Culture Tour
The Morale, Welfare & Recreation (MWR) staff conducts several 
different tours to get soldiers off Camp As Sayliyeh and into the capital city of Doha, Qatar. Soldiers sign up for trips based on seniority, which is derived from your arrival date. The activities range from water sports, golf, boat tour, shopping, restaurant outing and a cultural tour. On our final day, we signed up for the cultural tour, which is really an all-day shopping spree in Doha. Greater Doha accounts for 80% of the population of Qatar, which is roughly the size of Connecticut.
The tour started in the morning at an Arabic mall, where I went into a
shop for Turkish coffee while the Arab’s around me smoked hookah water pipes and read the newspaper. Next stop was a camel farm where animals are breed primarily for racing. The Bedouins live right alongside their prize camels. We also made stops at a fruit & vegetable market and then spent a few hours wandering through small shops in a 1,000-acre market, called the Old 
Souk. The Old Souk offers traditional clothing worn by Gulf Arabs, spices, fabrics, swords, crafts, rugs, jewelry, perfumes, woodwork—it is basically a Middle Eastern Flea Market. The Qatari currency is the Riyal, which equates to 3.6 Riyals for every $1 US dollar.
Lunch was served at a restaurant near Dhow Harbour, located on the Persian Gulf. The restaurant offered a beautiful view of the water and the expanding urban skyline. We counted 7 high-rise buildings currently under
construction. Our final stop for the day was the City Centre Mall, which is the largest shopping mall in the Middle East. It is a four-level building with 2 million square feet of indoor space. The centerpiece of the mall is a huge circular ice rink viewable from any level.
After a full day of site seeing, it was time to return to the war…our flight left at 1 AM and we finally arrived back at our base in Iraq at 3 PM. After being up for a day and a half, the trip allowed me to “reverse-cycle” for night shift. I’ll likely fly nights until I go on leave in August.
different tours to get soldiers off Camp As Sayliyeh and into the capital city of Doha, Qatar. Soldiers sign up for trips based on seniority, which is derived from your arrival date. The activities range from water sports, golf, boat tour, shopping, restaurant outing and a cultural tour. On our final day, we signed up for the cultural tour, which is really an all-day shopping spree in Doha. Greater Doha accounts for 80% of the population of Qatar, which is roughly the size of Connecticut.The tour started in the morning at an Arabic mall, where I went into a
shop for Turkish coffee while the Arab’s around me smoked hookah water pipes and read the newspaper. Next stop was a camel farm where animals are breed primarily for racing. The Bedouins live right alongside their prize camels. We also made stops at a fruit & vegetable market and then spent a few hours wandering through small shops in a 1,000-acre market, called the Old 
Souk. The Old Souk offers traditional clothing worn by Gulf Arabs, spices, fabrics, swords, crafts, rugs, jewelry, perfumes, woodwork—it is basically a Middle Eastern Flea Market. The Qatari currency is the Riyal, which equates to 3.6 Riyals for every $1 US dollar.Lunch was served at a restaurant near Dhow Harbour, located on the Persian Gulf. The restaurant offered a beautiful view of the water and the expanding urban skyline. We counted 7 high-rise buildings currently under
construction. Our final stop for the day was the City Centre Mall, which is the largest shopping mall in the Middle East. It is a four-level building with 2 million square feet of indoor space. The centerpiece of the mall is a huge circular ice rink viewable from any level.After a full day of site seeing, it was time to return to the war…our flight left at 1 AM and we finally arrived back at our base in Iraq at 3 PM. After being up for a day and a half, the trip allowed me to “reverse-cycle” for night shift. I’ll likely fly nights until I go on leave in August.
posted by Mission First at 8:25 PM
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