National Day

The 18^th of December in Qatar is national day, a day devoted to celebrating the country and the Amir. During the build up to the big day there have been bands playing in the Souq and just general partying. The culture here seems to be to ride around on your car and generally make loads of noise, however during the days before it is illegal to ride outside your car or on roof or anything like that so the police were having a field day handing out fines! It also makes getting anywhere near impossible with traffic grinding to a halt and police closing down all the roads. However it is the most amazing event of the year, so far… On national day itself there is a massive parade in the morning which Penny, Simon and me headed down to here follows the adventures of national day!

National Day

As we left the flat and wondered down to the corniche the traffic was at a standstill and the parade was already underway, getting closer and closer we could hear the music the cheers, of what must have been well over 100,000 people. The amount of love they have for their country is amazing and tops Scotland by miles in fact I bet it would top most of the world. The first thing we came across was a mass camel parade, which seemed to last forever!

How many camels

So many.... Too many

Attack Dogs

And Attack Horses!

Really cool police officer

Penny watching the world go by

How amazing are their Dish Dashes!

It took us ages to fight our way to somewhere that we could actually see the parade and even then we were struggling to see what was really going on! There was amazing fly overs by jets at what seemed like tree height and then a massive jumbo flew over with Qatar printed on the bottom.

Planes

The parade ended with the Amir driving down the corniche and waving out the car window at all the people standing by, the cheers at this point were on the side of totally ridiculous, and the security around him was at the same level!  The ISF which are the second most serious cops in Qatar were leading the way with there really obvious bright red cars followed closely by the CID (the big bad cops) in there swish black mercs, and then there in the middle the Amir! At this point Simon was going crazy with excitement and swore that the Amir had looked and waved at him and only him! So much so that there was some crazy dancing on the way back from the parade!

The Amir

ISF BMW

ISF Patrol (Sweeet)

Simons Crazy Dancing

The day ends with what must be the most amazing fireworks display I have ever seen only spoiled by a building in the way from our flat. These fireworks literally blew Sydney bridge, Edinburgh castle and any others off the face of the earth and were a sight to be seen! If you ever get a chance to spend some time in Qatar over the 18^th of December do it! Its not my video so sorry its maybe not showing them the best, Blogger doesnt like my video!

The Desert.

So a few weeks ago now James came to visit and spend some time making himself look like a local again. (more on that to follow) So seeing as me and Henry had not been to the desert yet we decided that it would be a fun experience for all of us to have. Qatar International Adventures here we come! Getting picked up from the flat we spent roughly 40 mins driving south from Doha towards the Saudi border. Our driver Imad had some goo chat on the way telling us about how he had only flipped one car which then turned in to two but one only went upside down! Sweet ha ha.

Our Patrol

We drove to Sealine a large beach resort on the edge of the desert and lowered the pressure in the tires, instantly we were in the dunes, driving at what seemed like flat out around, up and down massive banks of sand! The only thing we could do was smile as Imad launched this patrol down a near vertical wall of sand the sand flowing over the bonnet of the car. As we continued to drive down towards Saudi the desert flattened off and the speed instantly doubled we got to the border and looked out over the inland sea and into Saudi. 

 James and Henry by a desert fjord.

Henry jumping into Saudi

Lawrence takes a stroll!

So as we left the Saudi border we headed back for a BBQ and evening relaxing by the sea in the QIA camp. We just happened to spend the whole evening there on our own, it was amazing to have this whole place all to ourselves although playing volley ball with 3 people proved challenging. We played about on the sand boards (snowboards) and got ok on them before we starting trying silly things. Henry decided he would try and ride a board through the human sized gap in the tents, which after several attempts and a few near misses he eventually slid through only to come flying off! The food was excellent and the chat for the rest of the evening only got better and better. Sunset over the desert was the most amazing experience of it just dropping out the sky in just a few minutes. The best thing about the whole trip was driving through the desert in the pitch black, just the headlights and the moon lighting the way forwards! Amazing.

Sunset in the desert

Me sand boarding

The QIA camp.

And as promised James looking like a Local