I had it!! I had the best possible picture to describe Doha, and I let it slip through my fingers! I was coming back from the grocery store yesterday when I pulled up behind a slow moving Toyota truck. The truck was running a little slow because it was carrying THREE FULL SIZE CAMELS in the pickup!! Quickly, I pulled my camera out of the console to take a picture, but the batteries were dead! Dammit!! I'm gonna carry some in my car at all times...
Not much really going on right now. Spring break is next week, and most people are taking the week to travel overseas. I can't just yet, since my vacation time isn't active until May. Large groups of people are traveling to Egypt, Jordan, Oman, and India... and it's killing me that I can't go yet. So instead of traveling to far off lands, I'll be tearing apart my labs and taking stock of all my chemicals. But soon... very soon...
I just came back from buying some houseplants in the nursery district. Nearby they opened the first actual Catholic church in Qatar. Its a huge building, but doesn't look like your everday St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio sunday school. It was purposely made to try and blend into its surroundings. There are no signs, crosses, or bells visible... since publicly advertising any religion other than Islam is against the law. Some of the more conservative clerics have publicly stated that having a catholic church in an islamic country is blasphemous. One even said that his people would die before "bells chime over Doha." So... does he mean church bells, or any bells?? The embassy came out with an alert to all Western ex-pats to use caution when attending the church, and to be cautious in shopping malls and sporting arenas. Thankfully, a royal family member read a message at the christening from Emir His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (the big guy here) saying, "it is a message of the merciful and it is a message to people to accept the good features of every religion for one’s own betterment and also for the improvement of relations between communities and people of different cultures." No worries...
I'm waiting to get my official TAMUQ bowling league shirt. I sent an email asking for a nickname to be stitched on the shirt. A lot of you gave me team names, but I only needed a personal nickname. An aside... three different people came up with "Camel Toes"... don't think that one will play well with this audience. Some were excellent, some were vulgar... I went for a combination of the two. My bowling league nickname... "Kielbasa."
later...
ben
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
go west, young man...
Hey all...
I had the opportunity to head into the western desert on Friday. Myself and a prof took off early friday morning and headed on the road to Salwah. Not much of a drive... but it was a little more interesting since I was driving in my new car! Finally got it!
The roads out of Doha are... mysterious... at best. Sometimes, they're eight lanes wide and easy to travel. Then suddenly, the road lines start crossing, careening into overpasses, and they drop down to a two-lane partially covered in sand without any warning signs. Best part is the overpasses. They must have built ten or twelve full highway overpasses within 100 km of Doha... but there aren't any roads leading away from the bridges! Just miles of overpasses with nowhere to go...
Anyway, we traveled out to the western highway looking for a set of coordinates someone had given us. That's when we realized that the coordinates were about five clicks off the road. So, we looked for a gate in the fence and headed offroad. The fences aren't to distinguish private property, but to keep the 1,000 pound camels off the road. So, only one day after picking up my brand new SUV (and being forced to drive less than 80kph for the first thousand km), I was dropping into 4-wheel drive and heading off into the desert.
First off, it was relatively flat, just driving over large rocks. But about a km off the road, small pockets of desert sand pop
ped up. You would think these little mounds of smooth, flesh colored dust may seem tame and easily drivable... very wrong. Desert sand is loose, and finer than powdered sugar. The moment your tires hit it, you start sliding like you're on ice. Plus, you don't just punch thru these tufts of sand... they're dense and rock the living hell out of you. I was told my some locals that the only way to drive in desert sand is to keep your wheels moving... never come to a stop and keep turning the front wheels. The biggest reason people get stranded offroading is driving into small patches of sand and stopping. Unfortunately, when they hit the gas again, they just dig into the sand like it's mud.
Once we got thru the loose sand, we came upon some rocky outcroppings that we were looking for. In fact, our coordinates turned out to be the highest point in all of Qatar... about 70 meters above sea level. The southern sand dunes can get up to 130 meters tall, but since they're not permanent... they don't officially count.
I took a ton of pics, all of which are in the photo album at http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg223/benji-of-arabia/. I really need to stop having my camera set on automated picture... most of the pics are so whited out it looks like I took them on the surface of the sun! But it is bright... the sunlight reflects of the sand both on the ground and in the air... everything looks like it is shimmering.
I did get a few good ones, though... especially the camels! We saw over a hundred, easily. Multiple herds of them wandering aimlessly. One herd was being watched over by a shepherd. Those camels were wearing rugs over them... god only knows why. Another herd was walking close to the fence, so I pulled over to get a closer look. They all looked up, spit, and took off with about ten baby camels in tow.
Out in the middle of the desert, I came up on a nomad compound. It was about ten tents, one big, several small, with some pens made up of old fencing with camels inside. There was nothing... and I mean nothing... not a bush, a tree, or anything within at least 20kms. But here was a group of people, quietly living off the desert somehow. Or at least I thought that, until I saw the two satellite dishes staked behind the largest of the tents. Living off the land... and HBO.
The Doha cultural festival is going on this weekend. Fireworks at night, powerboat racing on the corniche during the day... and poetry. Lots of poetry. Large stages with enough amps to record a double-live album... of guys standing around singing poetry in Arabic. I wonder what the groupies are like??
I've got to start prepping a lab to electoplate some pencils...
later...
ben
I had the opportunity to head into the western desert on Friday. Myself and a prof took off early friday morning and headed on the road to Salwah. Not much of a drive... but it was a little more interesting since I was driving in my new car! Finally got it!
The roads out of Doha are... mysterious... at best. Sometimes, they're eight lanes wide and easy to travel. Then suddenly, the road lines start crossing, careening into overpasses, and they drop down to a two-lane partially covered in sand without any warning signs. Best part is the overpasses. They must have built ten or twelve full highway overpasses within 100 km of Doha... but there aren't any roads leading away from the bridges! Just miles of overpasses with nowhere to go...
Anyway, we traveled out to the western highway looking for a set of coordinates someone had given us. That's when we realized that the coordinates were about five clicks off the road. So, we looked for a gate in the fence and headed offroad. The fences aren't to distinguish private property, but to keep the 1,000 pound camels off the road. So, only one day after picking up my brand new SUV (and being forced to drive less than 80kph for the first thousand km), I was dropping into 4-wheel drive and heading off into the desert.
First off, it was relatively flat, just driving over large rocks. But about a km off the road, small pockets of desert sand pop
ped up. You would think these little mounds of smooth, flesh colored dust may seem tame and easily drivable... very wrong. Desert sand is loose, and finer than powdered sugar. The moment your tires hit it, you start sliding like you're on ice. Plus, you don't just punch thru these tufts of sand... they're dense and rock the living hell out of you. I was told my some locals that the only way to drive in desert sand is to keep your wheels moving... never come to a stop and keep turning the front wheels. The biggest reason people get stranded offroading is driving into small patches of sand and stopping. Unfortunately, when they hit the gas again, they just dig into the sand like it's mud.Once we got thru the loose sand, we came upon some rocky outcroppings that we were looking for. In fact, our coordinates turned out to be the highest point in all of Qatar... about 70 meters above sea level. The southern sand dunes can get up to 130 meters tall, but since they're not permanent... they don't officially count.
I took a ton of pics, all of which are in the photo album at http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg223/benji-of-arabia/. I really need to stop having my camera set on automated picture... most of the pics are so whited out it looks like I took them on the surface of the sun! But it is bright... the sunlight reflects of the sand both on the ground and in the air... everything looks like it is shimmering.
I did get a few good ones, though... especially the camels! We saw over a hundred, easily. Multiple herds of them wandering aimlessly. One herd was being watched over by a shepherd. Those camels were wearing rugs over them... god only knows why. Another herd was walking close to the fence, so I pulled over to get a closer look. They all looked up, spit, and took off with about ten baby camels in tow.
Out in the middle of the desert, I came up on a nomad compound. It was about ten tents, one big, several small, with some pens made up of old fencing with camels inside. There was nothing... and I mean nothing... not a bush, a tree, or anything within at least 20kms. But here was a group of people, quietly living off the desert somehow. Or at least I thought that, until I saw the two satellite dishes staked behind the largest of the tents. Living off the land... and HBO.
The Doha cultural festival is going on this weekend. Fireworks at night, powerboat racing on the corniche during the day... and poetry. Lots of poetry. Large stages with enough amps to record a double-live album... of guys standing around singing poetry in Arabic. I wonder what the groupies are like??
I've got to start prepping a lab to electoplate some pencils...
later...
ben
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