Doha and Dune Bashing

There’s unfinished construction everywhere. It felt like the whole city was under construction.

Old mixed with new. The old city and the diplomatic quarter, where virtually half of the buildings where empty or under construction


This is from the museum of islamic art. Free entrance for everyone to 4 stories full of artefacts.
   
After the museum, some shawarma and a drink youghurt. 6 Riyals (1,2 euros)
  

We made some friends in Katara :-)


The Souk Wakif at night, a big traditional market full of all sorts of goods. Animals, spices, … you name it!

We had dinner at a moroccan restaurant. I ordered a menu, and got enough food for 3 persons. 
  
The pearl of Qatar. A big luxury place still under construction. A big circular harbour full with yatches and exclusive residential buildings around it with luxury boutiques at the bottom. To top it up, there were Bose speakers hidden in the bushes playing some nice background music.


In the afternoon we went to the desert for some dune bashing. Before going out in the desert, we deflated the tyres of the car and got a pause to meet some of the desert locals.


The Qatari desert. Note how steep the slope is!!
 
With arabic music at full volume our driver took us through the dunes at speeds up to 90 km/h, sliding down 50-55 degree slopes, driving from the bottom up to the crest, jumping up over it.. All this while sometimes talking on the phone simultaneously. It was a GREAT experience!!

Our crazy and very happy driver Ibrahim.


Two happy faces in the silver lounge at Doha airport. We got denied boarding and instead of Doha-Bangkok-Hanoi we had to do Doha-Singapore-Hanoi. An extra 4 hours of enjoyment at 30.000 feet :-) They gave us some compensation though, 250 dollars, which will have us living as kings in Vietnam.