Clockwise starting at bottom:
First taste of the Persian Gulf. It was much more graceful than it looked.
The 5 mile mall. Yup, a mall 5 miles long. We drove past it for 6 minutes, then turned. We couldn’t see the end when we did.
The Doha Skyline
So this week, it was time for me to take a vacation. For every 6 months you spend in theater, you are allowed one 96-hour pass. Some people take their pass in place, spending their time doing nothing and loving it. Some travel to other bases in Iraq, visiting with family or good friends. The truly adventurous travel to Camp As Sailayah, Qatar. Being brave and stupid, I went to Qatar with Kate.
Just getting to CAS can be an adventure. To make it here, we travelled for just under 24 hours, saw 3 countries, 5 bases, had one of the worst nights of sleep I’ve ever known, ended up bruised and battered from a helo ride, 2 C-130 flights, and an hour-long van ride. But as I’m writing this on my last night here at CAS, I don’t regret it at all.
2 quick thoughts about the trip here, before I talk about my time in Qatar:
I still hate Griff for screwing up my leave paperwork. I am sure if she had done her job, I wouldn’t have had to spend the night in Kuwait.
Speaking of Kuwait, I never, ever want to go back. Camp Al Selem basically serves as a waystation for people heading in and out of the AOR, and they treat you like a head of cattle. While they were nice enough to get us a bed to rack out on during our 9 hour layover, they don’t issue any bedding…so I slept on my towel and huddled in my flight suit. It was miserable. I know laundry is expensive, but a blanket and a pillow might make me hate the Army a little less than I did Saturday night. I may have to go back through on my way to Taji, and I KNOW I have to go back on my way home at Christmas. Ugh.
But once we made it into Qatar, it’s been smooth sailing. I have my own room. With sheets and stuff. It’s great. Everything is clean, everyone is polite, and everything is close together. They don’t want you to wear a uniform. The pool is amazing. Their movie theater is actually like a theater, and they have grab and go snacks there. And you can get 3 drinks a night.
For our first day, we decided to do the one thing you had to wake up early for and went on a Dhow cruise in just outside of Doha Harbor. Doha is a beautiful, modern city, that looks a lot like Vegas—minus the gambling, booze, strip clubs, tourists, golf courses, and Americans. So almost exactly the same.
Side note on Doha, and the modernized Mid East as a whole. The countries here that are trying to be westernized have a strange sense of schizophrenia about them. Qatar has the highest per capita income of any country in the world (the average adult earns something like 65 grand a year) and they also are the worst polluters per capita. They have these beautiful new office buildings that are 100 stories tall and look like a child’s dream of a city, gleaming steel and glass in amazing shapes, but most of them are empty. They say (I never saw any) that you can ride around the streets of Doha and see more amazing top-of-the-line cars here than just about anywhere in the world, but at the same time, we drove past a row of about 30 cars on the side of the road, covered in months worth of dust. The vehicles had some sort of problem (like flat tires) and the Qataris just dump them and buy new ones. Seriously. And the people, who all speak English and are super friendly as they try to fleece the tourists out of their cash, treat us well but ignore the locals. But the strangest thing is that very few of the workers here are actual Qatari. They’re Malay, Filipino, Vietnamese, or African. The gorgeous buildings are designed by the Brits or Americans, contracted by the French or Germans, and built by the Malaysians. I don’t think Qataris work. There’s a reason why the base work staff are all brought in from outside the country. It’s just strange.
But back to my Dhow cruise. It was amazing. We headed out on a boat around 9 in the morning, and as soon as we cleared port, we all threw on swim suits and caught some rays. We dropped anchor about 45 minutes outside of the city and then enjoyed the water. We swam, jet-skied, went tubing, tanned, and basically enjoyed ourselves.
That afternoon, we went for an early dinner at Chili’s (yes, they have Chili’s here. There is also Fuddruckers and a whole slew of other food chains). I had the rarest burger I have ever eaten in my life…and loved it. After 5 months of boiled meat, being able to taste real meat juices was incredible. And the best was yet to come…that night, I had my first drink in 4 ½ months…a glass of wine and a beer, and some hard cider. Absolutely incredible.
The second day, we signed up for a trip to the gold souk (outdoor market) and we were supposed to go the Villagio Mall, but the mall portion was cancelled (the night before, some of the guys on the tour had gotten jumped by locals…they were fighting over go-cart driving and the Qataris went nuts. The Americans tried to hold one of the guys down, and he bit him. The locals got arrested, the GIs just cut the trip short.) Since we couldn’t go to the Mall, we decided to go to the Old Souk, the prototypical open air market. At the Gold Souk, I bought myself and T fantastic fake watches (I got a Breitling at 1/7th the cost…and having seen the original, I can’t tell them apart), bought some gifts for T and some family, and then piled back into the bus for the Old Souk. There, Kate and I found what was the most looked forward part of my trip, Royal Tandoor Indian restaurant. I’ve been dreaming about vindaloo for months…and it was better than I could have hoped for. After dinner, we wandered the market, looking at the amazing things for sale there. Need 50 feet of silk? It’s there. Need a dishdasha or a hijab? They’ve got those. Want a 125-pound tortoise? They have both kinds…live AND concrete. Pots and pans? Sure.
And that was just the first block. It’s a big area.
After our exciting first two days, Kate and I decided to do nothing for the rest of our trip. So we’ve spent the last two days hanging out at the pool, wandering the base, enjoying the hospitality of the USO, and having our drinks while enjoying the complimentary high-speed internet. (As the last side note of the night, oh sweet god do I miss fast web access. At Taji, it takes about 2 hours to download an album of music. Here, I downloaded 3 movies in 20 minutes. I will never take my internet for granted again.)
Tomorrow morning, Kate and I will head back to our homes away from home at Taji. Here’s hoping that our travel adventures involve a direct flight. Not expecting one, but here’s hoping.
