I woke up in the sunny Doha morning and headed down to the breakfast buffet. Most of the breakfast buffets we have had at hotels have been brilliant. It’s normally a flavourful feast of dips, cheeses, hummus, flatbreads, vegetables and olives… as well as yoghurt, fresh fruit and a variety of pastries.
Scrumptious.
This particular buffet was not one of those. It was not any of those things. It left so much to be desired, falling far short of the delicious early morning variety we’d become accustomed to. The selection was disappointing… and on top of that, each day, something significant seemed to vanish from the buffet. Cheese one day, fruit the next… then jam and yoghurt. It kept us constantly guessing what would go missing next.
Anyway… off to breakfast I went.
A few members of our Madventures crew were scattered across various tables in the dining room. After grabbing some food, I sat down near Caroline and Jeff. Midway through my meal, I had to make a quick phone call, so I moved to the back of the restaurant. I didn’t really want to disturb anyone with my personal chatter.
While I was on the call, standing right there… watching MY table… with MY breakfast on it… Lutz casually strolled over and dropped his dirty dishes right onto my table. I couldn’t believe it.
Seriously.
I can’t make this shit up.
WTF?
I was attempting to carry on a normal international call while trying to make sense of why he had decided my table was the perfect spot for his dirty dishes. He’d walked quite a ways over from his own table… in the opposite direction of the kitchen.
These people.
Seriously.
My table was obviously occupied. My coffee was still hot!
Jeff and Caroline were in absolute hysterics. It was the oddest thing. While I was still on the phone, thoroughly exasperated by Lutz’s actions, Jeff decided to join in the fun and moved all their dirty dishes to my table as well.
The waiter appeared almost instantly, eyeing the growing pile inquisitively… and I had to shout out, “I didn’t eat that much!”
It was still awkward with Denise… especially considering how persnickety Marilyn had decided to appoint herself the true victim of a situation that had absolutely nothing to do with her. I feel that people who intently ‘focus on’ or ‘engage in’ someone else’s drama are doing it as a way to give themselves a sense of purpose or distract themselves from their own challenges
Bingo.
Exactly.
Beat it, Persnickity.
Mr. Meat approached me after I’d finished eating breakfast, expressing concerns about the group dynamics.
You’re not alone, Mr. Meat.
You’re not alone.
He was having a bit of a meltdown about the group’s lack of cohesion, feeling left out and fairly disconnected. He mentioned that everyone seemed to be doing their own thing, leaving him feeling excluded. Although Mr. Meat can be a lot… he wasn’t wrong. This group hasn’t really come together at all. There is no teamwork or sense of sticking together at all. No group jokes, no laughter, no fun… no team spirit.
Everyone here stuck to themselves… with a few minor exceptions.
~ Kind Brian and Graham are inseparable… sometimes. They are firm roommates and often spend their days doing the same thing.
~ The Germans stick together. Always.
~ I’d been hanging out with Denise, but that had gone belly right up.
~ Sue spends most of her time with persnickety Marilyn, but complains about her non-stop when they’re apart.
So I agreed to spend the day with Mr. Meat. I figured I could donate a few hours of my precious travelling time to a touched and temperamental Trump supporter. Judy decided to tag along as well, so that was good.
I shouldn’t be so mean. He’s not that bad… in small doses. I’ve had to set my boundaries and make it abundantly clear that I won’t discuss Trump, Democrats, Republicans, Trudeau, Palestine, the Jewish faith, gun control, the first amendment, the second amendment, the ‘hoax’ of climate change… and so much more. The list goes on.
Mr. Meat was eager to visit a place called The Villaggio Mall. I looked it up… and it was a mall… albeit a fancy one. The Villaggio was designed to look exactly like Venice. Again. The Qatari really seem to love the Venice theme here. Having been to Venice myself, I couldn’t help but note that neither The Villaggio nor the Venice-inspired district of The Pearl truly capture the city’s essence. The light pastels remind me more of the villages around Lake Garda. I suggested to Mr. Meat that he might enjoy The Pearl more, as it had a similar Italian vibe but offered so much more. But… Mr. Meat had his heart set on the mall, so the mall it was. I even warned him of the risk of taking two women to a shopping mall… but he wasn’t deterred.
And so, off we went.
To another mall.
The Villaggio Mall was… a mall. Sure, it was colourful and fancy and luxurious. Sure, it had a full canal running right down the middle of it, with gondolas and gondoliers. But at the end of the day, it was still just a mall.
Mr. Meat quickly learned what it meant to take two women shopping. After he was forced to wait around while we sorted through sales racks and tried on a few things, we were finally ready to move on.
Next, we headed back to the souq. But as soon as I arrived, exhaustion hit me. I felt completely drained and just wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep. It had been a long couple of days… and everything was finally catching up to me.
So that’s what I did.
I felt bad leaving, as I’d committed to spending the day with Mr. Meat. I tried to make up for my early departure by agreeing to go out for Chinese with him, later on in the evening, though when I awoke, it was the last thing I wanted. Instead, I opted for dining downstairs in the hotel, as extortionate as it was. The evening buffet offered almost an equally rubbish buffet as the breakfast one… and upon a closer look, I discovered it was all meat. So I ordered a $30 veggie sub sandwich off the menu… which took forever to arrive… and turned out to be nothing more than some pesto, lettuce and tomato on a hot dog bun.
I should’ve known.
Leaving Qatar was an even bigger mess than entering it. We were sent all over the place, like we were on some chaotic treasure hunt. Honestly, I have no idea how they managed to host the World Cup and get so many thousands of fanatical football fans in and out. It was absolute chaos.
I can’t complain too much about Qatar because Saudi was worse. Ok… so since leaving Oman, this was our third transit voyage through Saudi Arabia… yet we were put through the wringer each time. We were shuffled from one location to another, repeatedly asked to present our documents. At one point, we were all herded into a room while dogs sniffed through our belongings.
It was crazy.
Everything is crazy. I feel like I’m in a circus… or in something along the lines of The Truman Show… or I have a major lesson to learn from these travel trials & tribulations… or someone is playing a cruel, cruel joke on me. This whole trip could be a major Netflix flick.
And I’m only three weeks deep.
Five to go…
I’m surprised we don’t actually have more hassle at the border.
This motley crew.
Our big Saudi stop for our transit day on our way to Bahrain was…
Wait for it…
Wait for it…
Caves.
Lord… help me.
If it’s not a mall, it’s a cave.
Why are there always so many caves?
I was assured these were fabulous caves, so I opened up my wallet and paid the admission fee. $12USD. Al-Qarah Mountain and its caves that were once home to pre-Islamic tribes. They were impressive for the first few minutes, but ultimately (as I feel about most caves) that was money and sanity and time I was never getting back…
I enjoyed my time in Doha and wished I had more opportunity to explore. It was modern, unique, innovative… but like most of the major oil & gas cities in the Gulf, it felt almost like a massive entertainment hub… but with beauty and charm.
I asked our food tour guide about the role tourism plays in Qatar’s economy. Surprisingly, he said it contributes nothing.
Nothing?
No tourism? At all?
He said it was ALL oil and gas… and tourism played no part. I found that difficult to believe… though hardly took his word for it. He was too disengaged to take seriously.
I shall fact check…
“Travel & Tourism is set to contribute an all-time high of QAR 90.8BN to the Qatari economy (11.3% of the total) and will support more than 334,500 jobs across the country (15.8% of the total workforce).”
Hmmm…
Interesting he said there was nothing, yet pointed out all the Saudis on vacation.
My wrist has been giving me quite a bit of trouble. Any sensible person would have had it checked by now, but I’m not exactly that sensible. I just keep hoping it’ll just heal on its own. Most of the time, it’s perfectly fine… but then I twist it a certain way… and the pain… oh… the agony.
How do I do these things to myself?
Always.
In addition to my bunk wrist, I also somehow managed to pull a muscle behind my left knee. I’m blaming the stress of the freaks I’m with… though I’m fairly confident that amount of stress would have caused a life threatening ulcer or a multi-day killer migraine. Perhaps not something as minor as a pulled muscle behind my knee.
A few people asked me what I did to have this strain happen.
This is the humiliating bit…
I stood up from sitting in a chair.
That’s it.
So now, I’m limping along with my right leg because of the shooting pain issues with my heel bone… and now, in addition, I’m limping along with my left leg because of the excruciating pain behind my knee.
I’m a catch. Real catch. One foot in the grave…
… and my wrist is whack… and I’m with a bunch of kooks.
I need wine. Lots of it.
This. Is. My. Life.
All I did was stand up.
After driving as far as possible through Saudi Arabia to get close to the Qatar border, it was time to find a spot to camp for the evening. We turned off the main road, onto a dusty old track… and began our search… but all we came across were farmlands, nature reserves, and “no camping” signs. There were a LOT of “no camping” signs.
What would happen if we got caught camping, in Saudi Arabia, where there was allegedly no camping?
Confused, slightly lost… and running out of options quickly, we kept driving for what felt like forever. It was getting dark. Every time it seemed like we might be somewhere practical, we’d see another sign.
Then we got stuck.
Soft sand is a real thing.
We finally found something. Actually a kind local came along and led us to a place where we’d be ok for the night. We figured it would be ok to take his advice because he seemed official. He had a big rifle in his truck.
Our location was a place known as Yellow Lake (Al-Asfar Lake). Too bad Yellow wasn’t still here to experience it. Yellow Lake is a natural attraction surrounded by sand dunes… and is a designated nature reserve.
Hence the “no camping.”
The birders were quite put out because we were near a lake and a nature reserve… and they were all on cook crew. So no birding! I did offer to seek out some of the feathered flyers nearby… and try my best to photograph them… but they didn’t take me up on my offer.
That night… was dreadful.
Absolutely dreadful.
We froze.
We were human popsicles.
Now… any regular person would think “cold in Saudi Arabia? No way!” …which was exactly my thought process when I was purchasing my sleeping bag.
Do not be fooled!!
It gets Baltic in Saudi Arabia.
We froze.
It probably didn’t help that most of our gear was wet and stinky, as a result of our last misty morning of camping. I went to bed wearing every piece of clothing I had. My jacket, every single sweater, my toque… I couldn’t find my gloves, so I had to settle for socks on my hands.
It was a miserable night.
Baltic.
Not only was I shivering uncontrollably the entire evening, but I also had to get up to pee three times… an effort my exhausted, frozen and disabled body could barely manage.
It was like my body was writing cheques my body couldn’t cash.
Awful.
*if you camp in Saudi, get a GOOD sleeping bag!
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