Biltong and baboons

We have been in Cape Town for a week which - apart from giving us the opportunity to discuss the differences between living in Norway (cold), Sudan (men with guns), Doha (not cold) and Brighton (lots of vegetarian restaurants) - gave me the opportunity to note things that South Africa has that Qatar hasn't:

• Women wearing hijabs with short-sleeved t-shirts, thereby rejecting the commonly held principle that if you're going to cover your head, you also cover most of your skin.

• Pork, in many forms, mostly barbecueable.  And beef, mostly very, very dry to be chewed a la caveman.  It's called biltong.  It's not all that nice.

• Vineyards, which serve many kinds of wine in scenic surroundings, with knowledgeable people telling you what you're meant to be smelling and tasting.  We horse-rode between vineyards which was more idyllic than one would have thought possible.  And we went to a restaurant where we could sit outside admiring vines, drinking chilled wine, eating food, with waiting staff who knew what they doing.

• Seals (a little smelly), penguins (3rd biggest colony in Africa or 7th biggest in the world depending on who you ask), baboons (greedy bastards) and lots of birds. 

 

• Mountains.  Everywhere.  Clime-able mountains if you're male and keen, or accessible by cable-car if you're female and lazy.  Cable cars can have revolving floors, which is a step too far in my book.

• Prisons as tourist attractions, which you can only get to by boat and, if you're us, will only get to on your third attempt when you're sprinting to make the deadline and so don't have time to read the informative displays and so don't really know what's going on.  But you know that Nelson Mandela was there because a helpful former-inmate tells you.  And you can watch tourists taking their photos in his cell, with the door closed, as if they have just been imprisoned for 26 years for fighting apartheid only they haven't, they just want to send the photo to their mum.  Actually Doha doesn't really have tourist attractions, let  alone former prisons.  Though this guy recently visited and seemed to have a good time.

• Very smart Thai restaurants in beautiful restored old houses which come as a surprise because your friend told you you were going to a local curry house.  Such restaurants have a whole page of 'rules', which include not wearing shorts but don't mention anything about the 6ft tall woman in a skirt only just covering her bum, looking suspiciously like she might be working that night.  Meals for 6 with cocktails and wine in such restaurants will cost the same as a meal for two in Doha.

• International cricket matches (South Africa v Australia) with hoards of schoolchildren binge-eating from the prolific roaming snack-sellers (biltong, doughnuts, biltong, hot chocolate, crisps, biltong, coke, chocolate bars).  You will get sunburnt watching.

• Massive oysters that barely fit in one mouthful

• Lots of cheerful black people who aren't doing menial jobs, with their families.  Men singing in colourful shirts.

• A late night bar which will sell you take-away food and alcohol at 11pm on a Sunday night when you forgot to go the supermarket and, despite being called Pirates, won't be as grim as it should be.

• Ostrich eggs (from the ostriches, but Doha has them too) with pretty holes carved in them which you can buy at the airport and then threaten your husband with divorce if he doesn't get it home in one piece, despite a packed plane and no room in the overhead lockers.

• Newspapers that analyse regional and local politics.  Elections.  Campaign posters for aforementioned elections,  Political parties.  Etc.

• Crime - necessitating a fortress-like house with two separate alarms, electric fences and numerous gates/doors/keys.  Despite a week of trying, you will not work out how the alarm actually works and will set it off repeatedly.

• Naked ladies in restaurant menus.  We went to that restaurant twice just to be sure.
  
  
• Colourful houses (though such districts have shops that sell halal food and posters about Gaza so that made us feel at home).
  
  

So, a week spent relaxing with good friends was just as good as we expected.  Of course no trip involving Mr A could be without some drama and, on cue, he managed to leave his mp3 player and SIM card on a different continent. They are currently en route to Europe where they will have a small holiday before returning to the Middle East.  At least they get a bit of a break.  

I'm just relieved that the Qatari customs official believed that my model guinea fowl was an ornament and not haram contraband,  His colleague spotted it on his scanner on the way out of the airport (yes, they scan your bags on entering the country to check you're not bringing any alcohol or other illicit foodstuffs in).  Thinking it was perhaps a novelty booze bottle, he pulled me over.  Mr A popped up with some Arabic chat and Mr Customs asked, very politely, if he could see the 'egg' within my bag.  I showed him a model bird and he seemed satisfied, which is fortunate since if he'd probed further he would have discovered the Champage truffles Mr A was smuggling in for his colleagues.  My colleagues didn't get anything except the joy of having me back.  Lucky them.

Saloons and sand

February was spent in Doha.  We didn't go abroad once (the first month since September that that's been true), and didn't even leave the city which is something of an achievement in a place that doesn't have the most enormous variety of diversions.  I think this is probably a reflection of how settled we feel - almost a year and a half, in our laziness testifies to our homeliness.

We have been forcing ourselves to go to new places though, having not discovered anywhere new for ages.  After the initial few months, where every weekend was spent driving off to somewhere someone mentioned, we have become very habitual in our destinations but in February we discovered a new park (enormous, a lot of grass and log cabins with nothing in them), a Thai restaurant (incredibly cheap, a bit tacky, lovely courtyard with a fake folly fountain), and a new hotel bar (Hip India with not much Indian music: 'mingle with the chic and swanky with the latest contemporary rhythms, colourful cocktails and a trendy crowd'.  Yuck.  We bumped in to loads of friends which means they must be chic, swanky and trendy.  I'm not sure this is a good thing).

Yesterday we went to the beach, our first Qatari excursion since December.  We headed out of Doha along the Shamel (North) Road which they're rebuilding so there were roadworks, a windy sandstorm so there were clouds of dust, and it's the main route to where the gas plants are there are always plenty of lorries.  

An urgent need for petrol meant a stop, surrounded by slightly scary men with their faces wrapped in arab scarves because of the sandstorm, and an opportunity to admire the 'saloon' (perhaps THE most common spelling mistake in the Arab world).

Despite my boasts about the weather it was way too chilly for a swim and a brisk wind meant there was some chafing of skin, but sheltered behind a convenient rock we ate our picnic (managing to get sunburnt in the process) and admired the flare at Ras Laffan (huge gas flare, allegedly been going for over three months, that's millions of dollars of gas literally burning - you really see it in the photo because i forgot to take my zoom lens).

  

When we first went to this beach (here) there were loads of tents (and cars, and rotting sofas).  Then we went last year and all the tents had been taken away.  Now the tents are back with a vengeance.  They appear to need a permit so each sand-coloured structure has a neat little number on the side and, once again, the owners have settled in for the season - satellite dishes, permanent barbecues, portaloos, water tanks, generators and flags. They don't exactly rough it on their beach trips.  It all puts our mini-cool box and two towels to shame.  Mr A went to a similar set-up last year; a Qatari friend drove him in to the desert where he and some friends had erected a big tent (complete with full-time staff, generator to power the flat-screen TV and generous refreshments) in order for the lads to hang out and watch the football.

We headed along the beach straight in to the gale to accumulate more shells for my collection (one of which I found in my bed courtesy of the cats), inhale some fresh air, spy some fishermen and give Mr A an opportunity to skim stones into the sea.

Finally it was time to head back in to the city, stopping on the way to admire the impressive view of West Bay - apparently approval has been granted for three times as many towers as there are now.  Cripes.