Camel Races and Desert Camping - Doha Musings 2

Conor on Tatooine??? Hmmm

But first .... "A Day at the Races"



Question: What do you do in Doha if you are bored on a weekend afternoon ?
Answer: Go to the camel races!

Its free and its one very unique experience...
You can get right up close and personal with the camels, stand right next to the the starting gate, its totally casual, you need to keep your head up or the camels will run you over... simple :).


AND THEY'RE OFF

The camels have a motorised jockey ! Its the funniest thing! Its smaller than a bread box and is remote controlled. It has an arm connected to a riding crop. The little arm whips around and drives the camel forward. If you click on the photo belwo you can see the gizmo more clearly.
Young boys used to be brought in or kidnapped from Pakistan or Bangladesh to ride the camels. They were essentially treated as slaves(link). Theses electronic devices are a huge improvement.

The Qataris, who own the camels, drive alongside in their SUVs during the race and operate these remotes. As well there are little speakers and they can talk to the camels too.


When you go to the races you can follow the camels around the track in a bus alongside all the SUVs. You can see the SUVs in the behind the camels.

Or if you are really lucky you can get a ride with the camera crew! That's Donna she teaches English at ASD.
The camels run a variety of distances 3,5,7 km races. By mid way almost all the dromedaries are wearing a beard of what looks like shaving cream. Its actually froth from there mouths ... its initially startling to see... then lather disgusting ... in that order. The wining camel gets a pat on the rump as opposed to a kiss on the cheek.

There is no betting on the races in Qatar ... its illegal. So they race their camels every weekend for the glory........... ah yeah right..... anyway, some of these camels go for a hundred thousand riyals... an expensive hobby.
After watching the camels race a couple times we were good to go .... Ya seen one camel race you've seen.....

4 Weekends later we went CAMPING!

That experience was truly remarkable. We discovered some things that we truly were not expecting. Qatar's landscape is flat and dull for the most part ... but there are some very cool places to discover if you are open to adventure.

We headed out early as we needed drive across the country to get to our destination, Zekreet or Bir Zikrit! It took us nearly forty minutes but with gas to spare, we made it.
We drove through Zekreet which is a little bigger than Yahk B.C. but not by much. Up the peninsula towards the Hawar Islands. The road was nothing more than a dirt track, which was there one moment and gone the next.

There are no real camp sites per say you just find a stretch of beach and plop yourself down. We found a nice little bay an we pitched our tents.
Then we went exploring ....
Its interesting what you can discover when you're not really looking for anything in particular... you start seeing things that you might accidently drive right by.


These mushroom shaped limestone mesas are worn down by wind and are smooth, dusty and slippery.Not far from this spot we found and old TV set used for a show about bedoin arabs. I though it reminded my of where Sandpeople lived in Stars Wars but I think that place is in Tunesia.




We explored these little structures which turned out to be nothing more than shells, but they were still pretty interesting!
We dove up out of this little valley and found another TV / Movie set ... Hollywood Mid East. ... Go figure! Who woulda known???

It looks cool! ..... Its all fake :( real buildings ... real empty.
But the camping was nice and peaceful:). The water was warm but still refreshing.


Incredibly challenging to have camp fire. There was some dry seaweed to burnand a few dried prickly shrubs, but after constantly feeding our tiny little blaze we gave up and played cards ;)

We loved our new tents, with no fly you could lie down in tent and see the stars over head...
Magic.

We are going to try and go back before it gets too hot ... Today was 33C , winter is almost over ... It's sad it has been so beautiful for so long! In month and a half we will be indoors again!

Doha Musings 1

DUSTSTORM!


Well I'm getting tired of my long winded rambles so I thought maybe some shorter punchier insights ...

We had a dust storm today, our first one. It was 25 C all day but the visibility was down to 200 m maybe. We, sorry I, left a couple of windows open, one of them just above our bed. Everything is covered in this thin layer of dust. I am sure the Philipino cleaning ladies are cursing all over Doha... Its like after cooking and there is flour on the counter, its there but you have to look to see it.

With all the dust in the air there was a lot of static electrivcity build up. We had an impressive lightning show last night. Multiple lightning flashes made sleeping from 11pm to about midnight a bit of a challenge.

We recently took 120 kids to the UAE and Oman for a week without walls.
Dubai International airport.

In BC we would go for 2-3 days to a forestry camp. The setting was very different but the experience was completely the same. Kids were homesick and some were just glad to be away with their friends. Its funny how kids are pretty much the same everywhere.



We did a wall climbing activity 3 stories high that got the better of a few kids but there were many successes! We snorkled, and that was a lot of fun, many cool fish! It was fun, beautiful and very rugged stark terrain. The only trees to speak of were acia trees which reach out and grab you. They are very prickly, big thorns. The mountain biking was cool, beautiful scenery!

We visited one of the oldest Mosques in the Middle East
The mosque was very small and plain
My group of kids outside the mosque. I had to keep track of all of there passports. In my little group there were 9 different nation passports, I had 14 kids in all.
The littte battlement at the top of the hill was one of two that helped prevent slave traders from killing the men and taking the women and children.

Kayaking in the Arabian Sea! And raft building

Mountain Biking

We went mountain biking and stopped atop this dam. Not a drop of water to be seen for kilometers but apparently that is a different case during flash floods. It also helps the ground recharge their aquifers as well water is very important in the region.
GPS orienteering, I thought this was a great activity, the kids thought it was too much like school work.

Many kids over came a fear of heights, so did a couple of teachers, not me of course....
Snorkeling - we saw Nemo again, man that little guy gets around... It was a little chilly that day

Our last night, a fire and a talent show

The muscle! Where's the beef?! My homies - we were the party-poopers!! For the kids our mantra was ..." It's past 7:30 Get to bed!"

Our last morning bfore our flight we had a boat cruise!

The activity leaders from UAE.
Oman by the Sea
The end..;) So much for being brief.

Sri Lanka take 2

See all photos at flickr link

We decided to return to Sri Lanka after our visit in November in order to get a better look at the interior of the counrty. The second visit helped us to get more insight regarding the people, the culture and the land. Sri Lanka is surpisingly mountainous, something I never fully appreciated until we drove around the interior for 5 days ... can you say "switchbacks".

Our driver, Raja collected us at the airport. Raja was awesome, very knowledgeable and wonderfully nice man with a great sense of humor. We learned, later, that his real name is Anil but apparently many men in SL go by nicknames.
Raja and the girls

Thirty minutes out of the airport Raja got lost. Now this is the start of 5 days of driving so I had a pang of nervousness which lasted for about 10 minutes once we got back on the main road. After flying for four and half hours, the drive to kandy took 3 hours, the last hour in a monsoon downpour.

We arrived at the Nature Walk Resort as the weather cleared and were warmly welcomed. The Nature Walk is a very simple BandB with a killer view and a very nice emegetic staff

The view, better in person.


Entrance
Staff: Raja(driver), Shanta, Kumara(owner), Nana and Pradip
The layout of this little hotel really played to strengths, the being the view and the peaceful setting.
The food was delicious, this meal is the house speacialty. Its vegetable rice and curry and must be eaten with your hands! This was our last dinner in Sri Lanka, the flavors were varied and unique.
Our first day (Christmas Day) we explored the streets of Kandy which were busy, crowded and dirty. We managed to find a catholic mass and we caught the latter portion of it.
St Anthony's in Kandy.
Back into downtown Kandy I have to admit that I didn't enjoy that part of the day. It was very sad, lots of poverty, filth and hucksters.
The market was pleasant. We managed to pick up some batiks ( hand painted cotton fabric) to hang on our walls at home.
We then ran into 2 colleagues from ASD, Julie and Peter from Ontario. We spent the next 2 hours with them touring the temple of the tooth.
Later on that afternoon we took in a great one hour dance presentation at the local cultural center.



Our Second day we climbed Sigiriya. The rock is a huge chunk od metamorphic gneiss. With hundreds of steps the climb was making Lenore's knees weak and she had to keep her eyes focused upwards. There was a huge line all the way up, but everyone was relatively polite. We barely missed being soaked to the bone as we summited in between showers, literally by a matter of minutes.
Yeah yeah, I know, I didn't take this photo.

Metamorphic Gneiss - colliding continents
The Lions paws, the gateway to the Lion's rockHello hello ... I'm at a place called Vertigo !!
The steps were narrow and wet.
Ah, the summit!
Dambulla Temple was our next stop.


This temple built into the side of a rockface was in many ways more impressive than Sigiriya and a whole lot cheaper to visit. (12$ vs 28$ ea.) Foreigners pay 1st world prices for most tourist sights in Sri Lanka. You save on the hotel and food (about half to two thirds.)
On the way up to the temple people will sell you flowers to place at the various shrines. You have to be careful the monkeys don't steal the flowers from you as they are quite tasty (the flowers ... for the monkeys). As well, the monkeys apparently are not very polite about it all and there is also a local rabies issue too.
Day 3 we drove to Ella Gap -
which reminded me a bit of Dixville Notch in New Hamphire (sort of ... it also helps if you squint ... and try to forget its december 28). The road narrows treacherously along some steep hillsides
It passed through some narrow little towns
In Sri Lanka you drive on the left, like Britain. We had to fit between the lady above and the green landrover on the right. The tight squeezes we drove through would blow your mind. If you have been on the "Going to the Sun" road in Glacier National park -Montana you'll know what I am talking about.
We stopped for tea. The hill country in Sri Lanka is covered with tea plantations. It is mind boggling, like Saskatchewan and wheat as far as eye can sea.
Hillsides covered in tea.
We stayed at the Ambiente in Ella. The scenery was breathtaking and we met many wonderful travelers, like ourselves, but the management was not very welcoming. They should spend a few nights at Nature Walk and take some notes.
Nana and Kumara, her pal.
Sitting on the veranda we saw this little guy. I have no clue what he is but I am pretty sure he's a bird ... wearing a hat ... or a wig... and a false beard ... birdy halloween???
And this guy looked like a regular BC woodpecker.
Sri lankan beehive... the size of a beachball ... makes you shiver doesn't it.
This is a wasp I believe. Our driver told us that 5-6 stings from this guy was equal the bite of a cobra .... fact/fiction?? ... I was not about to test the theory.
Lots of hills and rain mean lots of waterfalls ... We found a great hotel next to Ramboda Falls that you see below. Maybe next time..


Eye candy! It makes me want to ...
Sing!!! The hills are alive with the sound of music .... falalala....
All the items this gentleman sold were hand made from the the seeds branches and leaves that surrounded the tea plantations.

On the day 5 we went to Horton Plains national park. A comination of higher altitude grassland and Montane forest. It was quite cool at 6000ft altitude, but the forest you see in the distance was a very humid jungle.
We saw a group of monkeys on our hike, as well as deer but only the paw print of a leopard

Halfway through the hike you come to a precipice ominously called World's End. It was so misty that we couldn't see a thing. We were told to sit and wait. After 10 minutes the veil magically lifted and the view was startling. The drop was over a 1000m, you felt like you were looking down from an airplane.
This is a funny story. The fellow below with the flowers spots us on the road and waves the flowers trying to get us to stop and buy them.
We kept going .... So he races down the hill and catches us at the next switchback but its not a good place to stop, so we keep going. The next switch back he's there again but a little late. So we slow down aware that this guy is not going to give up and then finally on the fourth switchback we buy the flowers. Our driver informed us that there were a group of boys in the area that regularly go through this routine ... We laughed!

On our last day we visited the botanical gardens outside of Kandy as well as an elephant hospital for domesticated pachyderms.
The gardens were impressive. There were some plants like nothing I had never seen before,
This tree is a giant willow from Java, the branches touch the ground in all directions because the tree simply can't support the weight.

The tree below is Sri Lankan and produces those green footballs called Jak fruit. The fruit can weigh over 20kg. If Newton had been hit by ome of these it would have broken his neck. The fruit inside looks like little bananas. They are sweet with a unique taste. We had a jak fruit curry in Kandy that was delicious
The most impressive spot was the orchid house. The flowers were stunningly beautiful and I have to applaud Breana for her ability to take great shots.








The beak on this blue fellow seemed perfect for those deep tube shaped flowers.
Young love, young love, first love...
Cannonball tree!
Many big things in this garden, trees, roots, bugs ....
Black scorpion, some kind of spider
And then there were the bats. Hundreds of them, the noise was deafening. The wingspan on the big ones was over a meter.

Several of the trees were loaded with the bats like the one below.

World's biggest palm tree from southern India, they get really tall. One leaf could cover an SUV
These trees all twisted and turned upwards for no apparent reason. They seemed to be getting plenty of sun.
Our final stop was at an elephant hospital for domestic elephants. We had a great time feeding them...
riding them ...
And we bathed them (Breana elephant wash)
and they returned the favor(Breana shower)



There were no beaches on our second trip but I think the images that we will take a way from this visit will be more powerful than our first trip. The Sri Lankans are a very beautiful and kind people. We really enjoyed getting to know them better.