MIDDLE EAST CRUISE STOP #4: DOHA WITH LOCALS!

Are you gonna take it back? I'll take it with me today.

Okay.

This cruise through the Middle east is going by way too fast. It is already day five, and last night we sailed from Bahrain to Doha, and this morning we are in our 70th country of Qatar.

It looks super cool. We are extra excited about today because May 2016, over a year and a half ago, we slept in the Doha airport. That's the only time we've been here. And we got this super sweet message from a lady named Kim. She said that her and her husband watch our videos and that they live here as expats, and if we were ever back, they would love to host us and show us around. And we're back.

So a year and a half later, we are taking them up on their offer and we're going to meet them right now.

Okay, so we need to interrupt this vlog right now because things got really fun really fast, and we don't know if we did a great job telling the story, so we're just gonna make sure we fill in the blanks. Also, in all of our excitement this morning, we forgot to properly introduce Kim and Nash. They're a super awesome couple from Baton Rouge. They've lived here for about five years, and Nash works for Exxon. So they've lived here, the uk, Russia, and they've been to almost as many countries as we have. I mean, it's like in the 60s. They are awesome.

I was a little concerned with filming here because we had heard some things from friends that we just really needed to be care. We didn't need to film any government buildings. We shouldn't film any women in traditional dress who just happened to be everywhere. So, like, there were just times where I felt like normally we would pull out the camera and kind of narrate what was happening, but today we didn't really do a good job of that because we were just being extra careful. But with that said, we had a fantastic experience. Nobody told us to quit filming. It was just like us taking it upon ourselves to try to be discreet with the camera. So as soon as we got in the car with Kim and Nash this morning, they took us straight to the one thing that we wanted to see most when we were here in Doha, which was the camel racing stadium thing. Now, there were no races going on today, but they were practicing and it was so cool.

Like we said, we really wanted to do this, but I just had the total wrong idea of what it was like. I thought people were riding on camels and it Was just this fun hobby.

But they take camel racing very seriously here. These camels can cost hundreds of thousands, thousands of dollars. And the way that you watch these races, there's no grandstand. You actually drive your car around the outside of the track because the track is 5km long.

So we're just on this sand road, like, nobody's around. This is not a tourist attraction. There was nobody there. And these guys were riding by, and we were just kind of waving at the wind, and they're all waving back, sounding really friendly. And Nash was like, well, do you want to go talk to him? You want to get out and talk to them?

I know they'd talk to you if you want. He's saying, come on this way.

So I don't know if any of the footage we just got will justify what we just saw. Apparently, camel racing is a big deal here. The track is massive, but instead of riding camels to race them, there are little robot arms strapped to the camels, and people drive in their car around the track and control the robot that makes the camels go. And we just passed a group of guys that are training them, and they said, come on. So we're following them over here.

Hello. Yeah, it's okay.

Yeah, thanks.

He's saying we can go inside, so we're gonna go check it out.

This is crazy. So in addition to racing camels, they also race falcons that we've been told they train with drones. They have a drone, and it has meat on the back. And then the falcon chases the drone. And apparently they're really prized, and the really good ones even get first class airplane seats.

Wow.

Very nice. I thought they didn't allow drones in Qatar, but it turns out that if you're training your falcon, then it's okay.

We also forgot to mention that the prize for winning the camel race is a Land Cruiser.

Like, and they have races every 10 minutes. He said there'll just be an entire parking lot full of land cruisers that they're giving away to the winners of the races.

I don't even know where we are right now.

It's like we're in, like, the camel pins.

So then they invited us in their house. Like, I don't know if they live there or if this is just the house apparently, where they just all hang out.

I think it was, like a hangout on, like, race days and training days.

Yeah. But there was, like, a bedroom in there, and it was huge. And, like, they brought us tea and coffee and were just so nice and then just handed me A pool stick. Like there wasn't like, hey, do you want to. And they were just like, here.

Next thing we knew, we spent 30 minutes playing pool with these two Qatari men who had just invited us into their home. It was so much fun. And the whole time I was just sitting there, I was like, we literally got off a cruise ship an hour ago, and now I'm in this home or place playing pool.

So after we left their house, we went straight to lunch at this really yummy restaurant.

Thank you. Wow.

Yum. I love pomegranates. You'll like this salad. So Kim and Nash have now brought us to this restaurant called Damascus. So it's more like Syrian food, but it's a pretty local place and it's beautiful. Nash ordered us a whole bunch of really yummy looking food, but we're starting with lemon mint tea. Wait, is it tea? It's like lemonade with mint in it. I've actually had this once before, back when we were in Doha and we took Qatar Airways. I got this on the airplane. And now we have these big, beautiful red puffs.

With some eggplant moussaka, batoush salad, and humming. So these are called kofta kebabs. Apparently they always come with a tortilla on top that kind of keeps all of the heat and the moisture in so they don't dry.

She said she usually throws them away.

Do you really. Are you not supposed to eat them? No, you can eat them.

We just.

It's just more bread. Plenty of bread to go around. We just ate way too much food. But it was all so good, I couldn't stop. The food in the Gulf States just keeps getting better. But thankfully we have a soup to walk around now. I'm gonna try to walk it off before we get back to the sh.

So fast.

Gosh, look at his eyes. I know.

We'd accidentally stumbled upon the outdoor pet souk. Like, it's like a pet store, but it's outside all these cute, sweet little animals and cages. I just love all, like this little kitty.

Yeah.

So inside the Mia, there's this beautiful patio that's overlooking the water in the Doha skyline. And I was just standing here talking about how beautiful these buildings are and how cool the skyline is. And Nash told us that this pyramid building, what is it? The Sheridan. Fifteen years ago, that was the only building here. Like, that was the skyline, and now it's this. Apparently it was a joke that during the time they were building all these, they said the national bird of Doha was the crane.

We just got back to the ship after the best day ever. We was so sweet of Kim and Nash. Take off work, pick us up, take us back, take us around and answer all of our questions. Thank you so much.

Really hoping that the ship stays in port long enough for us to see, like, the full light show on the sky.

So for our 100k giveaway, we are giving away a free trip for one person and a friend to do the Everest base camp trek.

It's going to be our best giveaway ever.

What a good boy.

He seems not very confident in his ability to ride the camera. He's like, how.