Recently, I was in the pearl of the Arabian Peninsula.
I was here to watch the Formula 1 race, but I also wanted to experience as much Qatar as I could. The first thing I noted as soon as I got the little visa stamp on my passport at the airport, was how posh everyone here was. I don’t know if it was the oud, the sunglasses, the Air Jordans or the Miu Miu bags but my bad fashion sense stuck out here like a sore thumb. I made a mental note to buy new shoes.
A lot of Qatar has been built recently - the large green spaces with imported trees, the towering skyscrapers, the public art installations - with the goal of wooing tourists who gather here in large numbers only during sporting events like the 2006 Asian Games or the 2022 FIFA world cup. It’s easy to spot either a faded old banner or a giant football right smack in the middle of a university premise.
The middle eastern culture isn’t completely lost though. It still lurks in the sinewy alleys of Souq Waqif and the beautiful mosques dotting the country and I didn’t want to waste any time experiencing all of it. The races were scheduled for the evenings so we had the long mornings to ourselves.
Our first destination was Mina District - a collection of beautiful pink and yellow and orange cafes and shops - lining the seafront.
We walked and walked until we got tired. We stopped at a cafe named Saasna and ordered a date salad and an Arabian coffee. A few minutes later, the server gave us two paper cups filled with a yellow liquid and a cup of dates and we were puzzled.
The last time I was in the middle east, I was too young to drink coffee and as someone who’s too used to the frothy brown of filter coffees back home, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with this arrangement in front of me, so I looked it up online. Apparently, the dates are served as a sweetener along with the coffee and Arabic coffee is prepared without milk or sugar.
After gobbling it all down and continuing to walk along the MIA park, we headed to the Museum of Islamic Arts. On the outside, it looked like stacks of square blocks hurriedly put together by a toddler. Inside, there were hundreds of articles collected over the last 1000-something years - some from Iran, India, Egypt and lots more. Among other things, stunning Persian designs and manuscripts of the Qur’an surrounded us, and it was easy to get happily lost in there for a couple of hours.
In the museum’s gift shop, I eyed a pocket book titled “Qatar Cultural Guide” before deciding to splurge on it. I read it like a possessed woman. I was ready to tour the heck out of Doha.
Hunger pangs began to rack our tummies as the cold desert air picked up, which felt way colder than we anticipated. Our destination for a late lunch was a restaurant called Bayt Sharq, which I kept mispronouncing as “Bait Shark.” It was in a quadrangle-like residence and we sat in the middle. We shivered as we feasted on some majboos and hummus-filled pockets and yellow soup.
It was the day of the sprint qualifying race, and we caught a cab to head to Lusail. Our cab driver willingly told us all about the sheikh, who has 17 children and why he believes an aristocracy is better than a democracy. When we naively asked him, “Are you a Qatari?”, he laughed for a few seconds before replying, “No, they suck the blood out of people like me.” as we passed by rows and rows of white and beige villas, quiet residences with supercars parked outside.
Each turn before the circuit was marked and reserved for “VVIPs” and “VIPs” and so on. If you weren’t important, you had to drive extra far and long - and so we did. When we finally arrived, the walk to our seats was also long and the cold air bit us even as we hugged ourselves.
When we got our wristbands and took our seats, there was a feeling of surrealness that took over me. I looked around at a sea of blue and red. The grey track stretched out in front of us. A huge screen broadcasted interviews of the racers. People were video calling their loved ones and wrapping themselves in sweaters and furiously debating about the deserving champions. It was all new. It was all exciting.
Lights out and away we go. I watched the cars rev up and pass by our turn, one by one. I must’ve said “Max Verstappen is less than a few hundred meters from me!” and “Is that Hamilton who just passed by!?” at least 30 times that evening. I couldn’t shut up even as the continuous deafening roars of their engines threatened to give me a migraine.
After the race ended, we caught the free shuttle service to a metro station. A station staff saw our wristbands and gave us free passes for the next 3 days. “FREE for ALL destinations, 24/7, for the next 3 days?” we asked him, just in case, a couple of times. He nodded. A long metro ride later, we were back in our hotel, still praising the tourism ministry.
Doha’s biggest green space, something called the Aspire Park, is where we found ourselves the next morning.
My heels click-clacked as I walked around and around, staring at the imported exotic trees and the ducks in the lake. There was a bridge with an arched fountain that kids ran under. The towering skyline juxtaposed against simpler sights, like families occupying little spaces with their foldable chairs and picnic spreads.
We stared at the Aspire Tower, more famously known as The Torch (because it was designed to look like the Olympic torch) for longer than needed. Standing tall at 300 metres, it was a sight to behold - but instead of just beholding, we wondered aloud to each other - “Where would you run if it starts falling this way right now?”
After all that staring and wondering, we ate lunch at one of Qatar’s first food trucks that’s now expanded to a restaurant chain, called Burgeri. The vegan burger tasted more like beef than the actual burger.
We were back in the circuit that evening - but instead of watching the Qualifying race, we explored the F1 fan village that hugged the circuit. Live performances, merch stores, stunt shows, video game arcades, food trucks, running races, and face painting stalls stretched far beyond our legs could take us.
We were learning that exploring Qatar meant a lot of walking, and subsequently falling asleep instantly when we were back in the comfort of a bed.
The next day was the day of the race and the day that we finally visited Souq Waqif, a place that everyone here called a “must visit.” We snaked our way through the labyrinth, the endless shady alleys where Qataris sat quietly, smoking hookah and playing chess. Birds screamed at me from their cages and puppies looked at me sorrowfully. It felt like I had landed in the middle of the set for Lawrence of Arabia.
We hoarded souvenirs - specifically at the shop where the owner took one look at us and whispered, “I will give you a special discount because you’re Indians” - and ate some regag at the first ever woman-owned restaurant in Qatar. It tasted like a combination of dosa and pizza.
Our next destination was Msherieb, which my little book told me was “the world’s first purpose-built smart and sustainable district” and “an antithesis to the traditional Souq.”
“It is a trippy difference” is what I’ve scribbled into my journal, about the experience of walking from the Souq to Msherieb. With its giant retractable roof, a start-up incubator and boutique stores, walking in Msheireb felt like walking into the future.
Like perfect tourists, we arrived at the circuit early that evening, armed with beanies and sweaters. We even got food and coffee. I people-watched and overheard conversations to pass the time.
“Who are you supporting today?”
“Who is going to win or who am I supporting?”
“We know who’s going to win. Who do you support?”
“Red all the way.”
“Carlos or Leclerc?”
“Oh, I support the team…not the drivers.”
No matter who you were cheering for that night, there was an unmistakable energy, a brimming excitement. When the engines started to roar, we all jumped out of our seats and screamed loudly. Then, a safety car showed up and the race restarted, and we cheered again. Another safety car. We got out of our seats to shout and cheer again; and when the third safety car showed up, half the crowd cheered and the other half booed.
It was an eventful race. Norris got a penalty but raced like his life was on the line. Verstappen cruised at the front, unstoppable as usual. Hamilton seemed to struggle (or didn’t care anymore) throughout.
57 laps went by surprisingly fast. Fireworks followed for the podium takers - Verstappen, Piastri and Leclerc - but we kept looking over our shoulders at the adjoining stage. We’d found out, only after arriving in Qatar for the race, that a Maroon 5 concert was part of the package(!)
Even before the last lap, some of the crowd began dispersing to grab the best spots near the stage. We walked over slowly - neither of us self-proclaimed Maroon 5 stans - after the race and managed to get decent spots in the crowd surrounding the stage. Adam Levine appeared like a tatted angel on the stage, just as we were considering leaving to our warm hotel bed after waiting for half an hour.
The hits kept coming one after another. Payphone, Stereo Hearts, Maps, Animals. It was only then, scream-shouting the lyrics like a heartbroken teenager, that I realised I was indeed a Maroon 5 fan.
When we got to our bed that night, the residue of the excitement kept us up for some time despite all the walking we’d done.
To be completely honest, I was more excited about the next day’s plan than the race itself. From the confines of our room in Bangalore, we’d discovered online that the Qatar National Library was a marvel. I parked it for the last day we had in the country.
The library was located in an area called Education City where several universities have mushroomed since the early 2000s. I had high hopes for the library and still, when we arrived, I was taken aback.
Here was the biggest library I’d ever stepped foot in. Rows and rows of books - fiction, science, history, plays, essay collections - in silver metal bookcases interspersed with cushions and chairs and computer workstations. Upstairs, there was an exhibit containing paraphernalia from the FIFA’22 world cup. Downstairs, there was a guarded underground collection of all the things that represented the history of literature in Qatar.
Safe to say that this was the closest I felt to paradise in a long time.
Afterward, we roamed the expanses of Education City some more using the tram and by foot. There was only silence and greenery. We almost felt squirmy with the lack of noise and pollution and people.
Our trip ended at a long check-in line at the Hamad International Airport that evening, which sounds pretty anticlimactic - but sitting on my suitcase surrounded by other travellers was unexpectedly the perfect little space to think, breathe, recall and feel grateful for it all.