UGANDA 2025: DOHA, QATAR

 July 17, 2025

Qatar is a tiny country in the Middle East that pokes out like a thumb from the Arabian Peninsula into the Persian Gulf. It comprises 4,471 square miles (slightly smaller than Connecticut) and has a population of about 3.2 million (slightly less than Connecticut).  Unlike Connecticut, 80% of its population is centered in one place, the capital city of Doha.

We arrived ini Doha at around 6:00 p.m., and by the time we got through immigration, it was beginning to get dark, which means the city was beginning to come alive. Our guide, Dharma, was a man in his early 40s from Nepal, of all places. He was friendly but very difficult for us to understand and misinterpreted many of our questions.

Doha is a visual paradise, and it quickly became apparent that the city is all about architecture. One of the first things we saw was Stadium 974, built in 2022 for the FIFA World Cup. Its name comes from the fact that it was built with 974 shipping containers.

Our first stop where we actually got out of the vehicle and stepped into the sweltering heat was the National Museum of Qatar, opened to the public in 2019. 

TUNISIA, DAY 2 CONT.: KAIROUAN - MAUSOLEAM SIDI ABID AL-GHARIANI, ZAWIYA OF SIDI SAHIB, THE EL JEM AMPHITHEATER, COUNTRY ROADS, THE MEDINA, AND A PARTY AT OUR HOTEL

March 21, 2024

As we walked deeper into the old town section of Kairouan, we came to the Mausoleum of Sidi Abid Al-Ghariani.

This building was built as a madrasa (school for studying the Quran) in the 14th century by a Kairawani scholar known as Al-Jadidi. After he died while on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1384 AD, his disciple Sidi Abid Al-Ghariani carried on his work. When Sidi Abid died in 1402 AD, he was buried here, and ever since the school has borne his name. 

It is a spectacular example of the local architectural style.

Check out this amazing craftsmanship:

I think this must be the tomb, but we were not allowed to go into the room itself and this photo was taken from the door.

TUNISIA, DAY 2: KAIROUAN - AGHLABID BASINS AND THE GREAT MOSQUE

 March 21, 2014

After a non-descript buffet breakfast in the hotel, our guide Feker picked us up at our hotel. This is the courtyard in front of our hotel, accessed by a wonderful stone gate.

A sign on the gate says a whole bunch of stuff in Arabic, and Porte de France, 13/03/1912 in French.

The gate marks the separation between the old medina and the new city.

From our room's balcony, which overlooked the square, I had seen a man strewing seed in the plaza. There were plenty of pigeons there scavenging for leftovers about half an hour later.

When Feker arrived, of course he took twenty or so photos.

DUNHUANG, CHINA: THE GOBI DESERT SAND DUNES

The Gobi Desert, which covers 500,000 square miles, is the 5th largest desert in the world. There is a dramatic demarcation between vegetation and dunes where this desert borders Dunhuang in northwestern China:

The contrast is simultaneously jarring and sublime:

DUNHUANG, CHINA: RIDING CAMELS IN THE GOBI DESERT

After our two-day pre-tour tour in Xi'an, we boarded a plane with the other members of our tour group and flew to Dunhuang, a distance of about 1,070 miles, or just a little farther than it is from where I live in Redlands, California, to Portland, Oregon. 

The Dunhuang Airport definitely looks like it belongs in China

The airport had one of those "think happy thoughts" signs like the ones we saw in Xi'an. This one advises, "Create a national civilized city, establish Dunhuang's new image."

There is always plenty to see out the bus window. Nope. We don't have these three-wheelers in California:

MOROCCO: MERZOUGA TO SKOURA VIA THE TODRA AND DADES GORGES

It was tough dragging Bob away from the tents and the camels, but we had New Places to Go that involved a lot of driving--over 200 miles with several planned stops. He tore himself away, and we hopped in the car with our driver Aziz (the same driver we had from Fes to Merzouga) and headed off for more adventures.

It didn't take long to find the first adventure. Eagle-eye Bob noticed this sign, and while he cannot read French, he is awfully good a deciphering pictures, in this case a man milking a camel:

At Bob's bidding, Aziz made a U-turn and we drove through the gate. We looked around the complex and couldn't see any camels, so we were a little suspicious, but Aziz assured us that this was indeed a camel milk vendor:

We found three men sitting in the shade, with a woman in the background. Lickety-split, our friendly host was pouring us a glass of the stuff.  

Surprisingly, I had to work up a little more courage to drink this beverage than it had taken to sip the water from the well in the Erg Chebbi Dunes.

It was a) surprisingly cold and b) surprisingly tasty. It was quite a bit like cow's milk but with undertones of something else. Apparently it is very nutritious, much more nutritious than cow's milk:

Information from the Desert Farms website

ERG CHEBBI DUNES, SAHARA DESERT, MOROCCO: CAMEL TREKKING

When Bob was planning our Morocco trip and saw that it was possible to stay a few nights in the Sahara Desert (in a luxury camp that I might possibly go for) AND that he could book a camel-riding excursion, there was absolutely no holding him back. You would think that he had gotten camel riding out of his system on our trip to Egypt, where he rode a camel down from Mt. Sinai, and in Jordan, where we rode camels in Petra.

Apparently not.

Our camels were waiting for us at about 4:00 p.m.

Aw, gee. Isn't he CUTE?

Each one has his (or her) own personality. The bit was just a piece of rope laced through the camel's mouth and under the chin--no metal btis:

A sitting camel makes a convenient stool: