A few hours in Qatar

When we booked a flight to Bangkok with Qatar Airways, we took into account a piece of information that our travel companions already knew. Namely, that in the case of a transit of at least more than six hours, the airline provides free of charge a couple-of-hours excursion in the city of Doha with an English-speaking guide and completely free, including the visa. The information is written on the airline's website, and when we studied it before departure, we discovered that the tours are three a day and for just over twenty people at a time, and that they cannot be booked in advance, but only at the airport. So we were rather disheartened, and the idea of spending so many hours at the airport, moreover by our own choice, without taking advantage of this opportunity, which at the very least would have taken up a few hours, was demoralising.

Instead, perhaps because we arrived at 5 in the morning (the booking desk opened at 6) and went straight to the relevant counter (and well explained on the website), perhaps because in general few people are aware of it, the fact is that not only did the four of us get into the tour, but the coach was not even completely full. What can we say about what we saw? A strange world, absolutely fake and worth it only because we were in transit and because we didn't shell out a single dollar to cross it. It is a world full of building sites open everywhere, with few people around and where the only people you see working are certainly not Qatari. 85% of the inhabitants are foreigners, and it really seems that only they carry out any visible activity. The others, the men in white, the women mostly in black, drive about in big fancy cars and seem unapproachable and, in a certain sense, remote.

Some views are beautiful, if only for the contrasts between sea, skyscrapers or other interesting structures and the desert. The suq seemed interesting and a little more authentic.