Dossing in Doha

It's 6:30pm here in Doha International Airport (and I assume in the rest of Qatar as well) and the jet lag has drawn Heather into the Prayer Room. She may be prostrating herself in the direction of Mecca through religious devotion or inadvertently as she dozes. I'm fighting with the jet lag as I take advantage of the free wireless Internet available here in the airport. We've been here six hours and still have another 15 hours to go before our flight to Nairobi. Our budget backpacker highly restricted Internet fare does not entitle us to a hotel in Doha. We could have paid US$25 each to leave the airport and find somewhere to sleep, and the prospect of exploring Doha a little was appealing. But since I have less than $3k to live on for the entire year, we decided against it and have been killing time with the laptop, playing my x-mas guitar and listening to old Muslim men sing songs all afternoon,

To quickly recap the last couple of days: (a couple of pics are in the gallery)

Day one on Bangkok was Heathers birthday, which was spent striding around downtown Bangkok in hot, hazy and humid conditions in search of the Grand Palace. We managed to encounter and evade a number of the scams we were pre-warned of and also see several of the sights by accident on our convoluted route to the Grand Palace. Exhausted at the end of the day we had dinner at our delightful hostel and I was enjoyed perhaps the best Thai Green Curry I've ever eaten. I'd heard that 'Thai food' in Thailand is supposed to be very very good. Up to that point I'd only experienced various disappointing combinations of flat noodles, vegetables and meat. I attempted another green curry the following day and was sorely let down - surely the worst green curry I've ever eaten. None of the creamy coconut from the night before, just a handful of chili, ginger and coriander in an opaque fluid. Not wanting to waste food or be dominated by a plate of chili I force fed myself the lot until fire was flickering out of my nostrils. Even Heather's highly dubious prawns (I encouraged otherwise at the time) in her Phad Thai would have been better than that. So that was day two - sleeping, reading and recovering from dreadful food (I could mention the sliver of fat and soggy frankfurter that passed for bacon and sausages that morning).

I like the word ubiquitous, and when I visit somewhere new there generally seems to be something that jumps out as being ubiquitous. In Thailand, with the exception of the taxis, mopeds and tuk-tuks that are common in most Asian countries - it seemed like 7-11's and hair salons were EVERYWHERE. One street near our hostel in an outer suburb of Bangkok had four 7-11's in the space of 200 metres and probably double that number in hair salons.

Day Three - which happens to be today, even though this morning is literally half a world away and metaphorically another lifetime. Up at 4:45am to get to the airport. Convolution seems to be a theme for us, as our somewhat convoluted and semi-doctored evidence of onward travel nearly had us denied admission to our flight, but we managed to negotiate onward passage.

Several movies later and we cruised in over the expanse of whitish-yellow sand that dominates this region. I expected heat, but upon stepping out onto the top of that stairs leading down to the tarmac, and momentarily feeling very Lawrence of Arabia as I cast a searching look across the vast desert, I was received with an air temperature and dryness that gave me flashbacks to Canberra in early Autumn - 17 C at midday!

Now just after 7pm Doha time - or 11pm Bangkok time - or 3am Australia time - not sure where my body clock is at the moment - maybe I'm in Burma somewhere.....