Souks & Sheeshas

Friday in Doha, and it’s a welcome day off. Ryan and I take a leisurely start to the day, arriving at the Corniche area of the city---the waterfront---about 11:30a. Bright, sunny, windy day. We stroll out towards the dhow harbor, checking out all the boats, and watching as the Class 1 World Powerboat Championships boats get lowered into the water for the first round races of the Qatar Grand Prix. The juxtaposition of the old boats and the new boats bobbing alongside each other was interesting. The bay is huge and green, lots of construction happening on the opposite side. We depart towards the Souk Wafiq—the old bedouin souk (marketplace) that has been redone to resemble its former self. It’s extremely cool, with amazing shops and people-watching, and I had my first sheesha (as Ryan has his first taste of camel)….and then later I had another—both apple-flavored. Delicious! Foods were also wonderful. After souk round 1 we went back down to the Corniche to watch the boat races----fast!! Both visits to the Corniche for us had a weird element, though. There are many laborers that are here—men, building all the buildings and roads and so forth—from all over the sub-continent and elsewhere. They are the laborer class, and Friday is their one day off. So, lots of them were wandering about, heading towards the Corniche to watch the races and generally stroll about. Nope. The police lets us pass without incident, but as these guys started to come towards the area the police waved them off and would not let them pass; not welcome. It was a new experience, and not a pleasant one. That said, once the races were over (we missed Sheik Hassen flip his boat on turn 4!) we went back to the souk waqif and saw a cool concert (Al Jazeera was on location, reporting on all the goings-on), did some more shopping, then---beat tired—it was back to the hotel.

Saturday wasn’t much different---more exploring at the souk (only this time we spent some qatari riyals), a fine lunch at an Iraqi place, then off to our shoot. We spoke with some great gents, then it was off to the airport for the flight to Riyadh. Now we’re here---clearing customs was much easier that expected, yay!---and it’s sleepytime.