Dear Doha Diary

After spending some time at the races, we jumped into the car and followed behind Mohammed Islam in his pick-up, as he headed towards his stables.  It really is an entire Camel city in the middle of the desert.  Row after row, block after block, dusty alley after dusty alley of stables for the camels, grand gated homes and palaces for the owners and not so grand accommodation for the trainers and handlers. We parked up outside and followed Mohammed into the yard and he showed us around.  There were various different areas - one for feeding, one for washing, a stable for the older camels, and an area where a group of camels were tied to posts and hooded to prevent them fighting.   There was one retired racing camel in a pen immediately on the left as we entered.  After having a quick look around, we were invited to hop on for a short ride around the yard.   Ive ridden a camel before, but he was tall! Really tall, and as anyone whose ridden a c...

This is the story of my epic ride to Qatar's Singing Sand Dune...... After completing the Qatar Century Ride last December, cycling a gruelling 100km in one stretch,  I felt I had proved my stripes in the saddle and decided to plan my own solo two wheeled micro adventure. Colleagues at work had mentioned the Singing Sand Dune before and shown me photos of this desert wonder which has become somewhat of a tourist attraction just outside Doha.  When I say just outside, I'd looked at the map and saw a distance of 35 - which would be 70km in total.  No problem, I thought, but in order to be able to spend time there, I would endeavour to leave very early on Friday morning, as it would take me approximately 1.5 - 2 hours there and the same back and I wanted to ensure I made it back before the traffic got busy in Doha at around 1200. So I got up at 4.30am, woke Grey Legs from his slumber and set off in the dark.  Id pondered for a while what to wear.  ...

Ive made no secret of the fact that I adore camels.  They're full of character, have the cutest faces with big eyes, long eye lashes and full lips which curl and flap into the funniest shapes or simply hang in gormless contemplation.  Buts its not this that really attracts me - its their nature -wrongly characterised as grumpy.  They can be the most affectionate of beasts and develop relationships with their handlers as strong as that between humans..... when you're kind, they respond with gentleness, when you're rough with them, they fight back.  And they bicker and squabble with each other like all animals. Best of all though is their patience, toughness and hardiness to cope with the unbelievably harsh conditions that they can endure as nomadic transportation.  Heaving loads across hundreds of miles of desert in extreme temperatures, sometimes going weeks without food or water, relying on their fat reserves, for survival. Their milk is the most nut...

I'd arrived in Petra after two nights of no sleep - one on a flight from the UK and another in a freezing cold seedy hostel in old Amman - and a five and a half hour bus journey, two hours of which were spent standing on the side of the Kings Highway waiting for a replacement bus after the driver broke the suspension by driving through one of the many giant potholes while he was distracted by chatting to the accompanying police officer. The guys at the Seven Wonders Bedouin camp had arranged to meet me from the bus and collect my bags and leave me to go in to the Petra site for a few hours.  But my utter exhaustion and sickness got the better of me and I was in no fit state for anything except heading to my tent for some rest.  Hashem, a charming young bedu drove me around the twisting roads of the Wadi Musa valley, through the town of Umm Sayhoun - (built in the 1980s to accommodate the bedouin who were forcibly evicted from the Nabataean caves which they'd inhabit...