Arrival in Doha
The Qatar Airways flight from Mahé lands right on time at 11:30 at Doha airport. You don't need to get off the plane to know how hot it is....visibility is almost nil, the grip of the oppressive heat. Just the time to do the customs formality (they stamp your visa, to be paid about 20 USD by credit card), and the suitcases have already arrived. We leave the arrivals terminal and immediately hop into one of the waiting taxis. First note: taxi rides cost really very little.....but you just have to look at fuel prices to discover why. But here oil is the gold of the house, so we only shudder at the thought of our €2 per litre! In no time we're at the hotel. We had booked with a booking.com offer at the Royal Riviera Hotel, a brand-new 4-star a short distance from the Souq Wahif and the Corniche, near the Museum of Islamic Art. Great accommodation for a single night.
In fact the much-vaunted Roof Bar doesn't actually exist, the official excuse being that the hotel is new. The room's minibar is completely empty......unheard of for a 4-star. So the intention of a siesta in the cool of our room is abandoned. We go out and think we're going to die. The temperature is about 46 degrees, there's wind and it literally burns your skin. You don't even notice you're sweating, the air is so dry. It feels like being exposed to the blast of a giant hairdryer. Luckily a taxi picks us up right away. Direction city centre, the City Centre Mall. The Corniche is very beautiful, well kept, with green spaces and a view over the city that deserves to be enjoyed....but not now. The centre is an ultra-modern city, made of futuristic and beautiful buildings. A rival to the far more famous Dubai. In the Mall we come back to life.
Everyone is here, also considering that it's Friday, a holiday. A cross-section of the life of Qatari families...and the standard of living immediately seems very high to us. Luxury and grandeur. A big ice skating rink occupies the central area of the Mall...and that already says it all. For me it's also very interesting to stop and observe the behaviour of a culture that seems distant to us, but deep down isn't that different in its gestures and in how it spends its free time. Looking for a shop we also move to the nearby Mall "The Gate"....EXTREME LUXURY. Boutiques and big designer brands are all here. We take a taxi again and have ourselves dropped off on the Corniche, near the museum of Islamic art. From here we enjoy the reddening of the sun setting on the gulf, among the typical boats that show their ancient reflection in the glass of the ultra-modern skyscrapers. A great sight.
We waste no more time and on foot we reach the Souq Wahif, where we literally lose ourselves in its atmosphere that I loved from the first instant. This is the real attraction of Doha. Worth the trip. This is where, once night falls, life begins. Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful. Having roamed the maze of alleys far and wide we have an aperitif (strictly non-alcoholic...) in one of the many bars crowded with Qataris and tourists. For dinner we choose the restaurant "Tajine", Moroccan cuisine in the centre of the Souq. Great location and great food. From the terrace of the Tajine, in the cool of an air conditioner, we admire the illuminated city and the souq teeming with people, the most for saying that we'll remember this city only too well. And it seems vibrant to us.
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