We’ve been ‘on the road’ for a week now and are still finding it hard to understand that, unlike other holidays, this one won’t end in a couple of weeks... And we definitely won’t complain!'
Our first stops took us to Doha, Qatar and Dubai, UEA where we soaked up some heat to prepare for the Year of Winter.
In Doha, our lovely hosts Ines and Dennis gave us the best possible start to our trip, letting us reside in luxury and showing us the best sights and food of this small desert country. It’s quite an interesting place full of different cultures, construction sites, dust and heat, heat, heat (nice spring temperatures of 42-46 degrees when we were there). Rich wanted me to start working over there straight away, so that he could enjoy the life of an expat-de-facto-husband (even though I don’t think they’d allow a de-facto to come along, since we weren’t even allowed to hold hands). Kind of weird how you can have up to four wives but you can’t even hold hands in public... And this is just one of many contradictions that seem to appear in this part of the world. The Qataris definitely know how to live in style but the thousands of workers who try to construct the many different projects live and work in very different conditions. The wealth of the Qataris is astonishing and their plans for Doha show just perfectly what people do when they have too much money and time... Some of the projects are fantastic (such as the Museum of Islamic Art, the cultural village Katara or Education City) but others seem (are?) totally over the top. The city centre is already full of empty skyscrapers and they are still building more. The same goes with hundreds of big apartment buildings that seem to be popping up everywhere and I don’t really understand who is supposed to live in them. Already the Qataris are outnumbered by foreigners (about 1/5 I think). Do they really want to dilute their culture even more? Would there be jobs for that many more people? What about infrastructure/food/water? So many questions and I’m not sure if they are addressing them when coming up with these projects... Currently many parts of Doha have a strong 'Trueman Show' feel to them but it’ll be interesting to see what Doha looks like in about 15 years. My guess would be that they’ll keep going full steam until the World Cup in 2022 (I still don’t get how this can work in up to 50 degrees) and afterwards it will either be the next Dubai or full of empty buildings... Anyway, we had a great time in Doha with Ines and Dennis and apart from spending time with them, our favourite parts were the souq (market) where Rich got a nice shave at a barber shop and the fantastic Middle Eastern food!
After three days in Doha we went on to Dubai, where we spent 1 ½ days strolling through massive shopping malls, admiring the world’s tallest building and a great fountain/light show, catching an abras (little wooden boat) over the Dubai Creek, and running away from pushy merchants at the souq. I think Dubai isn’t too different from Doha – just a little more finished and Western...
To sum it up, we had a fantastic start to our trip and Ines & Dennis made it real special, so: THANK YOU! We felt like kings and it's kind of difficult to now turn into backpackers :) We're doing our best though and are currently enjoying a totally different culture in Buenos Aires. But more about this later. We’re off to our first (and much needed) Spanish lesson...
Besos
Charly (& Rich)
More photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/109362659982164453049/DohaDubaiBestof?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMmo-veSrbjpRg&feat=directlink
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