Doha has been another very interesting stopover.

Qatar has a population of about 2 million. Women make up only 25 per cent of it. Certainly, you don't have to go far to recognize that this is a very, very male society.

By some accounts, about 80 per cent of the population is also non-Qatari. That, too, is guessable from a bit of Friday walking. (Friday is the day of rest here, and many places are shut until 1 pm or later. So Friday is the day to watch people variously walking, exercising, picnicking, thronging the open spaces, or gathering at Western Union outlets.)

On Day 1, Friday, we walked another Corniche. Took in another bay full of blue water, another set of sleek, elegant towers, and another raft of building projects.



We then had a fabulous lunch at Layali al Qahira in the Souq Waqif. Started with mint lemonade, which is one of the most delicious things I've ever drunk. Moved on to two appetizers. Koshari is apparently the national dish of Egypt, and consists of rice, pasta, lentils, chickpeas, fried onion and garlic, which you eat with a delicious tomato sauce; rahib salad is a mixture of grilled eggplant, onions, oil, and pepper, and is eaten -- of course -- with Egyptian bread. Our main was a lovely lamb, okra, and tomato stew, served with rice. We were pretty much stuffed by now. But I had to have a dessert. So we shared an om ali. Imagine a combination of bread pudding, granola, and creme brulee, and you won't be far off the mark. Absolutely delicious. Rounded the whole thing off with Egyptian coffees, whose cardamom aromas seemed very akin to the Turkish coffees of a couple of weeks ago. This whole stomach-exploding experience was accompanied by Friday lunchtime people-watching and the sweet, soft smell of shisha pipes.

After this, we went for a walk round Souq Waqif itself. This market was renovated in 2004, using traditional materials. I'm usually a bit sniffy about such places, but I loved Souq Waqif. The key to it is that's emphatically not just for tourists. The needs catered to here are those of locals. So there is a wonderful array of shops.

Material shops, some with the array of shiny stuffs that is guaranteed to delight Prudence's magpie heart, and some with rolls of sober white for the making of Arab men's garments. Headdress shops. Animal shops, with rabbits, and cats, and dozens of kinds of birds. Perfume shops, trailing fragrance down the narrow alleyways. Spice shops, ditto. Pastry shops. Sword shops. Cooking pan shops. Gas stove shops. And so on.

People who buy in bulk can have their goods transported by old men with wheelbarrows. Some wheelbarrows are equipped with bicycle bells.

Given that we enjoyed Day 1 so much, Day 2 was unsurprisingly similar. Today we turned right along the seafront. Past the Museum of Islamic Art, past the dhows, past the men selling fish, past the boats that catch the fish, and past the building site that will soon turn dramatically into the National Museum. Aeroplanes constantly slid up over our heads from the nearby airport, each creating a brief eclipse.

Then back to the Souq Waqif, where we discovered the pigeons and the horses.



We had lunch at Al Adhamiyah Iraqi Restaurant. Another delicious meal, which we ate upstairs, propped up by cushions, surveying the array of screens and carvings and decorative bits and pieces that make this such a nice venue. We tried to order less today. But my "Iraqi cocktail" made a substantial starter; the moutabel beet (beetroot and tahini dip) and Arab salad (lettuce, cucumber, and tomato) came with several Iraqi flatbreads (less crisp than the Iranian variety, but much more substantial than pitta); and the kouzi chicken was downright huge (two pieces of the most deliciously tender chicken, its juices flavouring the substantial bed of aromatic rice it rested on, plus two kinds of tomato-based sauce, one with beans, flavoured with cloves, and one with okra, very like the sauce that accompanied yesterday's lamb). "Do you do coffee?" we asked. "No," said the waiter, "just tea." "OK," we said, "we'll have tea." Along it came, in small glasses, sweet and dark and cardamom-flavoured -- and accompanied by (complimentary) bowls of creamy white custard, also delicately flavoured with cardamom, and sprinkled with chocolate powder. So, our bellies were groaning again by the time we left.

We spent most of the afternoon at the Museum of Islamic Art, filling our eyes with wonderful objects. Calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, metalwork, jewellery -- all exquisite. Two things stood out. Firstly, patterns. They reflect the idea that everything we see is just part of a much larger, interconnected, coherent whole. Secondly, objects. Nothing is too mundane or everyday to be made beautiful. The ordinary realm of ewers, buckets, or bowls is lit up by Islamic art just as much as the extraordinary realm of arts and religion. Beauty, in other words, makes the ordinary extraordinary.



This is a really lovely exhibition site. The building is fabulous. The galleries are spacious, the objects well displayed. And there's an elegant cafe, with views and a fountain, where you can drink karkade (hibiscus) tea (or indeed any other kind of tea) out of a teapot that looks and feels like a cannon ball (a decorated one, of course).

A few minutes to enjoy the night-time Doha skyline, and our stopover was effectively over. Just the airport run tomorrow...