Doha
Sorry for wasting 36 seconds of your life on that video (more if you had to wait for it to load) but I couldn’t resist making a reference to rocking the casbahs in this entry even if it’s not wholly appropriate. Not going to lie, I’m of those people that shamelessly conflates the Middle East with Central Asia and North Africa. :P
So anyway flying from Singapore to London via Qatar Airways mandates a stopover in Doha, Qatar. My limited encounter with the Middle East was not pleasant - crowds jostling to get on the shuttle buses from the plane to the airport, men jumping my queue (and that of many other unfortunate ladies) during security checks just because they believed it to be acceptable, followed by more nudging and glaring on my part.. in retrospect, not so wise, I never knew who I could have offended or what the consequences would have been.
That said, I’d still have liked to tour Doha on my stopover, but the exorbitant fees for a day tour for the individual traveller (US$300 per person for half a day? Really???) forced me to opt for a shorter transit time. With the exception of the jostling crowd, my transit was impressively smooth - a tired and grumpy traveller couldn’t have asked for better efficiency. I’d love to be back.
The aerial view of the Qatar and Central Asia was incredible, intricately reclaimed land patterns and mountain ranges are something that you don’t get to see every flight. Also experienced the famous Heathrow Delay… our plane had to make 30 minutes worth of loops in the air to kill time because there was such a long queue to land. Can’t deny that it made for an amusing story though, this picture more than made up for the wait.
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dohanews reblogged this from calibre and added:
traveler transiting through Doha - anyone (everyone) who’s been through...Doha...
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calibre posted this
