R&R in Qatar ~ part 1

I had the opportunity to take a 4-day pass to Qatar for R&R. The trip was fun, but not without it's drama. The time in Qatar was way better than being in Iraq, but the travel arrangements almost made it not worth the efforts! Brad was my "Battle Buddy" for R&R, the two of us going together. We work together and decided to go on the trip together - and not talk about work at all! It was very nice.




We were supposed to leave on a Sunday evening. We showed up at the passenger terminal and waited 2 hours and then were told the flight was cancelled and to check back in 24 hours. We awkwardly went to work the next day, explaining to everyone that our flight was cancelled...we were supposed to be gone - nobody wanted us at work, not even us. We went back to the terminal on Monday evening - no flights. Tuesday evening at 8pm, we were booked for the 10pm flight...got pushed to midnight...then 2am. We were in a dust storm and figured the air field would be closed all night, so we decided to take our chances and go back to our rooms, get some sleep, and try again in the morning. Luckily, we had a duty person keep an eye on the flight for us and we were notified at 1:15am that the plane was on the runway loading and we better hurry if we were going to make it. So we jumped out of bed and drove as fast as we could to the terminal again and made it to the ramp just in time.
Here's us in the night vision lighting on the C130. Not a lot of luxury on these but we were happy to be getting out of Al Asad!!! We arrived at Qatar and were informed that we couldn't take any pictures of anything on or near the base while there...so no pix of the Qatar Air Base. But I can tell you it looked like every other base around here...light brown/tan buildings and sand everywhere, with fences and concrete barricade walls around everything.

We got into the R&R Base, Camp As Saleyiah, around 9am and were herded around like cattle for the in-processing. We then got to our room and caught a quick nap until noon. We spent the first day trying to relax and get our bearings of the area, got a quick massage at the spa and ate some fine chow. We hung out in the USO area and Brad was having some beers (3 per day limit), and we wanted some nachos and salsa...it turned out to be Doritos and salsa. We couldn't get over how some cultures interpret our food!!! And these Doritos had a weird cheesy-paprika flavor or something.
The second day (actually our first day of R&R , day 1), we took a shopping tour of Doha City, visiting all the important markets. First stop was the camel market. Very sad, and funny at the same time. These camels are raised and sold for meat and leather. Not racing, milk, or spit or anything - just meat and leather.

We then went to the City Center Mall. It's a huge western style mall with 350 stores, movie theater, ice skating rink, and all that.

Here you can see Brad in front of a Starbucks...they're EVERYWHERE!!! But more ridiculous are the little Sheiks that walked all over the place. We'll see plenty more of them, but the Qatari people are all sheiks and they don't have any occupations. The country is 25% Qatari - and 75% others (Filipino, Indian, Sri Lankan, etc) to do all the work running shops and services. The Qatari citizens are entirely supported by the state selling oil and they do nothing to contribute to society other than shopping and consuming things. You'll see more of them in "R&R part 2".

We stopped by the "big clam" in the middle of town. Doha is known for it's pearl trade.

We went to the "Old Souqs", meaning "Old Shops." It was an ancient market area with all kinds of trade...nuts, spices, tools, jewelry, bootleg DVDs, etc. We stopped into this Falconry shop where they sell all the latest in falcon gear and fashions. There was a nice lunch counter we stopped by to see what was on the menu...We read the first line and kept walking! Fortunately, the tour came with an excellent lunch at the best Indian Buffet we've ever had. I'll post more soon.