Desert fun in Qatar

CHRIS Pritchard tackles dune bashing and desert skiing in Qatar where the only rule is to hang on and have fun, before recovering in the emirate's exotic capital.

Addictive powder ... visitors are warned never to venture into Qatar's desert alone but the shifting sands offer great dune bashing and desert skiing experiences.

THE puzzled travel agent was flailing for a clue. "Qatar? That's in South America, right?"

This encounter was five years ago and Qatar has since spent lavishly on boosting its profile. Qatar is a small (11,000 sqkm) but indubitably important Persian Gulf nation; aside from oil, more natural gas reserves are found here than anywhere except Iran and Russia.

Qataris are rich but they constitute a mere 20 per cent of a population of 800,000. Similar to the situation in Dubai, the rest are expatriate workers from across the world (including Australia), but mostly from India and Pakistan.

The capital's Doha Golf Club, a green gem against a desert backdrop, thirstily soaks up more than 11,500 litres of desalinated water each day. Qataris can well afford it.

A peninsula poking from Saudi Arabia and ruled by an emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Qatar chose impressive role models: the nearby United Arab Emirates (particularly Dubai) and Singapore. For instance, it followed Singapore's aviation example, transforming state-owned Qatar Airways (with more than 50 aircraft) into a global airline that it uses to wave the Qatari flag.

Like Dubai, Qatar is heavily event-driven, hosting mainstream tennis, golf and other sports events, including last year's Asian Games in the capital, Doha. Important international conferences often fill the nation's growing number of luxury hotels. Foreign shoppers traipse giddily through glitzy malls and growing throngs of tourists, particularly from Europe, heed exhortations to discover Qatar as an alternative to frenetic Dubai. Doha bustles, too, but at a more relaxed pace than the rapidly expanding UAE metropolis.

As elsewhere in Arabia, the promise of dune bashing successfully lures foreign visitors. For some reason, it's a thrill difficult to resist. I have dune bashed several times in the UAE and once in Oman. The experience seems less slick and a greater thrill in Qatar.

A sucker, once again, for punishment, I find myself in a four-wheel-drive driven by a man called Jamal, a locally born Palestinian, who guides me along smooth highways from Doha. We pass through a former fishing village called Al Wakra – these days a thriving dormitory town for foreign employees – and on to Mesaieed, little more than a cluster of buildings.

A glint appears in Jamal's eyes as he lets air out of our tyres. I can tell he intends enjoying this. We turn off the asphalt and roar up the steep slope of a dune wall, stopping at the top. A sheer cliff of powdery sand drops, almost like a lift shaft, in front of me. I check my seat belt. "Don't worry," says Jamal, in a futile attempt to be comforting. "No police here."

His sandal-shod foot slams the accelerator. We lurch forward, tyres mercifully gripped by desert. Blood rushes to my head. My face points down towards the cliff's faraway base. Our vehicle zigzags jerkily, with no human intervention, across an expanse of white sand where nothing grows. We slide down, down, down. On cue, we slow near the bottom.

Jamal smiles. "Ready for the next?" I sense he has no interest in my answer. We are already building up speed to race up another sand mountain. Dunes all around taper to long, wafer-thin pinnacles resembling the blades of curved swords.

For a split-second my mental picture is of a 4WD flying over a dune top and hitting another vehicle. At this moment, fortunately, I haven't yet seen a popular YouTube film clip showing exactly such a thing. I convince myself the desert is far too huge for such an accident. Its likelihood, I tell myself, belongs in needle-in-a-haystack territory.

Visitors to Qatar are wisely warned never to venture into the desert alone. Should they become lost, they may never be found amid these shifting sands. Again and again we race up dunes and slither back down.

Then, from atop one dune, I spy an expanse of water. A mirage? It seems not. We draw steadily closer to Khor Al Adaid, the so-called Inland Sea, coming to a halt where the base of a giant dune is a talcum-like beach. I hot-foot it across burning sand into calm, warm water. Khor Al Adaid is an inlet from the Arabian Gulf. The water is salty but the sand beneath my feet is as smooth as on dry land. British and German tourists splash happily nearby.

Khor Al Adaid is one of Qatar's prime attractions but, for the moment, its location ensures it is reached only by survivors of dune-bashing adventures. I remind myself we are no more than two hours' travelling time from an increasingly sophisticated, high-rise capital.

The dunes in these parts supply another activity, too. Qatar is making waves as a skiing destination, despite an absolute absence of snow. Some sand-ski aficionados arrive prepared, using regular skis. (Tour companies and hotels arrange the loan of skis.) Others grab whatever is close at hand.

I decide a tray from our enormous picnic lunch will suffice as impromptu sandboarding equipment. Sand skiing is, so I'm told, equivalent to about half the speed of snow skiing. Dunes are sometimes more than 40m high. The drier and softer the sand, the slower the ride. Sand skiing is still low-key and fairly disorganised: no queues, lifts or tickets. Still, in 40C heat, it can be a kilojoule-crunching challenge (even in shorts and T-shirt).

Some regulars, hooked on the pastime's wide and lazy turns, describe Qatar's superfine sand as the next best thing to real ski powder. I quickly learn mishaps – such as tumbling off my lunch tray – are soft, dry and mercifully painless.

A guide, one of Jamal's schoolfriends, shouts repeatedly to a group of sandboarders to quit so they can reach the summit of a dune in time for sunset. "Just once more," pleads a British voice. It proves difficult separating them from their addictive powder.

We drive up a dune to park at its top and gaze at what must be the Arabian Gulf's most perfect sunset. "It the same every night," sniffs Jamal, unimpressed. On the way back to Mesaieed (with more dramatic dune-bashing en route) we pass a succession of 4WDs with tents attached. "Qataris camped for the night," explains Jamal, pointing to lamb cooking on a spit.

Back in Doha, aside from shopping malls, there is plenty to occupy me for three more days: Turkish-built Al Koot Fort, with displays of pre-petrochemical lifestyles and crafts; the Qatar National Museum, twinning the past with explanations of oil and gas exploitation; and a weaponry museum with swords from bygone conflicts.

Palm Tree Island (reached by ferry), off the traffic-heavy Corniche, has beaches, palms, amusement park and restaurants. An oryx farm near Al Shahaniya is where the skittish national animal is far more likely to be spotted than in the desert. (No destination in Qatar requires more than a daytrip.)

I browse through souks specialising in 22-carat gold jewellery, Arabic perfumes and imported spices. Beyond the Central Market, with cheap consumer goods from India, I stroll down the aisles of the Falconry Souk as beady-eyed buyers study birds that may enhance their reputations in this popular sport. Waqif Souk oozes the ambience of a traditional market with shoppers crowding against Arabic fabrics and handicrafts.

All of these are memorable diversions but, in the hotel bar, free-spending oil and gas workers are an instant reminder that even as Qatar puts out a welcome mat for tourists, what really matters here is the unending gush of petrodollars.

Chris Pritchard was a guest of Qatar Airways.