On the Way to India – An Unscheduled Stop in Doha
Yesterday a quarter past 3 am I left the house in ice-cold night, driving to the flat of my eldest son, Marwin. He took me with our car to Geneva airport. On the way it started snowing more and more, and when we reached the airport the roads were white. I checked in and then there was the call for boarding. When all had taken their places, the captain said that we had to wait for de-icing before we could start…. It nearly 1.5 hs late when the plane took off. Will I catch the connecting flight?
The captain flew very fast but in Frankfort we were parked at the far end of the runway. Waiting for the bus and the ride took 30 minutes. As soon as I entered the airport I made a sprint the long way to the connecting flight with Qatar Airways.
At the checkin I saw my friend Elif waiting and then heard at the counter that my place was already given to someone else because I came so late. Nevertheless they managed to give us new seats…
The airport was frozen, snow was in the air. The captain told us, we had to wait, maybe a quarter of an hour, later, maybe half an hour, later, “I don’t know”. The de-icing station had problems, some machines didn’t work. We finally left 2.5 hours late… We saw that we won’t be able to catch the connecting plane… So we enjoyed the inflight movies knowing that some adventure was waiting for us.
At Doha airport in Qatar many people from our flight had lost their ongoing flight but the staff was busily working to manage the situation. An Indian next to me said, “I’ll never take again this airline, I have an important date tomorrow. I told him that it is not the fault of the airline but of the weather and the de-icing machines. He said,”Other planes took off faster, our captain didn’t try everything.” I said nothing but inwardly smiled – a child’s complaints….
We said, we will have a beautiful stay in Doha, and so it was. We got 1 day visa and tickets for a hotel. We had to wait till the bus came; people were brought to 2 hotels.
A nice lobby and polite staff took care of us. We went to the room and then had a delicious dinner shortly before midnight.
At 6 am in the morning we met for morning meditation. We sent information to the group members in Bangalore informing about our adventure, and soon we got the reply that they will take care of us at our arrival early morning on the 29th.
We tried to connect online to the December Call celebration but could not establish connection. So we had breakfast , good talks, and after lunch an Indian servant told us we could have a beautiful sight from the top of the hotel. It was only then that we realised that the hotel was directly at the best place at a little port, near Doha museum, and the grand skyline of Doha on the other side. We decided to go for a walk. Fantastic impressions. We were grateful for our unscheduled stop. Now in about an hour the bus will pick us up and bring us back to the airport, for the next part of our journey.
-
- Snow on the plane windows
-
- At the de-icing machine
-
- A gorgeous dusk over the clouds
-
- Morning view out of the room: the tower of a mosque
-
- Our surprise – the symbol of the WTT on the clothes rag
-
- Lustres at the lobby
-
- On the roof of the hotel
-
- Blue sky and warm wind
-
- The little port with the museum and the skyline of Doha
-
- A lot of traffic – and plenty of offroaders
-
- The access to the museum
-
- Old ships and new sky-scrapers
-
- Taking pictures at the port, with our hotel (yellow) in teh background
-
- Standing at the port
-
- The fountain
-
- A selfie
-
- Not only sky-scrapers – old and new houses next to another
-
- Good-bye Doha
December 28th, 2014 at 4:43 pm
THank you, Ludger, for your journey journal.
So that we could share the journey with you.
Being “called.” love, Risa
December 28th, 2014 at 5:12 pm
Dear friend Mr.Ludger,
Nice to hear bout your journey, we were excited to read bout your unexpected short stay in Doha.We’ve been living in Qatar past 15yrs.I am planning to come for Gurupooja celebrations with my family.Hope you are going to stay till Gurupooja celebrations.
Kindly convey our regards to Master KPK & brotherhood.Hope you will have a pleasant journey.
You can contact me on 00974 55237388