20 Photos: A 72-Hour Layover In Doha, Qatar

Doha, Qatar (2017)

One of the best routes I’ve ever flown was on Qatar Airways, traveling from Los Angeles to Doha. It was a 15.5-hour flight, and earlier this year I posted a photo essay of the journey.

From Doha I would continue on to Bali. First, however, I wanted to see a little of Qatar, this small Persian Gulf nation which The Economist has called a “pygmy with the punch of a giant” and also “the other Wahhabi state.” And so I arranged for a three-day stopover.

Controversially, Qatar is scheduled to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Currently, Qatar hosts the largest U.S. military presence in the Middle East, with around 10,000 American personnel stationed at Al Udeid Air Base. And as I post this blog, Qatar is in the midst of an economic and diplomatic crisis in which it is being isolated by several of its neighbors. For a summary of the crisis, here’s a quick read in The Economist.

Following are 20 photographs taken during my short time in Qatar (January 30 – February 2, 2017). All photos were taken in the capital Doha, home to 90% of Qatar’s population.

Muftah and Khaled Al-Mohamed sit outside a hospital for falcons, where Muftah’s falcon had been treated for parasites.

Mohammed Rageh does his art at Souk Waqif, a popular pedestrian area with numerous shops and cafes. His instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artestmohamd/

Czarena Samson, from the Philippines, works at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Souk Waqif. Nearly 9 out of 10 people in Qatar are foreign workers. Indians, with 650,000 compatriots in Qatar, are the largest nationality — vastly outnumber even Qataris. Filipinos make up about 250,000 of the work force.

A laborer clears rocks to make space for mooring dhows

Nassr Awad Al-Saadi stands outside the police station in Souk Waif. He is from Yemen but has been living in Qatar for 30 years.

Raheel Al Sulmi, age 20, visiting from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Lydia from Australia, sitting at Doha Bay while on a brief layover in the city. She was on her way home from Europe.

The beautiful Museum of Islamic Art in Doha

A group of men pray beside a mobile mosque. Here’s a local paper’s description of this mobile place of prayer: “Each vehicle has a microphone for announcing prayer time, water taps for Wudu (ablution), carpets for performing prayers and a TV screen. The vehicle parks in a suitable place in the park and volunteers keep the ground ready for prayer by spreading the mats when the prayer time approaches. The TV screen is used to show programmes on religious education and raise awareness. One objective of the service is to help and encourage people to perform the prayers in groups, instead of individually.”

Dusk falls on Souk Waqif. The building with a spiral design in the background is the Abdullah Bin Zaid Al Mahmoud Islamic Cultural Center.

Aliens at Souk Waqif

From left to right: Mutlaq (19), Fahad (18), Fahad (21), Rakan (18), and Abdullah (18). All are visiting from Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia…except for Fahad (21), who is from Kuwait.

An amusement park ride at Souk Waqif. After taking this picture a young Qatari man approached and said I could be arrested for photographing women like this, and that he wouldn’t want his sister photographed if she were on that ride. He and I talked a while. Before saying goodbye I took his portrait and he said, “You can use my picture however you wish, as long as it is respectful.”