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Mine's bigger than yours |
There's something confected about Qatar, the bit of the Gulf that juts out above Saudi Arabia. It's like a bag of cupcakes dropped in a piping hot building site.
The very generous friends who were hosting us took us for lunch at their club. A beautiful spot, with a private beach and a pool, and a buffet to make the eyes water as well as the mouth. The seafood lay on a bed of crushed ice, pink-perfect. The roast beef sighed succulence. The chocolate was melted into a waterfall, a silver tureen for a lake. Our view? Of skyscrapers, gleaming as if iced in vanilla, amidst the dust and craters of the not-quite-yet-built.
We'd dropped in because Qatar Airways were flying us from London to Bangkok, and this seemed a golden opportunity to see a part of the world we would never choose to visit. Golden it was, and we're very glad we did. We need benchmarks on this adventure. The mud-huts of Uganda have, we hope, provided one. Doha's soaring skyline has delivered, surely, the other. A gulf indeed.
John
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