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In early June 2009, I went to Doha, Qatar for four days as a tourist. (I was traveling with my wife who was there on business.) We spent four nights at the Ritz Carlton Doha.
The Ritz is a conference hotel in the middle of the desert. The vast majority of the out of town guests at the hotel were there on business for conferences or other events that were taking place at the hotel. It wasn't, however, a good location for exploring the city of Doha itself which was a good distance away. The view from our hotel revealed the extraordinary scope of the construction underway in this Persian Gulf state. Looking out of my hotel room, I witnessed what I now describe as the twenty-first century equivalent of the construction of the great pyramids of Egypt: Day and night truck after truck delivered load after load of sand to a great and unknown mountain that was rising out of the desert less than a kilometer away. On my second morning there while my wife was working, I set off to wander through the Qatari desert. My explorations led me to The Pearl. The Pearl is a vast development complex encompassing a series of man made islands which, when completed, will house affluent ex-patriots some of whom will (according to the plan) work in Qatar's new international financial zone. I found the Pearl somewhat by chance after I had walked a couple of kilometers or more in the 45 degree (celsius) desert heat away from the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Excepting the Ritz and a nearby Hyatt, there were no other hotels in this part of the city. None of the hotels planned for The Pearl itself was open at the time of my visit. Moreover, the many apartment buildings appeared to all still be under construction as were most of the retail shops although a smattering of high end stores were open for business despite a conspicuous lack of clients. Indeed, I couldn't help wondering if the global recession may have put some of the construction projects on long term hold. The dozens of cranes visible across the horizon were all conspicuously idle. Time will tell whether or not the vision of The Pearl is ultimately fulfilled. Exhausted and thirsty from walking around a large portion of this massive construction site, I stumbled upon Doha's new Bice restaurant. I realized my good luck when I learned that this was the very first restaurant to open in The Pearl and-- as I also discovered-- the restaurant had just celebrated its formal opening only four days before I found it. I had lunch at Bice by myself and I enjoyed my meal so much that I returned with my wife two days later for a second lunch before we left to fly back to Europe. The restaurant is situated in the end of a long and largely unoccupied arcade that is ultimately intended to be filled with many fancy shops and restaurants. In the meantime, it is an oasis in an eerily incomplete development. |
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