Spring

I know Spring is still trying to burst forth in Alberta, but in Qatar the heat came quickly and with a vengeance.  After a cold (by Qatar standards) winter, we had a week of slow warming and then BAM! it became bloody HOT!  My daughter, Ayn, came for a visit in mid-April and was here during the week of slow warming.  She enjoyed being somewhere warmer than Alberta was at the time, and was so happy to see where I am living and to meet the people I talk about.

While Ayn was here a TEDx Summit was held in Doha. (For those not familiar with Ted talks, go to ted.com and check out some of the talks.)  We attended the opening night of the summit and listened to several speakers. It was a lovely evening and we sat outside in the huge amphitheatre at Katara - a new cultural centre in Doha which is right on the ocean so there was a nice breeze.  The topics ran the gamut from population and religion to restoration of ancient books to a comedian poking fun at the Arab world to an artist who makes a 200-year plan.  

After touring Ayn all around Qatar - she got to see camels in pajamas - we headed to Spain for 10 days.  Starting in Madrid we stayed right near all the tourist action and walked our feet off.  We especially enjoy the Prado museum, tapas and rioja, Retiro Park, tapas and rioja, the Royal Palace, more tapas and rioja, all the amazing buildings, squares, people, more tapas and rioja! After 3 days we moved on to Seville.  The train ride was easy, on-time and gave a views of the beautiful Spanish country-side.  It's a 2 1/2 hour trip and we passed through quite a variety of geography - a beautiful country to be sure.  

Seville was so beautiful - clear, blue skies and temperatures of about 25 degrees celsius every day.  It as perfect - made more so by our hotel.  The Hotel Amadeus is down a street so narrow that we had to walk in from a wider street that the taxi could navigate.  The hotel, as you might guess, had a musical theme - our room was the Wagner room - and it was decorated with all sorts of musical instruments, had lovely classical music playing all the time, and was old and quaint.  There was a rooftop terrace where we had a beautiful breakfast every day.  There were lounge chairs and a hot tub, so we spent our mornings walking and visiting all the tourist sites; then came back to the hotel for a rooftop siesta.  At about 7 or 8 we would head out again for dinner - usually tapas and rioja.  The tourist sites we enjoyed were the cathedral - which is the 3rd largest in the world after the Vatican and St. Paul's in London; walking the Bario Santa Cruz (the Jewish Quarter), Alcazar, the Plaza de Espana, the Plaza de toros (bull ring) and just walking and soaking in the atmosphere.

Then on to Barcelona where we spent 3 days exploring the Pedrera, Sagrada Familia, the National Museum, La Rambla, Barri Gothic, the Barcelona Cathedral, Placa de Catalonia, the Montjuic area where the Olympics were held and the National Museum of Art and the beautiful fountains.  A P.E.O. sister, Claire Morrow, her husband and 3-month-old daughter, Cerie, met us for some tapas one afternoon too.  It was so good to see a familiar face from Canada on our travels.  Ayn left to fly back to Calgary after 16 days of being away from her family.  I think she had a great time - I knowI did - and I am so grateful to her family for letting me have her for so long.

Tragedy struck in Doha earlier this week.  My friend, Jackie and I were on our way to lunch when we noticed heavy black smoke coming out of the Villagio Mall - a huge shopping mall very close to UCQ. We carried on to Subway for lunch and were very frustrated that it then took us almost an hour to get back to the university due to traffic being re-routed to permit emergency vehicles through to the mall.  I was certain all would be under control and the fire would be contained quickly.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  Nineteen people lost their lives in that fire - 13 of them children who were in a play centre where parents leave their children while they shop; 2 firefighters, and 4 of the teachers from the play centre.  An investigation is underway, and all business/institutions are under scrutiny now to ensure safety precautions are in place.  UCQ is not immune - we haven't had a fire drill since I've been here.  We'll be remedying that this coming week.

So we're on the home stretch to the end of the school year.  Faculty, staff and students are tired and ready for a break.  Just about everyone will be back next year.  Most had signed 2 or 3 years contracts, but nearly everyone has renewed for at least another year.  That's a good thing as it will give more stability to UCQ, and I'm awfully glad that all my friends will be returning in the fall.

It’s a Woman’s Prerogative . . . .

. . . to change her mind, and in keeping with that notion, I have altered my plans and will now extend my contract in Doha beyond October 2012. There are just too many exciting and interesting things going on at UCQ and I want to be part of them! Life is exciting here – we have just announced our new diploma program, there is a new associate dean coming, the student services team is growing, student numbers are increasing, we are building student life programs, a graduate program is likely to come on stream in the next year – all wonderful challenges which will be so great to work on.

My amazing family has been wonderfully supportive of my staying in Qatar for another year or two – it gives them more time to come and visit! I read somewhere that the Middle East is now the fastest growing tourist area in the world. They have a way to go with tourist amenities, but it is a very interesting part of the world – change is coming fast here. If any of you are thinking of visiting, I would love to see you!

Yesterday I took a trip out to the Musfer Cave (a 100 meter deep sink hole in the middle of the desert) and the Singing Sand Dunes.

Leslie at the mouth of MusferCave

Along the way we saw goats and camels roaming around the desert. The main dune was really huge and the people climbing up the face of the dune looked like ants:

We took a different approach up the dune which wasn't quite so vertical, but it was still quite a slog.

Me on the way to the top of the dune

Silly me, I thought the dunes just ‘sang’ as you stood there and listened. Oh, no, you climb to the top of the dune, sit down and skootch yourself down on your butt. The skootching action gets the sand moving and starts the dunes to ‘humming’ – a very cool sound, especially when you have about 20 of you starting at the same time! The skootching was really hard work on my legs – a good workout! Check the video:

The sound you hear is the dunes 'singing/humming.' That's Chris Jensen, our latest addition to UCQ staff, right ahead of me capturing the moment on her tablet which she is holding up in front of her. She's getting right into life in Doha!

Today, Saturday, I flew to Abu Dhabi for a visit with my friend and former P.E.O. provincial board pal, Nancy Racicot. She is visiting her nephew who is living and working in Abu Dhabi. It was fabulous to spend the afternoon with Nancy, chatting, eating and walking! So great to meet an old friend while we are on the other side of the world!

Nancy and me on the Corniche in Abu Dhabi

Another (better) photo of Nancy and me in the hotel w/out wind.

As we walked along the corniche, we watched the start of this sailing race:

One of the boats had some really inexperienced sailors who ran into a lot of trouble and were quite hilarious to watch; they actually came careening right into the concrete abutment where we were standing. There was a lot of shouting and waving of arms as the 'sailors' were trying to keep the boat upright, in the first instance; and then to get it back on course. They eventually got going. I wonder who won the race - they were quickly out of sight.

The mosque in Abu Dhabi is supposed to be the most beautiful mosque in the world. I have never been in it, but here's a photo of the exterior which I took asI drove past it on the way to the airport:

All in all, a great weekend!

Catching up

I have been negligent and need to catch you up on the Vietnam/Cambodia trip. Things will be a little out of chronological order because I posted the Halong Bay Christmas Eve/Day photos before I finished what we did in Danang and Hoi An, so I'll be backing up a bit.

On the way to Hoi An, we would have driven over the Truong Son Mountain Range, but it was so rainy and foggy that we took a 6 km long tunnel instead. It was much safer, but a bit disappointing that the weather was so socked in that we couldn't take the other route and see what is supposed to be spectacular views of the South China Sea. We stopped in Danang and visited the Cham Museum which is an open air museum of sandstone carvings. The Cham people are an ethnic group that likely started as Hindus but later followed Islam. The carvings we saw reflected both traditions. The museum also had photos of present day Cham celebrations and festivals - very colorful events.

We resumed our drive and passed China Beach which is a very long beach area where American GI's took their R&R during the Vietnam War. It is now being developed (over-developed, in my view) with large 5-star resorts and hotels. The up-side is that it is bringing much needed employment to this impoverished country.

We then stopped at the Marble Mountains which are five hills made of, you guessed it - marble. They were once islands and are said to represent each of the elements - metal, water, wind, fire, earth. There are many caves in which Buddhist sanctuaries have been built over the centuries. We took an elevator (yes, I wimped out on the climb) to near the top (but there was some climbing left to do once we got off the elevator) and visited some of these cave sanctuaries which were so mystical and awe inspiring. We walked all the way back down and it was a fairly difficult since the stairs were not of uniform height, were made of marble and were quite slippery, being made of marble.

Inside the cave temple at the Marble Mountains

On we went to Hoi An - a lovely, now small city which was once a major port for ships traveling to the far east from Portugal, Italy, Spain, etc. The market here was so interesting and very colorful.

Market at Hoi An

We took a boat trip on the Thun Bon River to Kim Bing Village on Cam Kim Island where there are families who have been shipbuilders and wood workers for generations. We then visited a silk making shop where we saw a demonstration of how the silk is gathered, spun and woven - and of course, saw a variety of beautiful products they make from the silk. Couldn't resist and had a silk jacket made - delivered that evening to the hotel.

Silk lanterns outside of silk shop

The next day was Christmas Eve and we left Hoi An very early to fly to Hanoi where we were picked up and driven for 3 hours to where we boarded the boat for our cruise on Halong Bay (see previous post). The area is a World Heritage site which is made up of about 2,000 limestone karsts and islets of different sizes and shapes, each with lush vegetation and rising dramatically out of the ocean. This is obviously a huge tourist draw.

We arrived at the port where thousands of tourists were milling around and cruise companies were collecting their passengers and getting them onto the small tenders that transfer them out to the cruise ships. There were passengers going on day cruises as well as those, like us, who were going on overnight cruises. What a circus it was! But we eventually got on our tender which took us on about a 20-minute ride out to our large wooden junk. It was a lovely ship with about 28 cabins. We were first taken to the dining room where we met some of our fellow passengers - a couple from Hawaii and another couple from St. Petersburg, Russia shared our table. The man from Hawaii was about my age and was originally from Chicago so we shared some stories. The Russian couple were very interesting - he is a lawyer whose English was a fair bit stronger than his wife's - an economist. There were a couple of excursions from the ship to some caves, but I took a pass on those, feeling a real need for some down time; besides, the scenery was amazing in and of itself!

It was unseasonably cold, however, and our Christmas Eve dinner was held on the upper deck where we were all wearing jackets - Pam even had on a toque and the Hawaiian couple had on parkas! The crew had planned all sorts of games and activities for the passengers for Christmas Eve. They handed out a list of games and the rules for the games; however, the English was so bad that we really couldn't figure out the rules! We had to wait for demonstrations and eventually got them figured out - with much laughter!

On Christmas morning there was a huge brunch on board the ship, another excursion to some caves and then we cruised back to port. The day was beautiful and I spent the cruising time on the top deck enjoying the sunshine which we hadn't seen for 4 days. When we got back to port the tender took us to a different place than where we had been dropped off. Everyone else seemed to have drivers waiting for them, but our driver was no where to be seen. A nice British family noticed that we were without driver and offered to have their driver phone our tour company. Thank goodness for that. He found that our driver had not been informed that we would be dropped off at another location, and was waiting for us where he had dropped us off the day before. It was only a 5 minute drive, but when our driver arrived he was stuttering and seemed so terrified. I imagined he thought he might lose his job or at least his tip because of the mix-up. I felt so bad for him and tried to reassure him that all was ok.

So off we went back to Hanoi where we met a new guide who, because we arrived quite late in the afternoon, took us on a rather whirlwind tour. We started at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum where we witnessed the changing of the guard. Then we went on to a pagoda, the name of which I can't remember. It was so interesting, tho, and it was the first university in Vietnam. We then were taken on a cyclo tour - that's in a cycle-driven rickshaw. We were toured all around the old quarter of Hanoi during the early evening when there was lots of traffic - the lights were beautiful. We were dropped at the theatre where we saw a water puppet show.

Pam in front of the Opera House on our cyclo tour of Hanoi

The next day, following some free time to wander the old quarter and poke into the many shops, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I was starting to feel quite tired and not quite right. We arrived in Siem Reap at about 9:00 p.m. and taken immediately to our hotel. The next day I woke up with a bad case of "la tourista" and could not leave the hotel. Pam and our guide went to see a few sites and brought me some Imodium. By 4:00 I was feeling better and we headed out to see the Bayon Temple. It was amazing! This is the temple that has huge stone faces on the exterior surfaces. We were fortunately enough to see this at sunset when the light makes it look so mystical and serene. Quite an experience.

Bayon Temple - see the faces in the side of the rock?

On our last day we had to make up for lost time. My body was suffering from being so dehydrated despite the massive amount of water I drank. Everything was still off-kilter. We headed off to Angkor Wat - the largest and most well-known temple.

Angkor Wat temple

You walk in about a half kilometre to the temple. It was beautiful and there was so much to learn about it. Our guide was so knowledgeable and told us about the temple in great detail. However, it was very hot and after about an hour, I was starting to show signs of heat stroke. Our guide had to get our driver to come into the grounds (usually not permitted) to pick me up. A half hour of sitting under the air conditioning vent revived me enough, however, that I was than able to walk around the next temple. After lunch we went to Ta Prohm which is being excavated, but is overgrown with tree roots and foliage - from the size of the trees and roots, it is amazing to think how long this site had gone before being discovered.

Tree growing up over Ta Prohm temple

That evening we headed back to Doha on an overnight flight through Bangkok. The entire trip to Vietnam and Cambodia was wonderful, but it is always great to get home to my own bed and belongings. We had a few days before returning to work, and it was a good thing we did as I had come down with a low-grade cold/fever thing and was generally just exhausted from being on the go for 12 days. I was truly grateful for the down time.

New Year's Eve was a non-event for me and on New Year's Day I think I slept the entire day. We headed back to work on Jan. 2nd and hit the ground running as we prepared for the new batch of students and the returning students. Our numbers are growing and things have been very busy. It's a good busy as we are so pleased that interest in our programs is growing.

One of my favorite places to go here in Doha is The King of Frames - a framing shop that is a real dive, but so much fun. Choosing mats and frames for pictures I have picked up in my travels is about the only creative thing I do and I love it! The 'King' is an old man who normally sits in a chair by the door and says nothing while we (I generally go to this shop with at least 2 friends) pull out our pictures and try different colour mats and pull frame samples off the wall and try them out. There are 3-4 other men who work there who offer their opinions and suggestions. The 'King' would only speak up when we asked, "how much?" He says an amount (which is ridiculously low by Canadian standards - labor is very cheap here). There are no receipts, no one writes down frame or mat numbers or colors - they just remember it all. Occasionally, if there are more than three of us, he will write down on a scrap of paper the number of pieces and the amount. You can leave a deposit, if you want; or you can just pay the whole amount when you pick up your pictures - usually only about 2-3 days later. The results are always beautiful. These guys have gotten to know us - we are rather good, frequent customers. I used to imagine that when we walked in they would roll their eyes and think, "Not these crazy Canadian ladies again!" But now I think they actually like us and look forward to when we come. In fact, the old guy has gotten a hair cut, dresses a bit better and the last two times we came in, he talked and talked like we were old friends! He's looking for a new wife because he only has 13 children and wants to have more than his mother did - 19! I think I'm out of the running for that honored role!

I have to learn a new skill now - how to use a blow dryer, flat iron and/or curling iron. I had my hair straightened! Since I've not had long hair since my kids were tiny - more than 30 years ago - I need to learn to use the new peraphernalia to keep it straight. Wish me luck!

Do you recognize this woman?!