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 15th 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.
