Doha is even hotter and more soulless than Manama. It is colossally unwalkable – the distances and scale of the streets are an order of magnitude larger than Manama, and there is far less shade. 

I took an Uber to Qatar’s underwhelming national mosque (Imam Mohammad ibn Abdul Wahab mosque), then was ready to leave within 5 minutes after a couple of photos. The walk across Al Bidda Park, which would have been closer to civilisation / the centre would have taken an hour and a half, and I thought that the risk of a dying from heatstroke would be very real – it rather reminded me of Raikot Bridge. I was really tempted to give up, and call an Uber. But in the my usual way – where I may often take ages to come to a decision, but once I come to decision, I can be absurdly dogged in my determination to see it through – I refused to. It would just be ridiculous to get an Uber every 5 minutes to take me from one place to another, in the baking sun.

Thankfully I found a metro “nearby” (~30 minutes walk), so I made a beeline for the West Bay metro, running from lone shrub / tree to lone shrub / tree, to get minimal shade, so I can check my phone to see that I’m on track, without the phone overheating and bursting into flames. It took me a while, and I almost couldn’t find it, until I asked someone for directions, but I finally got to the metro. When I spoke to the metro lady to buy a ticket (a Day Travel Pass only costs 6 Qatari Riyal, less than £1.30!), she was shocked that I walked from the mosque to the metro, “It’s really dangerous! And bad for your skin!”

Finding the metro was life changing! But being out and about at high noon (including the early afternoon) is just really unpleasant in the hammering heat, so after I visited the Souq Waqif, and made a half hearted attempt to find / see Souq Al Najada, I decided that souqs were over-rated, and decided to skip the Gold Souq.

I visited the National Museum (great architecture. It looked like it could be part of a Star Wars film set, perhaps of civilised / wealthier Tatooine?), the Corniche twice (in the late afternoon, and after sunset), the city centre, an obligatory mall (the Gate Mall at DECC Metro) for my only meal in Qatar (a really underwhelming sushi meal, influenced by a video at the National Museum, which said Qatar was trying to achieve self sufficiency in meeting its own fish consumption needs). 

Then I went made my way back to the hotel (metro, and walking along the C Ring road) to freshen up, and sleep before my long journey home.

Qatar done, #72.