bit desperate at the end of the day, since they may be going home with no pay.  She was extremely pleasant and Aimee had a box of our Goo Goo Clusters handy to give as a thank you.  Unfortunately, in the chaos of us getting our luggage into the Uber, Aimee and I miscommunicated and I didn't have my bag with Kenyan cash handy to give her a tip for her assistance, which is what really would have been of use to her.  

We finally arrived at our hotel at about 2:15am, and got ourselves unpacked and to sleep by 3:00am.