A great starting point

Old and new; the big, the bold and mundane; the panoramic vistas, the sounds, the smells and the unexpected are all to be anticipated on a Yellow Bus tour of Doha.

This city sightseeing tour has yellow double-decker buses instead of the usual red ones that are popular throughout leading destinations across the globe in providing visitors and newcomers with a glimpse of what’s on offer.

The Doha bus didn’t disappoint. At face value, QR180 (R720) might seem a tad expensive, but if time is against you or you need to orientate yourself in a hurry, then the panoramic or hop-on, hop-off options are worth the mula (even if you are earning Rands).

As an aside, the Qatari Rial is about 1:4 when it comes to the Rands, but if you are earning in Pounds (lucky you), then this two-and-a-half round-trip costs about GPD 37. This is on par with the London bus tours.

Like all such official sightseeing trips it takes in stops – 16 in this case – and offers you a commentary in your own language, but this one also offers air-conditioning. It has too for when the temperatures soar into the mid- to late-40Cs in summer. But for us, in late March, it was a windy 28C – a bit like a summer’s day in Gqeberha.

Without regurgitating all the facts and waxing lyrical about all the sites (I have included a list of some of the key places at the end), I’ll stick to the key take-away observations.

Sightseeing observations

Small, but visionary

Qatar is small. It is 105 times smaller than South Africa at just 160km long and just 80km wide and measures 11 571km2. Lebanon is 11 times bigger than Qatar, and Ireland is six times its size. In fact, even the city of London is bigger than Qatar. But Qatar is only small in landmass. When it comes to vision, this Middle Eastern country punches way above its weight when you hear and see what’s been achieved in a very short modern history.  You’ll hear about much of this on the tour. Of course, it helps enormously when you have large tracts of oil and natural gas at your disposal, but the implementation of so many ambitious projects across sport, culture, health, infrastructure, education and sustainability also requires big vision. That’s Qatar.

• 2022 FIFA World Cup

The hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup from mid-November this year is one such project. And that is why construction is underway absolutely everywhere – the roads, pavements, fan parks, public spaces, bridges and buildings. The eight football stadiums are completed. They’re either brand new, like the one in Lusail, where the opening and final will take place, or have been fully refurbished. (The new city of Lusail, for example, with its residences, palatial-like shopping mall and marina were all built from scratch from 2010 to support the World Cup when Qatar was named this year’s hosts.)

This month (March), the flags of the qualifying countries have started to join the FIFA 2022 branding, the countdown calendars, advertising billboards and Orry the Oryx, the antelope mascot, as kick-off nears for the first country in the Middle East to host this global contest.

• Men at work everywhere

The latter – the promise of a captive audience to witness the architectural, engineering and other feats of Qatar first-hand – is why men are at work everywhere, day and night, week in and week out.

(I know as I have seen and heard the dumper trucks at play in the dark hours of the night, shifting tons of rubble and sand under the spotlights.)

On every part of our bus journey, these workers could be seen, their yellow hard hats matching our yellow bus. But that’s where the similarities stop. These men, from all nations of the world, are not on a joy ride. They work tirelessly, often in difficult conditions and for long hours since there’s a critical deadline to be met. And that deadline is way before the opening of FIFA World Cup on 21 November because it will soon be too hot to work by day. It’s 23 April today with the temperature at around 35C.

• Striking architecture

Those who are not working on the roads, are constructing new buildings, some of which will no doubt be as tall and striking as those already vying for our vertical attention in this rapidly growing city.

Many of these architectural marvels can be found:

• In downtown Doha (Westbay and the Diplomatic Area) built from the 1980s

• The plush Pearl, a series of artificial islands, hosting high-end residential high-rises built around marina living (a bit like Sol Kerzner’s Lost Palace on steroids) which began in 2004.

• The swanky smart city of Lusail, built outside of Doha, especially to support the FIFA World Cup (the bus tour does not go here, but you see the famous Zig Zag (dancing) towers and Crescent Tower hotel in the distance).

• Msheireb in old downtown Doha, close to Souq Waqif 

• Mishmash of cultures

As life passes you on the bus, you’re aware of a crazy mix of cultures. With at least 114 nationalities living in Qatar (only about 10% of the 2.8 million population are Qataris), Doha is a great melting pot of cultures. You see this in how people dress, what they eat, the music they enjoy and the languages they use.  

The Qatari men, for example, wear long white robes called thobes and a white headdress with a black band called ghutras. Qatari women wear a black headdress a called shayla and a black abayha (dress). I am told you differentiate the Arabic people by their headdress and other subtle differences in their clothing. I have so much more to learn!

And then there is everyone else, the Indians, Filipinos, Pakistanis, Banglideshis, the Africans, the Europeans, Americans and those who live Down Under. And there’s us too, the South Africans, about 3000-plus of us. Apparently, there were about 6500 South Africans here before COVID upended so many lives and livelihoods.

• Expect the unexpected

Doha is a city of contrasts so don’t be surprised to see a caravan of camels being ridden across the undulating lawns in front of the Summer Houses of Parliament in the midst of rush-hour traffic. It caught me unaware. 

And then there were the falcons as we passed by the Katara Cultural Village, sitting on individual perches positioned on the grass. I was too slow to snap either, and when we circled on the bus again, both the camels and falcons were gone.

But I did manage to capture the bizarre scene of two fellows trying to negotiate the busy roads, full of detours, road works and cars, with their suitcases as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Finally, (and I don’t suppose I should have been surprised in such a wealthy country), as we awaited the return of our yellow bus at The Pearl close to the Ferrari and Rolls Royce showrooms, a Bentley (this is a British car that costs a quick R3.4m or more) pulled up nearby. A quiet toot on the hooter and a well-dressed young man rushed from behind a desk in the street to be of service. A quick exchange ensued; the owner reversed his car into a special parking, and then walked ten paces into the Versace, or was it Gucci, store. The stuff of movies, the car valet service is commonplace here.

What a day of extremes … and I didn’t even get to the smells and sounds.

List of some of the sites on the tour  

(I hope to share more on some of these as, and when, time allows):

• Museum of Islamic Art
• The Dhow Harbour
• The Corniche
• Katara Cultural Village
• The Pearl Qatar
• State Grand Mosque
• National Museum of Qatar
• Msherieb Downtown
• Souq Waqif
• The Sheraton and Hotel Park

• A quick taste of the food culture in Qatar  
• What to enjoy at Qatar’s Hamad International Airport
• Put dhow cruise in Doha, Qatar on your list
• Gorgeous Georgia an ideal holiday destination for South Africans
• Endless enriching exhibitions in Qatar