Well, another “rest” day, time to fill it up with lots of things! We can’t really rest while so far from home, we want to take advantage of everything and see everything.

And to start us off… Khalifa International Stadium. So you may be wondering why we came to a stadium on a rest day, obviously we can’t watch a game since none are being played, and the third place game will be played at this stadium, so it still won’t allow visitors… And we didn’t come all this way just to see a stadium we will be seeing tomorrow. No, we came to a museum, of course.

But of course we have to take in the sights while on our way there.

Let’s also call this “research” so that tomorrow we know exactly where to go for the best angles of the stadium. Let’s call it anything, because we will need these made up reasons to justify our trip out here…

So we arrive at the security check to go to the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, they ask us for our tickets. What? We don’t have tickets, we have the One Pass. Nope, not good enough, we need to have an actual ticket. Just our luck, that day we hadn’t activated our free SIM card, so we didn’t have data. We wandered around trying to get a free ticket to the museum, by finding some free World Cup wifi, to make it through the first security checkpoint. Along the wandering we got some nice pictures of the stadium.

However, even after finding wifi we couldn’t get a ticket. It kept coming up with an error that we had already bought more tickets than we were allowed to buy. So back to the attendant we went. They told us we were doing it wrong, to go to another site. We did. Still didn’t work. Turns out it was sold out.. Our lack of planning strikes again. So… let’s just say our goal was actually to see the stadium during daylight hours, hehe.

On our way back to downtown Doha, we stopped by to get our Hayya Card (Fan ID type thing) officially printed, after a few back and forths between stations, we finally arrived. Again, the lack of walking culture strikes again. We got off at the metro and asked where the below stadium was to get our Hayya Card printed. They told us to take the bus there because it is a far walk. Sounds good. We got on the bus, waited about 10 to 15 minutes before it left, rode the bus for 2 minutes, and we were there, haha. Too funny. Let’s just keep thinking that it’s because they are used to having 50 degree weather here when it is impossible to walk.

The process was quick, and we made some friends while there. During the security screening we were flagged for our cameras, so we had to store them while we did our paperwork. When we were leaving the security guards asked us why we had all the cameras, that’s when we introduced them to this site! So, if they’re following along, thanks for your help! Maybe we got a few more followers while there, who knows.

Then it was all the way into Doha, past Souq Waqif, to the National Museum of Qatar. Just look at that view. The Qataris really know how to make a statement just by walking up to some of their museums.

The One Pass got us in for free, and then it was up to the exhibits. The first one was the temporary exhibit called ‘On The Move’. A very interesting exhibit that profiled different nomadic groups from around the world. They focused on the nomads from Mongolia, the Sahara (the Imuhar, which in the West we call Tuaregs, but they call themselves Imuhar), and Qatar.

First it started off by explaining their migration movements and the reasons behind them before moving into their actual lifestyles. But first we had to cross a short hallway-type area where they destroyed all of the myths that (mainly) Western media has placed on the nomadic lifestyle such as fierce warriors and unintelligent humans. They also showed different movies that have tried to portray different nomadic tribes in different ways. Once again, we think it’s interesting how Qatar is trying to position themselves differently than others in trying to tell a people’s story from their own perspective in a way.

So they had lots of different displays about the different nomadic people, but we had to take our picture with this. If you followed along on our last World Cup trip, you will know that we spent a night in one of these in a Mongolian National Park. How could we not take a picture for old time’s sake?

The other highlights we will share with you are the different clothing that these nomads used. The example we chose are from Qatar, since we are here, but they had examples from all of the nomadic people. Very cool, and very well done.

And our last highlight will be this interesting bit of information. We only knew of one name for a camel, and we can guess that there would be at least two for a male and a female… but… we could never imagine this many different names. As you can see, the Qataris are the ones with the most names for camels (leftmost) really highlighting the camel’s importance to Qataris, especially Qatari nomads.

And as our final thought on this On The Move exhibit… we found it very different than other exhibits we’ve seen in other museums around the world. What struck us the most was how it talked about the Imuhar. They explained that they were a people that had always moved around as is typical with nomadic lifestyles, but that that had been impeded upon by colonial powers when they laid claim to Africa (mainly France here). Even after the independence of these countries, the Imuhar have not gotten a country of their own, not for the lack of trying. And then they showed how the regions where these nomads live (Sahara, Qatar, and Mongolia) are generally very natural resource rich, but, their people (the nomads in this instance) are materially poor, even so far as calling it a ‘Tragic Legacy’ of colonialism and extractivism. The way this was presented really gave us something to think about, because it was not presented in a negative way as many others may have done. It was just something that we picked up on that we thought was interesting, and you may think so as well.

Moving further through the museum, we come to the regular, main exhibit. The history of Qatar. These full wall displays play a film that starts from the Big Bang, goes through the creation of the Earth, and the evolution of animals until we’re at the modern era. Huge screens.

Then it moves onto archaeological finds on the Qatari peninsula, and then moves into more modern times where it shows customs and traditions of the different regions of Qatar. Some of which can be seen while going down these stairs.

And then they showed the time when pearls were king in Qatar. Before oil and natural gas were discovered, many people made their livelihoods from the pearl trade. The best example of this has to be the Pearl Carpet of Baroda with approximately 1.5 million pearls. And that’s not all, it also has diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies. It was intended to cover the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed and was commissioned around 1865. I’ll get out of the picture so that you can have a better look.

Incredible.

Then the final part of the indoor exhibit was modern day Qatar, and they focused here on two things. The first is the discovery of oil and, more importantly, natural gas. The second was the crisis/rift that occurred between Qatar and the other Gulf countries. On a personal note, thankfully there isn’t that same friction between Qatar and the other Gulf countries now because we would like to visit them as well while we’re in the region!

Then it was on to a special exhibit space. For this one we had to line up quite a while as only a certain number of people were allowed in at a time. And once in, we were constantly being told to keep moving so the next group could come in. It is called Pipilotti Rist: My Brain to Me, My Brain to You. It was absolutely beautiful. And it’s obvious why the guards have to keep you moving, or else people wanting to make Instagram Reels or TikToks or something else would stay there forever for the perfect take. So here is our quick picture after we say those things about others, hehe.

And then, once you’re all done inside, you step out into this area. We think it is the Sheikh Abdulla bin Jassim Al-Thani Palace, but not entirely sure if that name is correct. We did read that it was in disrepair until the State stepped in to fix it up and include it with the museum. Weirdly enough, no one really seemed interested in it. Everyone just walked straight through the middle to the exit. We obviously had to explore a bit.

As you can see, it’s pretty empty. But there are exhibits here with traditional artwork and other things like that from the time period. It is not overly big, so it doesn’t take long. We would definitely recommend taking a look around if you’re ever in the neighbourhood.

And with that we were done the official museum. Although our ticket did get us into this, which is an exhibit highlighting the soon-to-be-opened Qatar Auto Museum. Just these three on display for now.

One last look outside of the museum, and then we were back to the Corniche! Some things just don’t change.

On the Corniche we were quickly in front of the Brasil pavilion again, but this time it wasn’t just non-existent coffee. There was a whole capoeira exhibit! It was super cool and everyone was super good at it. Impressive.

Then we made our way back to Souq Waqif, same vantage point as we have shown you before, but this time with a few more people. What is hard to see is that those people are mostly grouped into circles. And this part of the evening became extremely cool.

As we walked around the Souq Waqif area here and the Corniche just beyond it, we noticed that the circles were dancing circles. Typically there would be one person in the centre holding a flag while everyone else danced around the flag. What we imagine is that each group is dancing their own traditional dances from their home countries. To us it looked like the workers that do the majority of the jobs in Qatar were letting loose after a week of work. Some of the highlights are here.

These people were doing Dabke with Jordanian flags.

We don’t know what this dance was called, but they had Pakistan’s flag. The same dance was being done beside them, but by Afghan people. We also saw groups from Sudan, Palestine, India, and Bangladesh all dancing away. But the last group we saw was this one.

This is a Qatari traditional dance. These were done nightly at the same spot in the Souq Waqif. Not sure if it was a cultural centre or something along those lines, but they were always doing things that looked like traditional Qatari things, trying to pass on the culture to the tourists.

It was very nice to see all of these different dances and nationalities all just enjoying themselves on their day off. And we did film a bit, so someday expect that on the YouTube page. Someday.

And then we saw the drone and fireworks show again. Not from the correct angle, so this time we didn’t bother filming it and these were the only pictures that were fully discernible from our angle. It gives you a taste as to what it was like.

Then, we were done for the night. Time to walk back through the labyrinth of Souq Waqif, to go back to the metro, and back to our Caravan City.

Except we didn’t go back. Since it was still much earlier than it had been on previous nights, we stopped by a little something that was between our metro station and the shuttle bus back to our Caravan City. We weren’t sure what it was, but we could tell it was World Cup related. And whenever we walked by the volunteers would tell us that this was where the shuttle busses to the land border with Saudi Arabia were. So, might as well take a look!

So, as you can see it was a pretty happening place! It was another interesting little place to visit. We don’t think many people from the World Cup even knew about this place. There were Qataris showing their hospitality by pouring tea that had been prepared over the pictured fire and serving dates. We had a few dates and then were on our way to go get some rest. Another nice day in Doha! Good night!