Museums, Races and Culture

Sheikh Faisal's Museum, Doha Races and other Culture

Last week we headed out to see Sheikh Faisal bin Qasim al Thani's private museum.
The intrepid Mazda Mafia go exploring
The museum is reputed to be the best private museum in the country. The Sheikh has built a huge fort style complex to house his collection.

Each hall is dedicated to the varying passions the Sheikh has devoted himself to collecting and displaying. The complex is in a continuing state of development as the website indicates.

Standing at the exhibits - Putting Asterix & Obelix to shame.

The courtyards had examples of boats, agricultural equipment and life in the Middle East over the past few centuries. The entrance was dominated by a lake with a full sized old dhow moored in the middle.

A dhow in the front yard. The entry to the museum.

There were several other in various stages of restoration scattered over the site as well.

No OSH permit needed for this set of discs.

We were admitted to the Islamic Art Hall with its displays of glass & ceramics, jewellry, weaponry, and furniture from the 11th century to the mid 20th. Here we saw examples of art from all around the Islamic world - from India, Malaysia, The Arab states, Egypt and North Africa... a fascinating insight to the creativity of a culture we don't always see at home. The displays added more to the exhibits we'd seen earlier in our time here at the Museum of Islamic Art.

The other halls had exhibits of clothing and embroidery from the Ottoman period, carpets, currencies from the past, rare books and manuscripts from the Koran to early Bibles and Torah from different parts of the Middle East and, in the largest under construction hall, some of the Sheikh's collection of vintage cars which ranged from an 1880 steamer, a 1904 petrol engined car, numerous Model Ts and As through to classic 50's models and vehicles left behind after World Wars 1 & 2 and rescued from the sand.
Koran from 14th Century
Coptic Bible from 16th Century
We spent the morning there then headed into town and the Souq Waqif looking for scenes Joy could paint as a break from the camel series she has done since our arrival here.

On Monday night we went seeking culture at the Ramada Hotel as entrants in their monthly quiz night. The last time we entered we had two teams but with several people away or preparing to travel we were reduced to one - The Mazda Mafia.

The quiz session, in the smoke filled upstairs bar, was quite specialised this time around - Football trivia, World Heritage sites from the more obscure parts of the list, World News as reported on BBC News since January 2009, 1970's music (name the song & the artist from a 10 sec clip ) and, as a sop to the readers of the gossip mags, Celebrity couples who are still married. We managed to acquit ourselves reasonably well with a score of 28.5 but no match for the winners who clocked up 38 points to win a QR1000 worth of dining at the Ramada. Just another incentive to work harder at the next quiz night.

Thursday night we headed off to the 25th Race Meeting of the Qatar Racing & Equestrian Club at the local race track.
Here, the locals were entertained with a 7 race card with local thoroughbreds and imported jockeys competing for prize money from $500,000 US to QR100,000 per race. Entry was free with a gate prize of a new car for the race-goer whose ticket got drawn from the barrel, a run of instant prizes drawn from another barrel and other prizes for those who picked the winning horse in the 6th race.
Like the camel racing there was no betting allowed on the horses so we enjoyed ourselves picking horses and doing "what if bets" amongst ourselves while watching the crowd of race goers enjoy picking form and urging their favourites on in each fast paced race.



Picking form at the Doha Races the Mazda Mafia
check out the talent for the first race of the evening.

The highlights of the evening were the 6th & 7th races - Qatar International Trophy and the Qatar International Cup for Thoroughbreds both of which carried purses of $US500,000 and carried the pride of the Sheikh in that he was both a patron of the club and an owner with an impressive stable of thoroughbreds racing at the meet. The winner of the International Trophy race received not only the stake money but also their names inscribed on some really impressive Gold plates and cups.

We had a great evening even though we didn't walk away with any of the prizes on offer and picking the winning horse in the sixth race. The mechanisms for winning weren't all that clear although we suppose that the person winning the grand prize for this event probably got it when one ticket was drawn from the winning horse's ticket barrel.

Eid Events

Doha Sky line Sunday 7.12.2008

This week is Eid.. a ten day school holiday for us from Friday 5th through to Sunday 14th when we go back to work.
Eid is the holiest day in the Muslim calendar being the day the pilgrims descend from Mt Arafat following the Hajj after celebrating the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son, Issac, in an act of obedience to God. The celebration apparently lasts for three days and is marked with ritual sacrifices of lambs or goats and acts of charity.
For us the break has allowed us to begin to explore Doha and the areas around our apartment. We were a bit restricted Friday & Saturday as Joy tripped over as we were walking to the Jarir Bookshop and bruised her knee very badly which knocked doing a lot of walking off the calendar. It didn't stop us going out to dinner with the other Cognition people in Mazda 2. We headed into the souq where we found a Lebanese restuarant and relaxed over water and coffee as we waited for our communal meal.

The souq offered us a chance to people watch.... tourists drifting in and out of groups of black abaya clad women with their faces veiled or masked and men in their white thoups amid the stalls selling everything from antiques, to blankets, to carpets and other knic-naks while a genial old man led a donkey up and down the street with happy little children balanced precariously on its back
. Man, donkey and child. The Souq, Doha.
On Saturday Joy & I went out to Villagio Shopping Centre where Joy could walk without stressing her knee too much. While we were there Doha enjoyed one of its few rain moments... thunder and lightning with bouts of heavy rain. In a typical Papprill moment I found the point in Villagio where there was a leak in the roof which, after I moved must have leaked more because soon there was a squad of squegee carriers in the area pushing water into the canal.

Outside, the rain was causing havoc for Doha drivers who, not being used to wet weather driving, were stalling in the fords that had collected around the round abouts and intersections or crashing into other cars as their wheels skidded on the slippery road surfaces. On the ride home our driver, Lulu, an Ethiopian, confessed to being afraid of the thunder and lightning as he kept lifting his hands from the wheel to cover his ears with each peal while commenting on the risks the other drivers were taking trying to drive as they normally do on unfamiliar surfaces.
We got home to find the other tenants mopping out the corridors as the drain points in the light wells had been blocked with sand and plastic bags which meant that the water could escape only into the corridors and, a few less fortunate rooms, of the ground floor.

Sunday saw us heading into the souq to explore the market stalls and Doha's tourist attractions. We poked around the Gold souq where Joy checked out the jewellry on offer.
There were lots of ornate pieces of very yellow gold that, in Joy's opinion, would be out of place back in New Zealand. However, we will probably head back to the Gold souq and poke around some more at a later date.

We crossed the road and began an exploration of the corridors and crannies of the textile souq with its myriad of stalls offering abayas, caps, tailoring, material, pashminas, watches, toys, odd bits of electronic games and dried fruit and nuts.
The Textile souq. carpets for sale.

I tried on this chamois coat, designed for the colder winter evenings in the desert, at one stall while the owner was at prayer... the owner simply locked up and left his stock hanging outside for passersby to admire and return at 4.00pm when the stall re-opened. Such trust... we couldn't imagine such happening at home, even at Botany Downs!!

Check out the price QR 250.00 is approximately $NZ 125.00. I did think the coat would have been great to swan around Dannemora in during the winter but then customs might have had to hold on to it when we came through passport control on our return as the coat was made of genuine leather and furs.

We found the Falcon Souq where the locals buy both falcons and the hunting gear that goes with this ancient sport. Here we saw the birds being groomed and cossetted by the handlers as tourists, like ourselves, watched and asked countless, repetitive questions about them.

We met up with Charles and Marylyn from Mazda during our fossicking, had lunch with them and then went on a tour of the Corniche where we took a ride on a Dhow around the harbour before taking a coffee break at The Sheraton Hotel.
The dhow at its moorings. Charles & Marylyn Cron & Joy

The Hotel had hosted an international conference on the economic crisis and, after seeing its conference facilities, we could see why. The size of each conference room and side rooms was beyond anything I've seen at home.


Monday is the actual Eid festival so the shops are closed all day. However the mosques were in full and elborate call for prayer at 4.30am in celebration of the event.