Doha, Qatar A Year of Global Wandering
Dispatch · Doha, Qatar
Lights, Camera,
Doha
We landed in Doha and things started to take off. We were, it turned out, on a different plane.
A striking man-made island that felt like a movie set.
We lived at The Pearl, commuting into West Bay each morning as the towers caught the light. The irony wasn't lost on us — a stay at Marriott Residences would have been cheaper, meals included. File under first-world problems.
Some cities you visit. This one you step onto, like a set that hasn't struck yet. We leave this Earth-on-Mars city in two days. But as a certain Austrian once promised: I'll be back.
The Land Rover stands for a certain British indomitability: simplicity, endurance, the willingness to keep going where the tarmac gives up. Our glamping runs carried us well beyond Qatar — to Cape Town, Dubai, London, and home base in Arundel.
Luxury met familiarity somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.
We crossed by sea aboard the Queen Mary 2. Margaret — Pam's friend — was volun-told to join us. Every crossing needs one of those. What a value add she turned out to be.
Pam and Goodluck — our daily greeter at the Marriott Marquis. You forget the skyline before you forget the people who wave you in each morning. That's the mark of a good trip: the faces, not the facades.
Travel well. And prosper.