Souq Waqif is one of Doha’s top tourist destinations. It has recently been renovated and cleaned up to make it feel more like an authentic traditional Bedouin marketplace. It not only attracts tourist but thousands of people from across the region frequent this market to purchase traditional goods. Souq means open-air market place. What is different about this souq is that it is fairly large and sells just about everything. Besides all of the traditional knick-knacks, the gold, spices, perfumes and fabric areas it also features a bird area, a falcons souq and horses, and camel stables. There are several boutique hotels, many restaurants, art galleries, and on occasion live performances, seasonal festivals and cultural bazaars.

In the evening, once the sun goes down the souq becomes a beehive of activity, people winding around the small alleyways window shopping or buying supplies. The main walking street is lined with restaurants and cafes where folks go to eat, smoke shisha, relax and watch the world pass by.

looking up the main walking street in late afternoon

the bird and animal souq

one of the many crowded alleyways

spice store

parrotlets for sale in the bird souq

parrot

more parrotlets

ME and I were very entertained walking through the bird souq, yellow collared lovebirds

iguanas

a shop selling falcons and accessories in the falcon souq

a look at the falcons, most are wearing hoods

at the falcon souq

men in traditional dress playing a board game

the west as bars for drinking, in the Arabic world are shisha bars

we learned that the flavoring is added to the water in the base of the hookah, the tobacco is placed in the silver foil and secured on the top

ME enjoying a shisha and a cranberry juice

Bob too

across from the souq was this mosque, I thought is was very interesting

night view

the new National Museum of Qatar under construction, link to see how it will look when completed

on the plane home I took this picture of oil fields and a port, notice how brown and sandy it is