I went to... with Matthew - Qatar

 I went to...  Qatar.

In 2006, I’d just finished an 18 month assignment in Singapore, and decided to come back to the UK to visit family.  Once that decision had been taken, the next exciting job was to decide a stopover location, as indirect flights are always much cheaper than direct flights.  Even though I was unemployed, I was fortunate to be able to take some time off before looking for my next job.

I decided to stop in Qatar, and so travelled on Qatar airlines, which turned out to be an excellent choice.  Qatar occupies a small peninsula in the Arabian gulf, sharing a land border with Saudi Arabia.  Bahrain is around 20 miles away by sea and Dubai is around 235 miles to the East.

 Qatar from my hotel window.  I travelled in February, so although it looks baking hot, it was actually a very pleasant time of year to visit.

Despite being a very small country, Qatar has the third largest reserves of natural gas in the world.  The rapid development of liquefied natural gas technology in the early 2000’s allowed gas to be distributed without needing a pipeline, which brought great wealth to Qatar.  In 2009, Qatar overtook Luxembourg as the country with the highest average income in the world.  That doesn’t quite tell the whole story though, as the 280,000 Qataris are supported by 1.6 million migrant workers who do not share in the wealth to quite the same extent as the Qataris.  As a result of the huge migrant workforce, my favourite statistic about Qatar is that 74% of the residents of the country are male.

Qatar’s capital (and only real city) is Doha, which is a very picturesque city built on a bay.  The waterfront is fringed by a delightful cornice, that runs for around 3 miles and provides a great opportunity for strolling and people watching.  At one end of the corniche is a vast mall, with the usual designer label stores, restaurants, cinemas and, perhaps surprisingly, a huge ice rink.

At the other end of the cornice is a large residential area for the migrant workforce.  There were markets, mosques and restaurants, but as they serviced a population drawn almost exclusively from the Indian sub-continent, the feeling of the place was much more like Delhi, Lahore or Dhaka than a major Middle Eastern capital.  This created a contrast which I actually really liked.

I found Qatar to be the probably the most strongly Islamic place I have ever visited, more so than Kuwait, Dubai and far more than you find in the Islamic parts of Asia  I don’t believe I saw an uncovered woman in the entire time I was there, and the (male) crowds at Friday prayers spilled out of every mosque.  The sale of alcohol was restricted to a small number of  bars which were very well hidden in luxury hotels.  Nevertheless, most of the customers in these bars were locals - it was rather disconcerting to sip on my Heineken while sitting next to a gent in full thawb and kufiya who was chugging a Stella Artois.

 Skyline work in progress

Back in 2006, Qatar’s wealth was building exponentially, and the country was in a phase of huge building works.  Nevertheless, I could sense a realisation that the gas would eventually run out, something I’d also felt when I visited Dubai and Kuwait.  It felt that the respective governments had recognised their long term obligation to provide for their populations when the oil and gas ran out, and each of the major states was trying to find a way to differentiate themselves from their neighbours so as to attract investment and tourists.

 Meet Orry, the mascot of the 15^th Asian Games. 

 A Qatari Oryx, if you were wondering.

Qatar picked sport.  In a surprise decision, it had been selected as the host of the 2006 Asian games, a decision Malaysia described as “ridiculous” and which China felt was “disappointing” (I’ll come back to this theme later…).   Despite the controversy, Qatar was proudly advertising its upcoming hosting responsibilities during my visit with a countdown clock on the cornice.

The old and the new are never far apart in the Arabian peninsula

In 2010, Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, beating out the USA, South Korea, Japan and Australia.  Giving the hosting rights to a country that has never qualified for the competition (and based on a global ranking of 106, would probably never qualify), was a controversial decision, to say the least.  It certainly satisfies world football’s desire to take the tournament to new parts of the world, but there are lingering suspicions of corruption in the bidding process.

Another problem is that the tournament is traditionally held in the Northern Hemisphere summer, where temperatures in Qatar can reach 50 degrees Celsius.  Qatar’s bid included a promise to build air-conditioned stadiums, although there are concerns over fan well-being when travelling to and from games.  The latest thinking is that the 2022 tournament will be rescheduled to the winter months, which would solve the heat issue, but which would require substantial concessions from national football federations.

Since I visited Qatar nearly a decade ago, the development has continued and Doha has become an even more desirable stopover.  A museum of Islamic art has been built on the corniche, which was quickly rated as one of the great museums of the world.  Qatar has boosted its sporting credentials by hosting major cycling and tennis events and a Qatari recently won the Paris-Dakar rally.  A long mooted bridge connecting the country to Bahrain is shortly to be built.   

A fascinating part of the world, that is well worth at least a stopover.

Matt

We've had such a positive response now that Matthew is contributing regularly to the blog.

Thanks so much for all of your great comments.

 

We're home from Barcelona this evening.

I can't wait to tell you all about it.

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