Urban Reverie's Travels

It surely must be possible to overdose on trains. But no matter how hard I try, I can't do it.

I became a train enthusiast when I was very young, perhaps a toddler, I don't ever remember being not obsessed with them. Until I was five years old I lived near a railway line in the Sydney suburb of Chester Hill, I could see and hear the Red Rattlers clattering past from my street. We were only ever a one-car family so my mother and I used public transport quite extensively for shopping in the city or visiting family or just a nice day out to Taronga Park Zoo or a picnic by the water at Bundeena.

When I was twelve I began high school and the easiest way to go to and from school was my train. I was a big boy now, I got to ride the trains all by myself! Red Rattlers, S sets, C sets, Tangaras.

Even though I am now middle-aged, trains never cease to fill me with wide-eyed childlike wonder. Even if I am just riding two stations on the City Circle, my heart leaps as the train pulls into the platform. "Look everyone, I'm on a train! Aren't I just so cool!"

So it stands to reason that when I travel, I spend far too much time exploring public transport systems and riding as many different types of trams and trains that I can. Yes, I do have other interests. I will get around to exploring those eventually!

So my day began with a supermarket breakfast - an apple, two pastries and a small carton of kefir for only three hundred forints - and a trolley bus ride to Kossuth Lajos tér. The street I am staying on has electrically powered trolley buses trundling past every couple of minutes. I love trolley buses, I have ridden on one before in Bratislava. They are so smooth and accelerate and brake so quickly and they are so quiet! Too quiet. I almost saw someone get killed because they stepped onto the road and couldn't hear the approaching bus.

I got off at Kossuth Lajos tér on which Hungary's magnificent Parliament is located and then went back to Deák Ferenc tér on the M2 metro. I needed to go to the BKK transport agency's information centre because I lost the public transport map I got at the airport. Off to the side of the information centre I noticed glass doors lewding to the underground railway museum. It's a small museum that can be seen within ten minutes, just three old carriages from the toy-like M1 line (including two original cars from the line's 1896 opening), as well as historical displays about the design and construction of the metro system. The weirdest thing about the museum is that it charged two separate fees - one for admission (350 Ft.) and one for permission to take photos and videos (500 Ft.)

From Deák Ferenc tér I took the M2 line west under the Danube to Széll Kálmán tér, an amazing transport interchange. Széll Kálmán tér is a triangular plaza with tram stops on each side of the triangle; there is always a tram coming or going on at least one side and often on all three sides. In the middle of the triangle is a concrete building containing the metro entrance.

I changed to a tram which I rode a couple of stops to Városmajor, and walked across to the Budapest Cog Wheel Railway. Cog wheel railways (or rack railways) are fairly common around the world, even Australia has two. They are mostly used for specialised applications in remote mountainous areas like skiing or forestry or mining. However, the Budapest Cog Wheel Railway is unusual in that it is part of the city's public transport stsem; normal fares apply and trains run every twenty minutes, frequency being limited by the lengthy single-track sections.

I boarded the cute little two-car train. The Cog Wheel Railway has three rails, two ordinary rails for the wheels and a toothed track in the middle for a cog wheel to run on. The toothed track and cog gives the train the ability to climb steep gradients without slipping. After a short wait, the train - or tram route 60 as it is officially known - ground up the hill. It was a noisy, rough ride, like being in one of those old manual coffee grinders.

The train went up into the cool, forested hills of Buda, throuh posh suburbs with nice houses behind high walls, then terminated halfway at Erdei iskola. Half the line is closed for reconstruction so passengers had to get off the train and walk about half a kilometre up one of the steepest streets I have ever seen to the bus stop for replacement buses to continue their journey.

After taking two buses I reached the weirdest railway of them all. Did you think the Doha Metro was weird? Did you think the Budapest Cog Wheel Railway was weird? Oh boy, strap yourselves in folks, because I am about to present to you the Children's Railway of Budapest.

I don't mean a railway for the amusement of children, they are common worldwide in city parks, amusement parks, shopping centres and the like. I mean a railway staffed and operated by children aged ten to fourteen.

I must admit I was a little nervous. I sort of imagined the Children's Railway to be a little bit Lord Of The Flies. And when I went to buy my ticket, the girl was as clumsy and hesitant with my change as you would expect a twelve-year-old to be. That didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

I needn't have worried. At each station there is an adult supervisor and the driver is also an adult. Children's railways were a communist thing, they were quite common in the Eastern bloc. They were mostly built in the mid-twentieth century (Budapest's opened in 1948) to train young people in all aspects of railway operation and also to teach them valuable life skills about teamwork, working safely, following established procedures and the like.

The little two-car diesel-hauled train on 760 millimetre gauge track arrived, the locomotive changed ends, a child checked my ticket, another child waved a round paddle with a green disc on it and then waved a yellow flag and did this military salute as the train went past. There were two cars - an open-sided one and one with walls and windows. It was a glorious autumn day so everyone sat in the open car.

The train doesn't go very fast, it takes an hour to go eleven kilometres, which is perfectly fine. It's a very twisty railway in mountainous forest country. In Australia trees are all evergreen so we don't have brilliant autumn colours in our bush. The Australian bush looks the same all year round. I have only ever visited Europe in spring before, and European forests in autumn colours are just too marvellous for words. One tree will be gold, another red, another brown, another tenaciously holding onto its summer green until it inevitably has to switch to a winter wardrobe.

There were little stations along the way with children raising and lowering paddles and waving flags and doing that strange military salute with hands raised up to foreheads. I am not sure if this salute is some sort of safeworking signal or if it is a sign of respect to the passengers going past. People got on and off at some of these intermediate stations; many stations are located at trailheads for bushwalking tracks through the Buda Hills.

The train went through a long tunnel and then we arrived at the lower terminus of the Children's Railway at Hűvösvölgy, a busy tram terminus in a suburban valley. My word, how jealous I am of those children. Why couldn't we have something like that growing up in Western Sydney in the 1990s? Not fair!

I took the tram back to Széll Kálmán tér and the M2 train to Kossuth Lajos tér. I wanted to go on a tour of Parliament but no such joy, all tours were sold out and I was told to book online in advance. The square outside Parliament is a great enough sight with a collection of rather impressive statues of notable Hungarian historic figures, then I made a change of plans.

I crosesd the Danube again on the M2 to Batthyány tér and changed to an HÉV train. The HÉV is a system of suburban commuter lines that connect outsr suburbs to the metro or tram system. I entered the HÉV station and found the real Eastern Europe! The dark green HÉV train was boxy, chunky, noisy and had all the ride quality of a paint mixer.

Thankfully it was only a short ride to my next tourist attraction, Aquincum. Aquincum was a Roman settlement built on the right bank of the Danube in what is now Budapest's northern suburbs. It was an important town, serving as the capital of the Roman province of Pannonia for a while, and reached its apex in the third century. However, Aquincum was on the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire and vulnerable to attacks by waves of Celts, Huns and other barbarians. Aquincum was destroyed in the fourth century and laid buried for centuries.

Aquincum has now been painstakingly unearthed and is a remarkably well-preserved grid of the remains of stone walls. None of the buildings remain whole; merely the lowest three feet of the walls as well as the floors and street pavers.

I spent an hour wandering around Aquincum. I tried to feel awed by the history of the place, to feel reverent and inspired, but I couldn't. Perhaps I am a philistine. But to me, the ruins looked like a jumble of rock walls. There was a court house, a forum, a temple, a public bath house, a meat market - but they all looked much the same.

Not helping things is that Aquincum is right next to a busy six-lane highway and the HÉV railway, and on the other side of the highway and railway were a row of butt-ugly communist apartment blocks and an enormous smokestack. It's a bit hard to imagine the clop-clop-clop of marching centurions two thousand years ago in such a noisy modern environment.

There was another railway station nearby on another line, part of the national railway network, and so I caught a very sleek and new Stadler FLIRT train from there to Nyugati ("Western") station, one of Budapest's three main railway terminals. Nyugati has an impressive roof with an enormous glass panel fronting onto the street.

A quick dinner at a wok bar, a short tram trip to Oktogon and another ride on a toy train on the M1 brought me to Széchenyi baths in City Park. 5,200 forints gets you entry and locker hire after 7pm. I changed into my swimmers and thongs, put my clothes in the locker, had a shower to rinse off my body before going into the baths, and then plunged into the steaming 38 °C pool.

There are three pools in the impressive Baroque revival Széchenyi baths complex - the 38 °C thermal pool, a slightly cooler (34 °C, I think) adventure pool with a jacuzzi, a whirlpool, massage jets and underwater coloured disco lights, and an ordinary swimming pool with lanes where you can do laps which I couldn't use because there's a rule that you need to wear a swimming cap (has anybody ever heard of such a ridiculous rule?) The waters are very soothing but I was disappointed that the place wasn't as social as hot springs I have been to in Taiwan and Iceland where all the guests become one big happy family and everyone is overcome with a feeling of childlike innocence and contentment. Still, I spent two hours in the baths and really didn't want to leave, the water was just so warm and relaxing, but the ten o'clock closing time was rapidly approaching.

I grabbed a langos from a nearby kiosk. Langos is a Hungarian specialty consisting of a large pizza-like disc of deep fried dough covered in various toppings; mine had cheese and garlic sauce. It was very yummy though decidedly would never receive the Heart Foundation tick.

On the edge of City Park is Heroes Square, a beautifully illuminated semi-circular colonnade with a statuary of famous Hungarian kings surrounding a tall column topped with Archangel Gabriel holding St Stephen's Crown, still the national symbol of Hungary despite being a republic for the best part of a century. Surounding the base of the column are statues of seven men on horseback, the Seven Chieftains of the Hungarian tribes who settled in the Carpathian basin in 896 AD led by Arpad, the founder of the Hungarian nation. In front of the column is a simple cenopath covered in wreaths; this sarcophagus is the national war memorial.

A short ride on the M1 back down Andrassy Avenue took me back to my room - or rather, the hipster pub across the street from my room. It is early days but my impression so far is that Hungarians aren't the warmest and friendliest people I have encountered. That sort of changes after a few drinks though. I had a good conversation with the bar owner, about his love of Australian music and Triple J radio, about the pub he founded with a tattoo parlour inside - certainly an interesting combination! I wonder how many people have become intoxicated in there and woke up the next morning wondering why they have the Hilltop Hoods tattooed on their thigh?

Budapest Underground Railway Museum

Budapest Cogwheel Railway

Budapest Cogwheel Railway

Platform dispatcher on Children’s Railway

Budapest Children’s Railway

Budapest Children’s Railway

HÉV train at Batthyány tér

Roman ruins at Aquincum

Széchenyi Baths

Heroes Square

I got out of bed at 5am after about four hours sleep. I am always amazed at how easily I wake up and how energentic I am in the mornings when I travel but back home mornings are just pure misery.

I woke up so early because I had an 8:20am flight to catch. I packed all my things within half an hour, made an awful cup of instant coffee in my room - I'll do anything for a caffeine hit - and went down to the lobby to check out and catch the free hotel airport shuttle van at six o'clock.

The van arrived on time, I and other guests boarded, but the van just sat there, the South Asian driver arguing loudly with another employee. The driver than disappeared into the hotel for a long period and finally re-emerged after ten minutes, then we were on our way.

The van joined the main road, turned right, turned right again, turned right yet again and then we were back at the same hotel. The driver disappeared inside again without any explanation and ten minutes later came back, there were some straggling guests who missed the six o'clock departure. We were all getting very antsy. I had an 8:20 flight, others had an 8:10 flight, and we were openly wondering whether the driver would ever leave.

Finally we set off again at 6:25 and the driver put the pedal to the metal on the motorway to the airport while tailgating, moving three lanes over at once without indicating, and looking at his mobile phone. The van arrived at Hamad International Airport at 6:35.

Immigration and security aren't as time-consuming when leaving Qatar; and check-in is all self-service so there were no queues. I needn't have worried, I reached my gate for Qatar Airways Flight QR199 at seven on the dot with twenty minutes to spare before boarding commenced. Kingsford Smith Airport could learn something from the Qataris. My gate was one of those stupid gates where you have to board a bus that takes passengers out to the plane waiting in the middle of the apron hundreds of metres away from the terminal.

I climbed up the stairs onto the Airbus A330 and we departed on time. The plane was lightly loaded; only three of the eight seats in my row were occupied, and only four in the row in front of me. To avoid forbidden Saudi airspace the plane went northeast over the Persian Gulf and Iran. Enormous bald brown mountains kilometres high soared into the sky directly from the waters of the Gulf coastline, with row upon row of mountains behind it. Occasionally there was a hydroelectric dam in the steep canyons between the treeless Martian mountains, and the higher elevations were capped with snow. I had no idea that Iran looked so magnificent.

The A330 continued over the azure waters of Lake Van in Turkey, then over the Black Sea (it's not bkack at all but just as blue as any ocean! False advertising!), the checkerboard steppes of Bulgaria, the bald mountains of Transylvania, and began its descent to Ferihegy airport just east of Budapest. The plane did a big U-turn over Budapest with great views of the Danube, Buda Castle, Parliament and Heroes Square.

QR199 landed on time at 12:55 and immigration for me was swift. It was surprising because in front of me were two other passengers. One was an African lady and the immigration officer was putting her through the third degree. After about ten minutes she finally got her stamp. The next passenger was a Chinese man and he got the Perry Mason treatment too. After a small eternity he got his stamp. Then I prrsented my passport. The officer quickly looked at the photo to verify it was me, scanned the passport, flicked through the pages far too quickly to actually read the stamps, and then stamped me and waved me through. It took about twenty seconds. I know that immigration officers go harder on visitors from countries whose citizens are more likely to overstay or work illegally or lodge baseless asylum claims, but it was still shocking.

There was a very long wait for my backpack, the baggae claim carousels broke down for about twenty minutes resulting in hundreds of people jn a cramped, airless hall waiting with no sign that the carousels would start working again. Finally the belt started moving, I grabbed my backpack, withdrew some Hungarian forints, bought a five day transport pass for 4,550 ft. (note: 1 Australian dollar equals 203 Hungarian forints. To convert to Australian dollars, put a decimal point to the left of the second last digit and halve the result), and caught the 200E bus to Nagyvárad tér, the temporary terminus of the M3 metro line while a section of the line is being rebuilt.

I tooķ the crowded M3 train to the major interchange of Deák Ferenc tér. The M3 was built in the 1970s and every station on that line was just pure communist dreariness. I changed to an M1 train and was pleasantly surprised. The M1 is the oldest underground railway on Mainland Europe, opening in 1896. Trains are tiny yellow three-car things, basiczlly glorified trams, and run every two minutes on a line under Adrassy Avenue where the stations are only about three blocks apart. As my train pulled into my station I burst out laughing! Awww, look at this cutesy-wutesy widdle baby twainy-wainy pwaying with the big boys!

The stations were marvellous specimens of Art Nouveau architecture too, all brown and cream tiles and inlaid station names and brass balustrades and large semi-circles. I alighted at one of them, Vörösmarty utca, strapped my backpack on, and walked two blocks to my guesthouse in the upmarket, almost Parisian suburb of Terézváros.

It was advertised as a guesthouse on Booking.com but is actually an apartment, a five-bedroom flat with the owner living in one room and renting out the other four. I checked in at twenty past three and chilled out for a while. I hadn't had much sleep and even though five-and-a-half hours isn't that long a flight, it still takes the wind out of me, especially when you factor in getting to and from the airport at both ends.

It was about six o'clock when I went out hunting for dinner, I just grabbed a felafel plate from a kebab joint in the neighbourhood, and then I caught the M1 to Széchenyi Baths, the most famous mineral spa in a country renowned for hot springs. After a long and tiring journey a restorative soak in mineral-rich waters were just what I needed. The baths are located in a large Baroque Revival palace in City Park. I had brought my swimmers and a towel, but had left my thongs (what Australians call flip-flops) in my backpack in my room. Thongs were compulsory and I could have bought some for 3,000 forints but I decided to save my money and come back on another day.

So I caught the M1 to its city centre terminus at Vörösmarty tér and went for a long evenung walk along the Danube. Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow. This will test my ability to put my wonder into words, but here goes: imagine a wide river crossed by several bridges that aren't just utilitarian methods of transportation but serious works of art in themselves. All along the river are major landmarks - an enormous neo-Gothic Parliament with domes and vaults and buttresses, a massive castle on top of a very hugh rock, a concert hall, statues and monuments, all lit up in a pleasing gold colour. Imagine all of this reflected in the shimmering black river. Add bright yellow trams going up and down the promenade on each bank every couple of minutes. What an amazing walk.

I crossed the river on the relatively modern Elizabeth Bridge, went down as far south as the patina-green Liberty Bridge and walked back up the right bank past the interesting Széchenyi Chain Bridge as far as the Margaet Bridge, one of the more unusual bridges I have seen because it's a three-way bridge with an intersection and tram stop in the middle of it that connects Margaret Island to both banks of the Danube.

I caught the tram back to Terézváros and stopped in at a hipster pub across the street from my room. I enjoyed two decent Hungarian beers, very well-deserved after such a lengthy walk, and I was surprised that the pub was playing Australian indie rock songs from the early 2000s like "Black Betty" by Spiderbait and "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by the Jets. What, did I step into a teleport by accident and get transported throigh the space-time continuum back to King Street, Newtown circa 2004?

Iranian mountains

Lake Van in Turkey

Budapest from the air

Cute little train on the M1 line

Vörösmarty utca station on the M1 line

Buda Castle

Elizabeth Bridge

Liberty Bridge

Széchenyi Chain Bridge

Queen Elizabeth statue

Hungarian Parliament

Margaret Bridge

Soproni beer

I am in the habit of climbing the highest point of many of the countries I visit if the peak is reasonably accessible and within my fitness level. Qatar's highest point is quite low. Qurayn Abu al-Bawl is a low sandy limestone outcrop about a hundred and twenty metres above sea level. It's quite accessible if you hire a car and driver, it is just off the main highway to Saudi Arabia with an access road all the way to the top. However, there is a military observation post. Other peak-baggers have reported that the post was unmanned and they encountered no obstacle; others report that they were turned away by stern policemen. That was before the long-running diplomatic crisis that has seen most neighbouring countries led by Saudi Arabia break off all relations with Qatar since 2017. Qurayn Abu al-Bawl is quite close to the Saudi border. And it would be just my luck to be speneing years rotting away in a Qatari jail without consular access for trespassing on military property.

So I decided that discretion is the better part of valour and spent the day in my hotel room instead.

I woke up at ten after thirteen hours of soul-renewing, blissful, refreshing sleep. I woke up feeling sufficiently alert and energised but didn't feel the urge to go outside. I just wanted to chill - literally chill in my room's agreeably freezing air conditioning. I have travelled enough now to know that when your body and mind tell you to rest, it's a good idea to do so. I often push myself way too hard when travelling, I often place myself under too much pressure to see as many things as possible, but I have learned over the years that even if I'm on holiday, I still need to look after myself and take things at an appropriate pace.

So I spent a few hours updating my blog and my online photo albums and chatting to friends on social media, and I didn't leave the Concorde Hotel until the early afternoon. My destination was the Villaggio Mall in Doha's western suburbs. I consulted Google Maps before leaving my hotel. I caught the metro one stop to Mshiereb station, and then exited the station to Salwa Road where there was a bus stop.

Getting to the bus stop was not easy. I found the right station exit but the way to the bus stop was blocked off by yet another construction site. So I went on a lengthy detour around back lanes until I reached the bus stop on Salwa Road. Or not.

I opened the offline map in Google Maps. I was definitely in the right place. But there was no bus stop. After about ten minutes a taxi finally stopped and we took off to the west along a very busy arterial that turned into a motorway.

Qatari driving is bad. It's not as shocking as in Sri Lanka, I cannot conceive that any place could have worse driving than Sri Lanka, but it is still very bad. The taxi driver kept alternating between revving the guts out of the engine and slamming on the brakes. A car in front would brake but the taxi driver would continue accelerating.

"Are you f×÷#ing blind! Do they not teach you how to drive? The car in front has its brake lights on! See those bright red things on either side of the back of the car? That means you brake too! Are you a f+×#ing congenital moron? For f+×#'s sake!" I wanted to shout at the driver but I didn't. Thinking back, I should have. How else are these imbeciles going to learn how to drive properly if they don't get a rightfully deserved ear-bashing from people who come from countries where people don't drive like psychopathic homicidal maniacs?

After about twenty minutes of a repetitive monotonous suburban scenario of strip malls, hotels and apartment complexes with every building coloured exactly the same bleached blonde sand colour as the Qatari desert, I arrived at the Villaggio Mall with the blood drained from my face. Villaggio is the most bizarre shopping centre I have seen. The entire centre is built to resemble a neighbourhood in Venice with a network of canals along the corridors and gondola rides on the canals. There is only one level of shopping on the ground floor but above the shopping level are fake Venetian apartments with lights behind the frosted windows and fake flower boxes hanging from the balconies. On the ceiling are paintings of blue skies with wispy clouds to give the illusion of being outdoors. It was contrived and it was cheesy and I absolutely loved it.

I had lunch at Applebee's, an American casual dining chain we don't have in Australia yet - it reminded me a lot of TGI Friday's which we do have Down Under. I would have liked something more authentically Qatari but it seems that generic American food is all that is available here.

I left the mall and crossed the road to Aspire Park. I read a blurb about this park in the Doha destination information on the in-flight enertainment system on the plane from Sydney. It was a nice park, a very large expanse of preternaturally emerald-green grass crisscrossed by walking tracks and bridle paths, whose centrepiece was an attractive lake with fountains and an ersatz mediaeval stone arch bridge. It was now approaching sunset - the sun sets very early in Qatar, before five o'clock - and Aspire Park was full of families enjoying a nice little stroll. By far the most pleasant time of day in Doha is the hour either side of sunset. The daytime heat and humidity has died down a bit and there is often a pleasant breeze. Later in the evening the air becomes very still and humid; midnight is far sweatier than 5pm. I enjoyed ambling around Aspire Park, they did a good job of turning what was once parched desert into a world-class recreational park, even though it was faker than Fairlie Arrow's kidnapping. Much like most things in Qatar, come to think of it.

On the other side of the Villaggio Mall is the Khalifa International Stadium, one of the 2022 World Cup venues, and The Torch, a striking high-rise hotel built in the shape of, well, a torch. Long-time readers of my blog might know that I have a thing for towers. I walled up to The Torch and asked the doorman if there was an observation deck. There wasn't, but there was a mocktail bar on the twenty-first floor that was open to the general public. So I went up to the mocktail bar, paid a lot of money for a strawberry and mint mocktail, and enjoyed the view over Doha's flat, sprawling suburbs as twilight gave way to night.

I headed back to the old town centre. Buses left from Al Waab Road opposite Villaggio Mall every ten minutes. I boarded a bus and then got stuck in gridlock. It took over an hour just to travel a few kilometres to the main bus station next to Souq Waqif. Doha traffic is insane. Qatar is an extremely car-dependent society, even more so than Australia. What happens is that in the early evening, Qataris like nothing better than to get into their Lexus four wheel drives with their families and sit in the same traffic jams as all other Qataris on their way to hang out in shopping malls for two hours. So the roads leading up to shopping malls - and there are a lot of malls - are choked for kilometres and kilometres. It seems like a bizarre way to pass an evening with your family, sitting in gridlock, but if that is how Qataris want to spend their spare time, who am I to judge?

I am glad I didn't choose to catch a taxi back to the city because the cab would have been stuck in exactly the same traffic as the bus and I would have paid a fortune. After an eternity I finally alighted near Souq Waqif. I made my way to the Corniche along the waterfront and paid eighty riyals to go on a half-hoir cruise on a motorised dhow. These interesting open-decked timber vessels are the traditional seacraft of the Persian Gulf. In the past they were powered by sails, and some sailing dhows still exist, but the vast majority now are motorised like the Sarona, on which I was an honoured guest.

There were three other tourists and two crew. The Sarona was lit up like a Christmas tree and on the deck were pulsating disco lights and loud Bollywood music. If you ever see a YouTube video of a fat balding bearded middle-aged white guy in a NASA t-shirt dancing awkwardly to blaring Indian pop music, it wasn't me! Honest! It's just someone who looks a bit like me! Seriously!

The Sarona cruised north from the Corniche next to the Museum of Islamic Art up to the new city centre at West Bay. This afforded excellent views of the colourful sksyscrapers along the waterfront with great photo opportunities. The skyline is impressive enough by day but at night it is simply wonderful.

The Sarona moored at the Corniche and I made my way to Souq Waqif. The Souq is the traditional marketplace of Doha, a labyrinth of narrow corridors lined with merchants selling everything you could ask for. One section sold pets, another jewellery, another textiles. Some alleys were open air while others were covered. All throughout Souq Waqif there was the pleasant aroma of spices and perfumes. Finally, I had found something that was authentically Qatari. What made the souq even more Qatari is that the covered sections had satisfyingly frigid air conditioning.

There was even a row of battered old eateries serving authentic Qatari food at open-air tables with luxuriously cushioned seats. I took a chair at one of them and ordered this platter of three represntative Qatari dishes: machboos (a type of chicken biryani but with different spices to the Indian version), makarony (macaroni pasta with chunks of lamb), and margoga (soaked bread mixed with meats and vegetables).

It was awful. The chicken in the machboos was so dry that it was impossible to eat. The makarony was just edible, but two mouthfuls of the margoga made me want to vomit. If this restaurant is a true representation of Qatari cuisine, it is probably a good thing that generic American-style international food has taken over Qatar.

As I returned on the bus to my hotel I thought about Qatar. I wonder how older Qataris see the changes that have taken place in their country. Within the lifetime of a senior citizen Qatar has turned from an impoverished protectorate of pearlers, mariners and subsistence fishermen with only a few hundred thousand people into a significant middle power, the world's richest country per capita with an enormous multicultural expatriate population of two million people from every corner of the earth, an immigrant community that far out numbers the native population. Qatar might not be a liberal democracy, labour standards for expatriates leave much to be desired, but the country is stable, peaceful, clean, reasonably well-governed and prosperous. Qatar has a major global TV news channel that is the closest thing the Middle East has to a free press, significant sporting events such as the Formula 1 grand prix, the international athletics championships and the 2022 soccer World Cup, a major airline that has one of the world's largest number of destinations and is consistently ranked one of the best international carriers, a top-notch airport and a welfare state most countries could only dream about. All this within a couple of generations thanks to the blessings of oil and gas resources and the prudent, judicious management of that wealth.

Thanks for having me for a couple of nights, Qatar. It's an interesting place and well worth a quick look to break up the painfully long and tiring journey between Australia and Europe.

Villaggio Mall

Aspire Park

Aspire Park

The Torch from Aspire Park

Mosque at the Corniche

Sarona, the disco dhow

West Bay at night

Souq Waqif

Souq Waqif

Horrible Qatari food at Souq Waqif

Qatar Airways has been judged the world's best airline by Skytrax five times, and I concur with their judgment. The seats are comfortable, the service was professional, the interior was decorated in tasteful maroons and restrained creams, nothing went wrong. I can certainly recommend flying with Qatar.

One thing surprised me though - just how generic and international Qatar Airways is. I knew that a large proportion of their crew were expatriates, but I wasn't expecting all of them to be. Asians, Africans, Europeans, Australians - but not a single Arab was to be seen among the cabin crew. Much the same can be said for the menu - penne pasta with Mediterranean vegetables, omelettes, focaccias, chocolate mousse, sausages; all decent enough but scarcely a window into Qatari culture. I admire how many airlines are essentially an introduction to their country's culture. Think of AirAsia's nasi lemak or Asiana's bulgogi or Qantas's Aboriginal dot-painting uniforms or KLM's safety video produced using stop motion photography of Delft blue chinaware.

As pleasant as Qatar Airways' A380 was, fifteen and a half hours is far too long to sit in one seat. I am jealous of people who sleep easily on aeroplanes; I only got about three and a half hours of extremely interrupted sleep. I was hoping that I would sleep far longer as I only got about three hours sleep the night before with my eye trouble.

It was with great relief that I left the plane at Hamad International Airport shortly before six in the morning, a very nice and nearly brand new airport. Even though there were only five people in front of me at my immigration counter, I still had to wait forever. It wasn't because the immigration officers were lazy and inefficient, but because they are extremely strict and thorough. As an Australian citizen I had it easy but they still demanded to know every last detail of my stay and I had to show my hotel booking. In front of me were some Chinese citizens and the officer was putting them in the star chamber.

I withdrew some Qatari riyals from an ATM and caught a nearly empty bus to my hotel. You need to buy a fare smart card for ten riyals (note: one riyal equals forty Australian cents) and add as many more riyals for a balance to pay your fare (in my case, the fare was three riyals). Luckily there is a smart card purchasing machine in the airport bus terminal.

While I was waiting for my route 747 bus (747 bus? To the airport? Geddit? Hahaha), I saw an unusual pedestrian crossing sign. It featured a woman wearing a long dress. I've never seen women represented on road signs before. I never knew that Qatar was such a paragon of gender inclusiveness. I took a photo and a security guard went crazy, he said all photography was strictly forbidden. He didn't make me delete it, so you get to see it for your enjoyment.

I was hoping that the Concorde Hotel would give me an early check-in at eight o'clock, but no such joy. I had to come back after two. This is probably a good thing - if I had gone to sleep at eight, my body clock would be out of whack for days afterward. So I started exploring. My hotel is right next to al-Doha al-Jadeda station on the brand new Doha Metro, the most bizarre public transport system I have ever encountered.

There are significant similarities betwen the Sydney Metro and the Doha Metro. They both opened in May 2019 (though Doha's is eighteen days older) and they both consist of driverless trains operating along a single partially completed line.

That's where the similarities end. So how bizarre is the Doha Metro? Let's see. There are three classes of travel - Gold, Family and Standard. Three classes for a metro line with only thirteen stations. At most stations the railway staff outnumbered the passengers by orders of magnitude. I know it's a Saturday but it was uncanny just how empty the trains and stations were. The entire system stank of hospital-grade disinfectant, the kind of stuff the World Health Organisation would use at a field hospital in the Congo after an Ebola outbreak. The security was extremely officious and intrusive, and they are everywhere. At one station I was feeling a little hungry and I saw a nearly empty vending machine in an alcove in a distant corner. I walked over to the vending machine and a security guard intercepted me to ask what I was doing. I said I wanted to buy a snack and he insisted on standing with me and watching like a hawk as I decided to decline to buy a pack of peanuts, the only product on offer.

The trains are tiny little three-car things, but the stations are six cars long so provision has been made for the day when people actually use the trains. Of the three carriages, two carriages are Standard class, half of one carriage is Family (for families and lone women only) and the other half is Gold class. I bought a 30 riyal daily Gold class ticket and I was the only Gold passenger on every train I took. The station staff are so numerous and so bored that all you have to do is look slightly puzzled and you will have a crowd of polite yet smothering employees asking if they can help you.

I rode the entire length of the red line and back, and then went to the Museum of Islamic Art. A bus took me part of the way from Msherieb metro station and I walked the rest of the way along the Corniche, a waterfront boulevard and parkland that hugs Doha Bay. It was hard work. It is extremely hot and humid here. Today was 35 °C. I was expecting it to be hot, Qatar is desert, but I was not expecting humidity. I have never heard of a humid desert before. I don't understand how the air can have so much moisture but it never falls as rain. There is no vegetation in Qatar at all; the view of the countryside from the outskirts of Doha presents a bleak prospect of nothing but bleached sand stretching to the horizon.

I had a good view while I was walking. The new Doha city centre, West Bay, is on the other side of the bay. I have never seen a more impressive skyline. Not even Singapore comes close. A collection of dozens of super-tall skyscrapers clustered along the bayfront as if they were competing against one another to be the tallest and most ostentatiously extravagant. I fail to see how a country with a population of two million can generate such an amazing skyline. Brisbane has a population of two million but doesn't have a skyline one tenth as dense.

The hard walk in the torrid heat was worth it. The Emir of Qatar is a keen art collector and has put part of his collection from the Muslim world into a museum open to the public. The museum is housed in a large octagonal palace jutting out into Doha Bay with tinkling fountains inside and out. It was a majestic building for a majestic collection. Calligraphy, jewellery, ceramics, utensils, scientific instruments, some over a thousand years old and showing the most exquisitely intricate handiwork. You couldn't buy jewellery half as good at Angus & Coote nowadays.

White nationalists and some conservatives claim that Islam is an inherently backward religion incapable of innovation. Let them come to Doha. Islamic civilisation gave the world a wealth of scientific knowledge. Modern psychiatry, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry owe a great deal of debt to the Islamic Golden Age.

By the time I finished with the museum, it was almost time for me to check into my hotel. It wasn't that far, about three kilometres, and by the time I found a bus stop and waited for a bus I could have walked there. The heat and humidity toned down a bit in the early afternoon so I resolved to leg it.

I set off on my way. After about a kilometre I reached a construction site that was blocking the footpath. So I crossed the busy four-lane arterial road but the other footpath was also blocked by a construction site. The road was too busy to walk on, so I walked along the median strip, only to find that the median strip was also blocked by a construction site a few hundred metres down the road. So I had to double back along the median and find a detour. Every detour was also blocked by construction. I ended up taking twice the time I expected to get back to my hotel.

I checked into the hotel, rested for a while and got hungry so I decided to head out in the early evening to grab a bite to eat. It is curiously difficult to find a place to eat in Doha. I had imagined that due to the presence of hundreds of thousands of South Asian expatriates that there would be yummy biryani restaurants on every street corner. Perhaps those places do exist, but they were hidden away, because on my travels through Doha so far places to eat are conspicuous through their absence.

I didn't feel like paying fifty Australian dollars at my hotel's restaurant so I headed for West Bay, Doha's brand new central business district north of the old city centre. I got off the metro at DECC station and found myself in a forest of skyscrapers lit up in a discotheque of dancing colours. There were plenty of people around, and people need to eat, so I reasoned that there must be restaurants in the area. I saw a shopping mall across a major multi-lane highway with a restaurant on an upper floor, but there was simply no way to cross the road. No pedestrian crossing, no traffic lights, no subway, no footbridge.

I decided to follow all the other people to see where they were going. Many were crossing this side street that led to a car park entrance. They were walking through the car park into another shopping mall. The City Centre mall was doing a roaring trade, every shop was still open at 7pm on a Saturday and the place echoed with the plaintive cries of hundreds of babies and toddlers being pushed around in strollers. So this is how Qatari families spend their spare time. I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that Doha is Desert Singapore.

I ended up buying dinner from Arby's, an American fast food chain that specialises in roast beef rolls of astounding blandness, and for dessert I tried disgustingly cloying doughnuts from Tim Horton's, a famous Canadian chain that thankfully has not yet reached Australia.

I left the City Centre mall by another entrance and got lost. I found myself on streets where it was impossible to cross the road. Footpaths would end forcing me to return the way I came or walk on busy highways. A couple of times I had to walk on garden beds. It is obvious that the huge numers of highly paid town planners and civil engineers who designed West Bay never stopped to consider that people might need to walk two blocks and cross the roads while doing so. At least I got to admire all the dizzying colourdd lights on all the buildings while I attempted to find my way back to the metro station so I could have a well-deserved sleep in my hotel.

The Forbidden Sign at the airport

Gold class on Doha Metro

Train on the Doha Metro

Museum of Islamic Art

Arabic calligraphy at Museum of Islamic Art

Mediaeval jewellery from Syria

Battle standard with Arabic calligraphy

Doha skyline

West Bay at night

West Bay at night

West Bay at night

I have probably had worse starts to holidays. It's just that right now I can't remember them.

I went to bed at about half past midnight after a productive, busy night of packing, laundry, tying loose ends and my customary pre-holiday housework binge. My intention was to get up a little bit earlier than usual to finish my packing, ensure that my apartment was secure and in good order, then take my backpack into the office and work my usual hours. My flight isn't until 10:15pm and it would not be worth going to the office, doubling back home to pick up my luggage, and then going from home to the airport as I would have to pass through Central Station opposite my office again.

I fell asleep unusually quickly at about one o'clock, and then I woke up at a quarter past three in agony. It felt as if a shard of glass were embedded beneath my left eyelid. Every blink, every eyeball movement, resulted in wincing pain and watering eyes. I turned on the bathroom light and spent half an hour with my head under the running tap or the shower head trying to flush the damned thing out of my eye, but it only made things worse. I went back to bed, and every time I fell asleep, ten minutes later I woke up again due to my eyeball moving.

Instead of going to work at my usual time, I went to my local general practice clinic. The doctor had to turn my left upper eyelid inside out and she scraped out the offending item with a flattened cotton swab - a tiny, flat, dark orange piece of debris, shaped like a Google Maps location pin, no more than a millimetre long and a third of a millimetre wide. Neither the doctor or I could identify what it was, but if I had to guess, I would say a tiny little timber splinter. It was amazing how much pain and irritation something so tiny could cause.

I went back home and rested for a couple of hours - I was delirious with fatigue after getting so little sleep - and caught the bus to work, arriving a bit after midday. A few of the boys in the office and I went out for dumplings in Chinatown for lunch. Some decent company and great food made things a little bit better.

I finished work, bought antibiotic eyedrops at a pharmacy, and did the same Urban Reverie's Tightarse Method of Travel to Kingsford Smith Airport as I described in my Sri Lankan blog - namely, catch a train on the Airport Line to Mascot one station before the airport and then change to a 400 or 420 bus to the terminal. For maths nerds, here's the comparison:

TRAIN DIRECT FROM CENTRAL STATION TO AIRPORT: $2.52 off-peak fare × 50% Opal weekly travel reward + $14.87 "airport station access extortion... ahem, fee" = $16.13

URBAN REVERIE'S TIGHTARSE METHOD = ($2.52 off-peak train fare + $2.24 bus - $2.00 Opal transfer discount) × 50% Opal weekly travel reward = $1.38

So, $16.13 versus $1.38. Worth the inconvenience of the transfer, I reckon. The fact that I have reached my weekly Opal travel reward of half-price fares due to making more than eight trips by commuting to and from work makes it even better. The weekly reward discount does not apply to the "airport station access armed robb... ahem, fee".

I spent forty-five minutes in a typically glacial check-in queue, and then endured an equally irksome security screening queue. I then paid five dollars for a bottle of water for the privilege of having to use this extortionate claustrophobic cesspit called Kingsford Smith Airport. I cannot wait to board Qatar Airways Flight QR909 in a few minutes time. Believe me, I cannot wait.