What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

The un-bearable midday heat of 45 C and the strange but mega jet lag we were entertaining as well as the peaceful and elegant buildings and souks we visited, these were the impressions we experienced in our sojourn in Qatar. Of course, not forgetting, the friendly people and warm hospitality as always in the Middle East (!)  - the shop keeper in the Souk Waqif , having changed money for our fridge magnet, giving us his ear-to-ear grin and said "Shukran Brother !". Having had a wonderful 8 hours' flight on Qatar Airways, we landed in the ultra-modern Doha Airport for our 20 hours' transit and took a bus to visit the Doha Corniche, the Souk Waqif, West Bay, The Pearl, the elegant Museum Of Islamic Art, spending every half an hour or so in the many underground passageways to shield ourselves from the unrelenting heat. We spent a good hour in the mega City Center Mall to cool off as well as tucking into the delicious local dish of Machboos (similar to Biryani). There were few people out and about during daytime and as we took a bus (fully air-coned) for a 2 hours long detour back to the airport at about 8 P.M., we found that the whole of Doha was teeming with people - yeh, only tourists would go out in the midday heat and we were glad to be moving along for our connecting flight to the cooler climes in Germany. What a transit experience !