I know what everyone is thinking. What better place to spend Christmas but in the Middle Eastern desert, right? Well, for us this was the next best thing to being home.
Arriving in Doha was reverse culture shock. Gone were the noises, smells and chaos of India. We were in the richest country in the world and after a month in India we were ready for it. Qatar was a country that had never even crossed my radar until we had friends working there. Here is an article with some info on the country if you’re interested.
Our time in Qatar was spent with Mark’s childhood friend Bob and his family. They are friends who we consider family. Katsue, Bob’s wife, and I get along very well. She’s very easy going and has a great sense of humour, but also, we have the common ground of having husbands who are very similar (and similarly frustrating at times lol).
Bob collected us from the airport and drove us home with a great view of the Doha skyline at night. It was pretty late, but when arrived the kids were so excited to see each other (the adults were too) that we stayed up well into the night visiting.
After India pretty much all of our clothes were dirty. There had been hand washing of socks and underwear and a few other items, but even then things tend to not be really clean. The luxury of a washer and dryer was heavenly. We kept smelling ourselves and ouuu-ing and ahhh-ing over how great it was.
Home cooked meals, good coffee and tea, and time to relax, talk and plan for the next stage were exactly what we needed. I remember talking about the trip with Katsue a while back. We were trying to convince them to meet us somewhere for Christmas. We tossed around the idea of finding a large rental somewhere in Thailand and hopefully having some family and the Talbots join us for the holidays. Katsue has travelled a fair amount and she said “I think you will be tired. You’re not vacationing for 10 months, you are travelling. There’s a big difference. You should come to Qatar and relax. You will need a break from travelling.” There has never been a truer statement!! Not having to cook probably sounds like a luxury to most people, but eating in restaurants gets old fast. We hadn’t had a meal that we made ourselves since leaving Europe. Guesthouses, hotels, tea houses and trains were where we had been sleeping. Being settled for two weeks, in a home, recharged us. The compound had a pool, tennis and basketball courts, a gym and a store. There were days where we didn’t need to go anywhere.
Bob, Katsue and the kids were the ultimate hosts. We felt perfectly at home and we got to see Doha from the perspective of people who live there (we’d never be able to afford to travel there otherwise).
Doha has a beautiful waterfront looking out on the Persian Gulf, which is where we took in the Qatar National Day celebrations. We saw a huge parade and airshow, fireworks and a drone exhibition (not just one or two….like 500 drones moving at once to make an amazing show in the sky). Along the waterfront they’ve also built “The Pearl”, an artificial island built on a formers pearl diving sites (Qatar was a major Pearl trader back in the day) that’s about four square kilometres. It’s the only place in Qatar that foreigners can own property. We headed here for a walk to check out the yachts and have lunch one day. The temperature was perfect during our two weeks there, 25 degrees during the day and around 20 degrees at night.
The Talbot’s have some great friends in Doha. They were so welcoming to us and some offered us places to stay while we were there as they were going to be away. But, we only get to see our friends every few years, so staying elsewhere (even close by) was quickly veto-ed. Most of the people living on the compound are Canadians. Many are from Newfoundland and are employees at the same college where Bob teaches. We had fun tagging along to a Christmas party up the street and some other friends invited us to a backyard fire one evening (that went way later than we planned). Bob’s friend Dean invited us over to his place for a visit and we were treated to playing with 2 dogs and several adorable kittens (which made us a little homesick for our kitties). It was a festive time, even without the snow.
Qatar is the land of shopping malls. I’m not kidding. They are the most huge, opulent shopping centres I’ve ever seen. One mall has an ice rink and a Venice-like canal that offers gondola rides. I think everyone had so much money and it’s so hot outside for a lot of the year that they build these centres to have places to go and something to do. They often have small amusement parks inside. One had a fantastic trampoline place that Billy, Saya, Molly and Grace spent the afternoon in.
It’s a different kind of wealthy. It’s not ‘I have a big house and a maid’ rich. It’s ‘I have a big house, a maid, a cook and a nanny, beautiful cars (plural) and I don’t have a job’ rich. Not many Qataris actually work. All of the construction workers, store employees, gas station workers, airport employees, basically every worker comes from another country (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Philippines) . The king of Qatar pays a basic allowance to all Qataris and they don’t need to work. The country sits on one of the largest natural gas deposits in the world. One taxi driver said “Qataris eat and shop.” Anyway, Christmas shopping was fun. We couldn’t buy a whole lot because lugging stuff around with us for the next 5 months wasn’t an option. But, finding small fun things was easy and there are so many malls that none of them are ever busy (also, it’s a Muslim country so it’s not like there were many people out shopping for Christmas, lol).
Our biggest surprise was our gift from Bob, Katsue and the kids….a GoPro!! We were shocked. We hadn’t expected anything from them, their hospitality was enough. What was funny was a few nights before Christmas we were all talking and I said to Mark “I really wish we had a GoPro for the next leg of our trip.” We were headed for sun, beach and water activities so I thought it would be fun to have a camera that could capture those moments. Little did we know there was already one wrapped under the tree!!
Katsue is a great cook. Our Christmas dinner was orchestrated by her and felt just like home. She made a ham, cooked a turkey and had 7 different vegetables!! Dean joined us (his wife and kids were in Japan visiting her family) and brought along a turkey he cooked and gravy. Needless to say, we weren’t short of food. Saya, Molly and Grace had been baking shortbread and gingerbread cookies for days and I made pumpkin pies. We FaceTimed with Neve, my parents and siblings almost every day from my dad’s birthday to Boxing Day and a few other times too. We were missing out on Christmas with Mark’s family too. Normally we would head to Cobden on Christmas day after leaving Mattawa and stay for days (until Heather kicked us out lol). It was special for us to be able to FaceTime with ALL of them on Boxing Day (Heather, Ben, Matthew, Rachel & Tim, Hannah, Clinton, Levi and the twins, Sue and Wayne). Uncle Mike is a regular on our FaceTime circuit too. It’s hard being away from family in general, but the holidays were a lot harder than we anticipated.
Bob and Mark took the girls to see camel races which was a highlight for sure. The four of them got on a bus that drove around the inside of the track following the camels along the 5 km oval. The camels have electronic jockeys that are remotely controlled by the owners who follow along in Land Cruisers.
Qatar is surrounded on three sides by the Persian Gulf and it’s a desert, which means lots of sand, which means….there are beaches. Beautiful, white sand beaches with dunes as a backdrop. We spent a day at the beach with some of the Talbot’s circle of friends. Many of them had kids in all age ranges, so the girls had a blast swimming and playing beach games with them.
Our first test of the GoPro came the day we rented a 4-wheel drive Jeep and went “dune Bashing”. Pretty much everyone in Qatar drives a 4-wheel drive, but Bob’s couldn’t fit both of our families, so we rented one so all of us could go. We thought we had experienced desert in India, but Qatar is exactly what you picture when you imagine the desert. Miles and miles of large sand dunes as far and the eye can see. Racing 4×4’s, ATV’s and dirt bikes up the dunes is a regular occurrence on Saturday’s for Qataris. You can check out this video to see what that’s like. Apparently it’s pretty dangerous.
Our five vehicles caravanned to the starting place where we let air out of the tires until they were at about 12psi (this keeps the tires from sinking). Off we went into the maze of rolling dunes. Bob lead the group as wound our way to the top of the high dunes. We stopped to look out over the landscape that was straight from Star Wars. A competition of “Who can jump the farthest off the edge of the dune” ensued and my loathing for the feeling of sand on my body had to be shoved deep down, there was no avoiding it. The reckless teenager inside both Mark and Bob seemed to be bubbling to the surface. There were times when I was a bit panicked and thought the Jeep would start rolling down the dune. All we heard from the kids was shrieks of excitement!!
It’s always hard to leave Bob, Katsue and the kids. We never know for sure when we’ll see them again. I guess that’s part of what makes the time we have with them so special, not knowing when it will happen again, you never want to take it for granted. It was nice to finally see where they are most of the time instead of trying to imagine it from their descriptions. I’ve always liked the saying “Friends are the family you choose.” Choosing them as family was easy.
Our Long and Winding Road 
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