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"Our ancestors had camels. We have the Land Cruiser," smiled
Rami. About an hour south of Doha, Qatar's capital, the tarmac runs out. From
here to Saudi Arabia there's nothing but dunes. In the days of those camel
riding forefathers, the fierce heat and shifting sands of the desert offered
a precarious existence. Today, they're a playground. It was mid-afternoon and
the sun was casting an ochre glow across the huge humps of sand. As soon as
we'd reduced the tyre pressure to the correct levels for sand driving, Rami
gunned the engine and headed straight for the nearest dune. It was about two
storeys high. I checked to make sure my seat belt was done up. We hit the base
of the slope and ploughed up, stopping plonk on the top. From our vantage point
I could now see the immensity of the space before us. To the right there was
a long, wide, flat valley and then more dunes disappearing into the sun. Several
more dips and swoops and I'd lost all sense of direction.
Dune bashing is definitely the most fun you can have in Qatar. It's a difficult
place to fathom. As I'd stepped off the plane several days previously, I'd
felt the muffling wetness of high humidity, but little else. There was no bedlam
at passport control, no one trying to run off with my luggage, no invasion
of the senses; just a chauffeur-driven BMW easing me to the air-con cocoon
of my hotel. My driver was from Pakistan, the girl at the check-in desk Filipino,
the bellboy Sri Lankan. I could have been anywhere. Life in this tiny emirate,
a small peninsula jutting up from Saudi Arabia into the Arabian Sea, is very
different from here. But much remains hidden. Officially the world's richest
populous on a per capita basis, thanks to vast supplies of natural gas and
oil, Qataris are strict Muslims. They stay hidden behind the walls of their
vast houses, the tinted windows of their huge cars, the all-encompassing veils
that hide their womenfolk.
I asked Rami (originally from Palestine) where all the Qataris were, as we
paused for breath on top of a dune. He told me that of Qatar's 800,000 inhabitants,
just 25 percent are Qatari, the rest are guest workers from overseas, who live
and work here, sending money home. By extension, Qatar's oil wealth supports
families in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and
more. There wasn't further time to contemplate this. We were careering down
a dune into a valley. Here the sand was more compact. Rami floored it. We were
soon hurtling along at 60 miles an hour. Next we hit a series of dunes, the
engine roaring at high revs. Taken at speed they were the ultimate big dipper,
my stomach left somewhere in the troughs each time he swooped back up the other
side. Perhaps the best manoeuvre was driving round the inside of a long, steep,
curved dune, or Barchan as they're known locally.
Next day we drove northwards from Doha on a pristine new highway. I was on
a hunt for history, for something to connect me to Qatar. Either side there
was nothing but crunchy desert, sullen in the immense heat, punctuated by the
odd row of electricity pylons. We stopped first at the old town of Al-Khor.
It took just ten steps to break sweat on the short walk to the small museum
at the harbourside. Inside, a series of exhibits traced the history of Qatar's
second city, in particular its pearl diving heritage. These days the dhows
that bump against the harbour walls are only used for fishing. The days when
men dived to depths of 20 metres to prise oysters from their beds, with no
more than a turtle shell nose peg and beeswax earplugs to aid them, are gone;
but the shiny white pearl remains an important cultural symbol. Just across
the road I found an old mosque and retreated from the sun into its cool courtyard.
With so much oil money around, renovation goes on constantly in Qatar, but
here I found a murmur of bygone days.
We pressed on further into the desert. The old fort at Al-Zubara is the best
of several dotted around the north of the country. It dates back to 1938, which
for Qatar is old. I climbed up one of the square mud-brick watchtowers and
looked out across shimmering sand towards a blue smudge of hazy sea. It was
a perfect vantage point for repelling raiders. Several of the rooms inside
the fort served as a museum with displays from local excavations. Five minutes
off-road into the desert and we reached the excavations themselves. An old
18th-century city wall and a series of foundations. This memory of an older
civilisation looked precarious, ready to disappear once again under the roaming
sands.
As we drove back past the fort, Khayal, the old man who worked there as curator,
guide and night watchman, beckoned us over for a cup of sweet, milky tea. He'd
been keeping watch for 25 years. Maybe here I'd found someone who could provide
a link between Qatar's Bedouin past and its oil-rich present? Unfortunately
not. He was from Pakistan. He'd arrived in Qatar aged 15 and still sent money
home to a family he saw once a year. I wondered if it was a solitary existence
out in the desert, but he told me that local Qataris liked to come and sit
with him in the evenings and talk. Sometimes he'd set up his battered TV outside
and they'd sit and watch together. What were they like, the Qataris? I asked.
He assured me they were very friendly, good company. But there was little more
he could offer. I'd had a taste of Arabia in Qatar, all sand and blinding sunlight,
but its people remained a mystery.
Travel Facts
Getting there: Qatar Airways (www.qatarairways.com) flies daily from Heathrow
and Gatwick to Doha.
Staying there: There are few cheap hotels in Doha. Most people book packages
with operators like Somak (020 8423 3000; www.somak.co.uk) who'll put you up
in the Sheraton or the Ritz Carlton.
Further info: Qatar Tourist Board: www.experienceqatar.com
Photos: Jeremy Head, StockXchng
Shifting Sands
Jeremy Head tries to uncover the secrets of mysterious Qatar