If we're lucky it cools down to somewhere around 38 degrees C at night, and during the day temperatures are soaring to well over 40 degrees. And when I mention that it's HOT, everyone who lives here is quick to tell me I should have been here during the summer!
Obviously this extreme heat does influence the local peoples' daily routines - most people have very early starts to their days to try and get things done before about 10:00 am, some shops and businesses do close in the middle of the day, and then the city sort of comes to life starting at about 4:00 pm and definitely once the sun has set!
Doha is a very, very young city and in fact it doesn't (yet) offer a lot for tourists. It really is focussing on building the city itself and the infrastructure... there is more building going on here then I've ever seen anyplace else. It would be very interesting to come back here again in 5-10 years (although maybe I'd come in October or November instead of the summer months) and see what the city is like then. I suspect the changes will be mind-blowing.
There's no doubt Qatar is a very rich country! There's a lot of opulent wealth in Qatari homes and especially in the vehicles they drive!! I've found the Qatari people to be incredibly friendly, and you would never want to start off a conversation without a "hi" or "how are you" (al-salaam alaykum) before you delved into the topic of the conversation.
Friday and Saturday are the weekend here and so today, when no one was working and no one was at school, I had the experience of going out into the Qatari desert! My friends took me from Doha (which is on the east side of Qatar) to Dukhan which is on the west coast - and in fact I saw a Qatari sunset, watching the sun set over the Gulf. No photos though as we were at a public beach and photography there is not allowed.
We did a fair bit of off-roading, and getting out to take photos was quite the experience in heat! It was so hot that after about 2 minutes of being outside you didn't even realize it was hot any longer. And it was totally easy to see how people could become completely disoriented, extremely quickly.
Despite the fact that I'd love to share some of my photos I still haven't figured out how to upload them using the iPad. If anyone has any expertise with blogspot and iPads please try and walk me through what to do!
Worse case - if I absolutely can't figure it out maybe I'll set up a Flickr account or something like that. If anyone has any suggestions on another forum for the photos let me know.
Tomorrow I'm hoping to get to Souq Waqif for my first look at this more traditional way of shopping.
Fascinating stuff!!
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