Eid Al Adha and Desert Camping

I hope this post finds everyone happy, in good health and preparing for the holiday season.  For me, the past week, the people of Qatar have been having a national holiday to celebrate Eid Al Adha.  According to Wikipedia, Eid Al Adha, also known as Greater Eid, is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obediance to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead.  In Qatar, all businesses (except retail and food service) seem to be closed for 5 business days.  Many ex-pats take this time to travel abroad and see other countries for the week.

Myself, I stayed behind in Qatar.  I worked a couple days and relaxed the rest.  The coolest thing we did was an overnight desert camping trip to Khor Al Daid, also known as the Inland Sea.  This is a popular place for everyone to go and partake of various activities.  Our tour allowed us to take a short ride on a camel, spend a couple hours dune bashing, and then hit the camp site for a moonlight swim, buffet dinner, shisha, and a campfire.  I have to say this little trip was an amazing experience provided to us by the Black Pearl Tour Company.  The guides on the tour were very friendly and accommodating, doing everything they could to make sure that all of the guests had a good time.

Our driver, Abdullah, picked us (Us being Bonnie, Lisa, Amy and I) up in a Toyota Land Cruiser at the Grand Regency Doha at 2pm on Thursday and we set off for the night.  We drove through Doha and found our way to the south to Sea Line.  Sea Line is home to a beach resort and is literally the end of the road.  Once you get to Sea Line you need to deflate your tires as the road is now just sand and dunes.  This is where we took our camel ride.  I was very excited to get on that camel, so Amy and I went first.  We jumped on and I have to say I wasn't sure what to expect in how the camel got up and down off the ground...The getting up was pretty smooth though the lowering of the camel could use some practice.  I thought I was going to fall off the front of the poor beast as he lowered the front of his body first and without warning.  The walk was very easy to get used to.  Camels have a fairly slow gait when they are walking and it seemed easier to get comfortable with than some horses I have been on.  I would like to experience the gallop because I think that would be pretty exhilarating to have the wind through your hair and sand blowing around as you canter through the desert.  Very exciting, very romantic, very Jewel of the Nile...but I am getting off topic here.

As many of you know, one of the first things on my list to do when I came to the desert was to ride a camel.  I can now say I have done it (YAY, me). It was only a short guided walk but now I know what it is like.  There are other places that you can do a camel ride similar to how we do a trail ride in Canada, so I think I will check that out sometime.  

Also, at this first stopping point you also have the option of holding a falcon on your arm and taking your picture.  This service is not provided by Black Pearl Tour so you pay a little extra for it.  Falconry is a very big sport in Qatar and Abdullah told us that he took his falcon out (apparently he has his own) and it took down an Oryx.  The Oryx is the national animal of Qatar.  It is a small antelope-like animal with antlers, approximately the size of a dog.  I'd like to see that!!

After the camel ride, we headed into the dunes for about 2 hours worth of bumping, jostling, and in some cases screaming (not me but the others in my group lol!)  Dune bashing is a favorite past time for nationals and ex-pats alike.  The speed we traveled seemed quite fast given that we were in several inches of sand.  It actually was quite a bit like going four-wheeling in the snow in Canada, as the sand has a similar consistency.  Along the way we stopped at 2 different points along the inland sea for picture taking and enjoying the sunset.

The first stop was at the top of a dune looking down at a small pond like area that is connected to the inland sea.  We took some great snaps and put our bare feet into the desert sand for the 1st time.  It felt great, very warm.

The second stop was at the beach where we observed a most excellent sunset with an array of orange colours that were spectacular.  And when you looked across the water you can see Saudi Arabia.  That was pretty cool.

After our brief stop at the beach we headed to the campsite which was a pleasant surprise.  The campsite had several large tents for sleeping about 15 people in each one.  Thick firm form pads were provided for sleeping on and some pillows that weren't very fluffable.  Once we settled into the tents, Amy, Bonnie, Lisa and I took a moonlight swim, or maybe I should say float, in the Arabian Gulf.

The buffet dinner that was provided was fabulous.  There were several salads and dips, including hummus, baba ganoush, fatoush and tabbouleh.  As well there was a pasta selection, seasoned basmati rice with chicken drumsticks, tandoori fish, tandoori chicken, shish kabob, chicken kabob and beef kabob.  And an amazing selection of arabic style desserts to follow.

After dinner, most of the groups sat around and chatted with their own group until the campfire was started...then people started to migrate over and introduce themselves and talk of travel and what brought each of them to Doha ensued.  

In the group around the fire, there were 2 newlywed couples from Syria and Lebanon, a single guy from Syria, an American couple, a woman from Malaysia, 1 guide from Pakistan and another who was Arab.  Everyone was quite friendly.

A little while later the shishas came out and almost all of us around the fire tried a little.  Shisha is a traditional water pipe that sits on the ground or floor, with a small tinfoil covered resevoir that holds flavoured tobacco.  Typically it is a fruit flavored tobacco like grape.  On top of the tinfoil, small hot coals are placed to heat the tobacco and and enhance the flavour.  In order to smoke this, you would draw in through the tube attached to the shisha.  My own impression of it was this...I couldn't tell when I had smoke in my mouth, there was no flavour of grape or taste of smoke, so I would draw in too much breath and end up coughing.  As I am not a smoker it will not be something I become addicted to or feel the need to do on a regular basis.  I would probably try it again but that will be all.

Hasam, our Arab guide and host for the evening, parked his truck near the fire and began playing Arabic music.  The Syrian husband was very keen to get up and dance.  He started out alone doing some traditional Syrian dancing and then some arabic dancing, all of the men except the American got up and joined him at some point or other.  Almost all of us got up at some point.  I, even, broke out some of my Persian dance moves (Melissa, Karen and Cindi will know the ones I am talking about) and everyone was pretty impressed that this white chick from Canada could shimmy and dance with a middle eastern flare.

Around 12:30am, with the fire dying out, we all started to wander off to bed.  When I entered the tent I got a fright of some serious proportions for me.  As I was choosing my mattress pad for the night I noticed a rather huge looking black beetle with white feet making its way across the mattress I had just been about to put my bag on.  As I have an insane fear of small creatures with many legs and exoskeletons, I was quite freaked out.  Hasam had to come and remove the creature.  He did, however, mention that if I were in the desert without food, I could eat this particular variety of beetle with no problem...I said, "Thanks, I'd rather starve."  Needless to say, after that I had a hard time falling asleep.

In the morning, we were all up in time to see the sunrise.  It was a sight to behold.  The sun rising over the Arabian Gulf is a beautiful sight.  Lucky for anyone reading this, I took lots of pictures so you can experience it too!

After the sunrise was breakfast and then back to the city.  Breakfast was not the event that dinner was.  It was actually a little disappointing but if that is the worst part of the trip I think we did OK.  

The tour as a whole can be tiring as there is a lot of action until you get to the camp and the fresh air as anyone knows will make you sleep like a baby.  For anyone who gets to the Middle East this is definitely something that you should check out.  Keep in mind though that you might be sharing a tent with strangers.  For me this was by far the best camping trip I have ever been on.  

For the pictures you can click here

Doha Bus Tour

The College of the North Atlantic arranged a bus tour for it's new employees to see some of the sites Doha has to offer on Saturday, September 4th.  Our regular buses to the campus picked us up at the accommodations and took us to the campus where we all boarded other buses provided by the tour company.  And then we were off on our 3 hour tour of the city on what (at the time) seemed like the hottest day in recorded history.  Thank Allah for air conditioning.

Along the drive several sites were pointed out like the Aspire Center for Sports Training and Rehabilitation.  This location has some really cool style architecture.  Quite interesting!

The first stop on the tour was the camel market where you can purchase camels for 1 of many reasons.  Camels provide provide meat for eating and milk for drinking.  They are also used for racing and desert transportation (although I think that is less common now that the 4-wheel drive vehicles can go into the desert).  Depending on what you want to use the camel for will determine the price but generally the starting price for any camel is about QR5000.

There were also several colours of camels which I didn't know.  There is the traditional camel coloured camel (like a sand or beige colour).  There were some that were a lighter colour, almost a white or maybe cream colour and then a darker brown/black colour.  The camels at this market seemed very sedate, like they were resigned to their fate.  And there was no spitting!

The next stop on our 3-hour tour was at the Fruit and Veggie Market where you could haggle to get the best price for almost any fruit and vegetable you could find.  There was lots of selection provided by many different vendors.  Some of the selection looked really great but then there was some that I can't imagine anyone would buy as it looked like it was starting to turn.  Next to this market was also the fish market.  We didn't explore that market but we did see some people going to their cars with boxes with big fish hanging out.

On our way to the main souq, known as the Old Souq or Souq Waqif, we had the opportunity to take some pictures of Mosques, which can be recognized by the tall minaret with the cresent at the top and also by the (usually) round wall which faces Mecca in the east.

We only had a very short time at Souq Waqif and in the hot sun I am sure that everyone was quite happy about that.  The Souq is a maze of alleyways with hundreds of small shops and stalls selling a vast variety of items ranging from tourist trash to handmade furniture.  If you are looking for something unique...this may well be the place.

Our next stop was the Museum of Islamic Art next to the Dhow Harbour.  (The Dhow Harbour being where all the Dhow's depart from for boat tours of the harbour).  Here we only had 30 minutes to explore which is definitely not enough.  We all split up and everyone decided what they most wanted to see.  For me it was the  history section which is on level 2.  Unfortunately we only got through 2 rooms and it was time to go.  This is a site that we will return to and explore in depth with lots of pictures.

Finally, we drove through downtown, known as West Bay, where they have some pretty strange shaped buildings.  Again, pretty cool looking architecture.

The last stop on the tour was an area called the Pearl.  It is a marina based living area with condos and townhouses.  This is the only area of Doha where ex-pats are permitted to purchase property.  Condos in this area start at approximately QR2,000,000 (about $280,000CAD).  This section of town also has some pretty swank shops including Salvatore Ferragamo and Hermes.  There is even Rolls Royce and Ferrari dealerships there.

At this point we ended our tour by getting bused back to the campus and then back home again.  Overall it was a nice morning where we got to see some things that we might never see  without the tour.  For pictures of all the places described here, click here.