The only reason I even knew about the city of Doha was because my friends live there. Of all of the places I visited, Doha was the one that surprised me the most for many reasons. In the 1970s, Doha had about 90,000 people. Then a lot of people moved there because of all the oil and gas found in Qatar. Now 1,500,000 people live in Doha. Can you imagine how many  construction projects it would take to build homes and business and schools for all of those people?

Until the 1990s, there was only one big building in the city, the Sheraton Hotel. Then the Sheik gave land to many of his family members and told them to build offices and apartments and businesses on the land. That is how the city sprang up in just a short time. There is still lots of construction going on in Doha. One huge project right now is to build a subway system throughout the city. There are no taxes in Doha because the government gets so much money from gas and oil.

One day we drove to a place called The Pearl. The Pearl was built on reclaimed land just like The Palms in Dubai, . It was built on what used to be one of Doha’s major pearl diving sites and that is how it got its name. (Remember in the video how James talked about pearl divers and showed you the type of boat they used?) The Pearl has lots of fancy houses like Palm Jumeirah does in Dubai. By 2018, they expect to have 45,000 people living on The Pearl.

Remember the photos of me by that gigantic horse? That was near a hotel on The Pearl.

Another surprise in Doha was seeing the falcon souq and learning about how the falcons are used. Falconry is a huge sport there for rich people. The best falcons can cost thousands of dollars. Falcons may even get their own passports to make sure they are not stolen or taken out of the country without the owner’s permission. Wouldn’t you be surprised to see a full-grown falcon in a cage sitting next to you on a plane? That is one way the owners transport their falcons for hunting!

Many Qataris (people who live in Qatar) spend fortunes on their falconry equipment. These can include radio monitors, 4×4 trucks, and other high priced items. The hunters want to be sure to arrive right when the bird is taking down its prey.

However, before the birds are ready for hunting, the owners must spend lots of time training the birds. One of the training techniques is keeping the bird on your arm for several hours a day. This is painful and someone who had a regular job would not have the time for that. They put hoods on the falcons heads to prevent them from flying until they want them to fly.

If someone goes hunting in the US, they would use a gun or a bow and arrow. In Qatar, the hunters use their falcons to catch the bustards and other birds they hunt.

Things to think about:

What surprised you most about Doha? What questions do you have about my visit to Doha?

 

 

The country of United Arab Emirates and the city of Dubai became very rich because of all of the oil in the Persian Gulf area. This is true for other countries in the Persian Gulf too, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Although not everyone there is rich, there are a lot of people there who have a lot of money. Some of them made money from the oil, some from building things and others from selling things.

The Prince of Dubai wanted to make his city more appealing to tourists. He also wanted to add more beachfront to the city. His idea was to build some islands in the shape of palm trees. Can you believe that someone could build an island? The island I saw is called Palm Jumeirah.

The island was build on reclaimed land. There is also a lot of reclaimed land in Hong Kong. In fact, the airport and Honk Kong Disneyland are both built on reclaimed land. That is because they needed more land area than they already had.

Land reclamation means making new land from the ocean. They fill in the sea floor with large rocks or cement with steel. Then the area is covered using clay or dirt until it is high enough for what they need. Jumeirah Palm was built entirely from sand and rocks. No concrete or steel was used to build the island. That was how the prince wanted it. It takes a long time to reclaim land and it costs a lot of money.

Palm Jumeirah has apartments and villas, restaurants and hotels. The Atlantis Hotel is on the crown or top of the palm. There is another Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas south of Florida. I didn’t have time to go into the hotel, but I rode near enough to take the photo below. If you saw my video, you will remember Rory talking about the fast roller coaster. His mom is the one who showed me the hotel.

I went to lunch at one of the restaurants on the trunk park of the palm.

It was fun to see these fancy places, but I could never afford to live or stay in any of them. I stayed with my friends near their school and not in any of those hotels.

If you went to Dubai, would you rather go dune-bashing and camel-riding or would you rather stay in a fancy hotel? Please write with any questions or comments.

 

 

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I don’t know if there are two cities more different than Mumbai and Dubai (even though they both end with the same three letters.)

Mumbai is crowded and buildings are older. Not everyone is poor, but poverty is everywhere. People set up temporary houses on sidewalks. Mumbai is more colorful and interesting.

Dubai is a rich country because of gas and oil and you see tons of new construction everywhere. It isn’t as crowded because it has fewer people and more space. The roads are newer and I saw more fancy cars. (I even got to ride in a Rolls Royce!)

One thing the cities have in common is air pollution. In Mumbai it is because there are just so many people. In Dubai, it is because of factories, big cars, oil refineries and dust storms. I was surprised to learn that in 2015, United Arab Emirates (UAE) was named the most polluted country in the world. It has over double the amount of pollutants in the air compared to India.

Omar is the man who drove the SUV when we went dune bashing. Do you agree that he has a great job? Imagine if your job was to take people out to the desert every day and drive crazily up and down the sand dunes. I tried to take a video while I was inside the SUV, but that was impossible.  We were moving too fast. So many times it felt as though we were going to tip over. You may have seen that on the video. Sliding down the sand dune on that wide ski was more exciting than it looked too. I watched the others in my group do it, but I didn’t think I would. Then, of course, I realized that I HAD to do it for my video. I didn’t want to let you down by missing out on something!

One night I went on a tour of an area in Dubai. The Hindu festival of lights called Diwali (or as some call it Deepawali) was happening soon. Everywhere I looked I saw colorful lights in homes to celebrate the holiday.

One of the most special parts of my whole trip was meeting the family from Iraq. I was supposed to meet a friend in the gold souk, but my phone didn’t work without wifi. I needed to talk on the phone to set up a meeting spot. I asked a bunch of people where I could find a restaurant or store with wifi, but everyone told me there weren’t any in the souk.

Then this friendly man heard me asking people. He told me I could use the hot spot from his phone. At first, I wasn’t sure if I should talk to him, because most of the people who approached me in the souk wanted to sell me something. However, I soon realized he was just being sincerely helpful. He invited me to sit on a bench with his wife and two sons while I contacted my friend. We started talking and I learned that he used to have a good job in technology in Iraq. However, there was so much fighting going on in their country, the family decided they had to leave in order to be safe. They all really missed Iraq, but they knew it was not a good place to be at this time.

Sadly, they didn’t feel welcomed in Dubai. Because of that they were going to go to Istanbul, Turkey. They had some family and friends living there already and someone had offered the dad a good job working with technology.

They had a car nearby and offered to take me back across the water to the place where I was going to meet my friend. On the drive we talked more and I learned about how difficult it was for them to leave their home country. They said they would write to me when they got settled back in Istanbul. They even invited me to visit them there. I don’t recommend that you talk to strangers if you are alone, but remember that I am an adult.

Do you know anyone who had to leave their home country because it wasn’t safe or because the parents couldn’t find a good job? Can you imagine how hard it would be to leave your home and all of your friends and relatives? Can you imagine how they would feel trying to settle in to a new country with different customs and a new language? Maybe you have a classmate who had to leave their country for one of the reasons I mentioned above. How could you make them feel welcome in Minnesota?

Please write with your questions or comments.

Ms. Barthelemy

When you watch my videos and learn about new places, do you want to travel yourself?  The world is such an amazing place with so many wonderful places to see and people to meet! I hope you get to learn that for yourself some day! Sorry that I got behind on my blog posts, but I didn’t always have a computer handy. Today I want to tell you a little more about Mumbai, India.

Mumbai has over 12 million people. It is definitely one of the noisiest, most crowded, and dirtiest cities I have ever seen. It is also the most colorful and the most interesting and most people who live there work pretty hard. As I showed you on my video, you would never run out of new things to see in Mumbai. The water buffalo and the calf I saw really surprised me and made me laugh. Both of them are bovines, which means they are cows or cattle. I saw a lot of cows roaming around the city, even in busy traffic.

 

The water in Mumbai and other big cities in India is full of pollution and bacteria. People who have lived there for a long time are able to drink the water because their bodies have gotten used to it and can fight the infections. My body wouldn’t have been used to it. Even at my friends’ home, I had to be very careful not to drink water from the faucet. I even had to use bottled water to brush my teeth and rinse out my toothbrush. If I drank tap water, I could have gotten very sick.

I felt very lucky that my friends had a driver named Ganesh who could take me around from place to place. Otherwise, I could have taken a taxi or a rickshaw, but that would have been tricky since I didn’t know where I was going! Rickshaws have three wheels. There is one seat in the front for the driver and the passengers sit in the back. I wouldn’t want to ride one in Mumbai because the traffic is so crazy with cars, buses, rickshaws, animals, and even people walking. One day a young boy walking home from school kept passing us up as we rode in the car because the traffic just wasn’t moving fast at all!

 

Do you have any questions about my video on Mumbai? Please write to me and I will do my best to answer them.

Ms. Barthelemy