It appears that our tire is beyond repair and we need another one, so while waiting for this to be negotiated, we thought we would explore closer to home, in fact, on the edge of Doha. We went looking for Borj Barzan Fort in the Umm Slal Mohammed area. Barzan means "high place" in Arabic. These were lookout points in the late 19 century to protect a precious water reservoir. This is not very old, and it has been repaired quite a bit by the looks of it. Anyway, it has paths all around it and is well maintained. You can walk up the steps and look out from the top, so we spent a pleasant time until sunset.

The ubiquitous crescent moon on the top of the tower now has a great deal more significance to us after experiencing the anxious awaiting of the crescent moon for the start of Eid. It is very different for us not to know the exact date of a holiday and, if you have been fasting all day for the past month, it must be excrutiating having to wait one or two more days until the moon has been sighted by the official committee. I noticed in the shopping centre yesterday, the abeyas are much more colourful now, especially the ones the younger girls are wearing. Instead of the usual decorations of silver or black, or occasionally gold, I noticed lots of colourful trims. I will be interested to see how long the period of celebration is for, and when they return to the usual colours. A friend had told me to be particularly careful to wear conservative clothes during the Holy month of Ramadan as she had actually been told off by the clothes police in the mall saying she was not appropriately dessed. I am not sure whether there really are "clothes police" or just someone who was offended.

On the way back we went to a new grocery shop that we had driven by every time on our way out of town. Yesterday we had the time to stop and take a look. They certainly had gone "over the top" for their Eid decorations. I actually took a small video clip of this as it moves continuously!

Now this is what I call decorating with lights! The actual store was really nice and had great ethnic vegetables and in fact was nicer I think than our regular store. I thought this was a cheaper store, and yet they carried the "dutchy" line of products attributed to Prince Charles, as well as a huge cheese selection and quite a lot of different products from our usual store, things that I thought I couldn't get in Doha. This was definitely a "find". The night before we had finally tried out "Turkey Central" which is basically a fast food restaurant but with really tasty middle eastern food. You can eat in, rather cafeteria style, but we opted for schwarmas to take out with some tabouleh and babaganouch. The fellow making them was a going concern, he churned out a huge quantity of them in the time we waited for our order to be filled. A really good cheap meal - a far cry from the fancy french restaurant I had been hoping to be taken to at La Cigalle - oh well, another time. A few doors down from Turkey Central, we went to Patisserie Swiss, which we have seen all over town and is in fact a Lebanese bakery and nothing swiss about it. But they have a huge selection of pastries with pistachio nuts, dates etc. so we picked up a selection to try for desert. There always seems to be something new to find and experience. One more day, then it is Friday and hopefully we will have a new tire so we can go further afield.

A few more pictures from our trip yesterday. These are the main roads through the desert and you often encounter forks in the road where you have no clue where they will take you, one may go back miles and end up on the real highway, or it may just go round in a loop or end up at someone's palace, an abandoned fishing village or just a really nice beach. We usually find that taking the "one less travelled" is not necessarily a good idea as you run the risk of getting stuck in some deep sand in over 40 degree celcius heat - not a good idea. Anyway the point I wanted to get across is that this is a "main" road, what we get to after this is a lot less easy to follow. Next trip I will remember to take some photos of our usual roads. Often they are a barely defined track in the sand or well used but very rough and stoney as was the case today. Very sharp stones as it turned out!

As the sun was going down, we headed back to Al Ruwais area, near the docks where all the newer fishing boats are, these are some of the older more weathered Dhow's that I have seen, especially the one that looked like a dead fish! People were gathering on the docks to watch as the sun was starting to go down so we rushed to get further down the coast to an old fort and fishing village we wanted to see before it got too dark.

We seemed to miss the ones we were aiming for, the map reader was obviously sleeping, but this we reached just after the sun had gone down, we got to it over a very stony dirt track and as I got out of the car to take this picture, we hear the ominous whomp, whomp, whomp of the tire!

Sure enough, the tire was flat as a pancake. I had the manual in hand reading out directions while Derek did the work, until the part where we had to lift this really heavy tire onto lugs, by which time the sun had pretty much gone! Anyway, the teamwork paid off and before too too long, we were on our way back to the highway and home. We wont be going too far afield today though as you wouldn't want to get caught without a spare tire. We phoned the number we had been given by the rental company for emergencies, but the answer was pretty much, it is a three day Eid holiday, call me at the end of it! Put very politely though! So, we will try to get it fixed or more likely, just stay and see things closer to home and on better roads! It certainly was a shocker though, these tires are really heavy duty, so dont know what we could have gone over that would made it go that flat. All part of the adventure I suppose!

Three days holiday for Eid means three days of exploring Qatar for us. Many people have gone away, but we thought we would take the opportunity to see a few more places. Today we went up to the far end of the island to Shamal, then went on to Ras al Shindwee which is the beach area nearby. We found this beach, completely deserted except for some young Qatari men who had got their Four wheel drive stuck in some soft sand on the other side of these rocks. We offered our assistance to try to get them out, but after handshakes and smiles all round they pointed to their cell phones as help was already on the way! So we went off exploring the beach for a while. There were some large birds on the salt lake where the boys were stuck, but once their friends had arrived, the revving of engines soon sent the birds on their way.

A little further up the coast were some more mangroves with the fruits turning yellow now.

This is the closest to a dinosaur we have seen in Qatar! Quite an interesting rock formation. There were signs in the area to make sure dogs were on a leash and we did not disturb the turtles. We saw no signs of sea turtles but presume we weren't looking in the right places or probably the right time of year. We will have to do some research to find out more about that.

Along this whole area of the coast were many abandoned ancient villages. Mostly they were fishing villages, some were pearl fishing villages. No sign of pearls on the beach unfortunately! This was an interesting shot Derek took with the beach umbrella perfectly framed in the window of the old house. I read in the paper just the other day that there has been quite an effort to put up a number of these umbrellas on the beaches up and down the coasts and to clean up the garbage washed up with the tide. The garbage is mostly plastic water bottles and plastic shopping bags. I really hope they continue with this as the beaches that have been cared for are really beautiful and the water is so clear. We had quite an eventful ending to the day which I will continue tomorrow.

Ramadan is fast coming to an end, so thought I had better get out and take a few pictures of how our local mall has been decorated. I had only heard of the fasting part of Ramadan before, but there is a lot of feasting and family get togethers, sharing food with neighbours and donations of food and money to the poor. Eid is celebrated with gifts and more food. The Malls right now are crazy, just like the few days before Christmas at home, with last minute shoppers. Things shut for three days for Eid and a lot of people are going away although we have elected to stay put and now the weather has cooled a little, spend some restful time on the beach.

These pictures are from the City Centre Mall, our nearest shopping centre, and are taken in an area over the skating rink. Yes, there is a circular skating rink at the bottom and then on all four levels, there have been swags and tassels hung and then in the centre, above the rink, there are these huge lantern like structures and moons and stars. Nearer the grocery store, there is a little tableau with old type buildings and moving models of Qatari people in the olden days with moving heads on camels etc. I had better go back and take pictures of that as well!

While the City Centre decorations are somewhat over the top, here are some decorations in a back alley in the souq. Just a few lights and a lamp. Still attractive at night.

Last night we went for a nice walk around the neighbourhood and tomorrow I will put up some pictures, but this is a picture of the new Movenpick hotel near us, with its Ramadan decorations. Again the moon and stars. I cant read the writing, but suspect it is Ramadan Kareem which is the Ramadan greeting. Of course the moon plays a huge part in Ramadan as it starts and ends on the sighting of the new moon. It was a lovely evening and although we were hot by the end of our walk, we had managed to walk quite a long way as things are definitely cooling down. There was very little humidity yesterday as well and from the gym you could see for miles.

Here are a few more pictures from our day at the beach. We saw quite a few cormorants both on the beach and in the water. This one flew down the beach to join his friends and they all stretched out their wings to sun themselves but they were to far away to photograph. We saw them diving a little further out to sea as well.

This was a little further back from the beach. These trees are so graceful, the leaves are small and almost feathery and just blow in the wind. When they are a little taller, there is space to sit underneath the spreading branches which look rather like an umbrella.

After spending our afternoon on the beach, we drove along the beach on the "road" and came to the main part of the beach, which was the other side of a fairly high outcrop of rock. The rock is very porous and holey. There were lots of cars here and it looked like the water was deeper and no rocks. However this was a younger crowd and they had their seadoos and boards, we had seen a parasail as well. So I think we were better off on our quieter shallower beach. There is a large beach resort further along the beach. You have to pay for the privilege of sitting on the beach there, but it is well cared for with restaurants etc. There are several of these large resorts up and down the coasts but with many kilometers in between.

At the far end of the beach above there were some mangrove swamps back from the beach. There was not much water there, so a big of vegetation had grown inbetween the mangroves. These looked like the usual samphire type greenery, but this time there was some pinky coloured plants as well which are quite attractive. Well that's it for our pictures of the day out. I took various pictures during the week of the fabric souq and the shopping centre with Ramadan decorations so will put them up during the week. Can't believe that the end of our time here is fast approaching. It will be really sad to leave.

This was the view out of our window this week - the humidity had arrived! It looked just like rain on the windows, but in fact it was the warm humidity condensing on the airconditioned windows. When you went outside, it was like hitting a wall. Fortunately it didn't last very long and the next evening it was actually a lot cooler and it has been much cooler for the last few days with temperatures below 40. Wow, what a difference that makes. We decided it was cool enough to start venturing further afield which meant driving through the desert, which we had stopped doing during the really hot temperatures, as you could really get into trouble if your car broke down.

So today we took a trip up the coast on the east side of Qatar up to a place near Fuwairit beach. This beach just had a few people spotted along it. It was really nice and clean and there were garbage pails strategically placed along the beach so there was very little litter. Where the dark spot is at the end of the beach were some rocks going into the water. Several fellows were there digging for clams. Derek had a go and bought me back a couple to see - just like the ones we find at home. I just lay down on the beach and left him to it!

You just drive off the dirt or rather sand road and onto the beach to claim your spot.

This was the view behind us. It looked like there had been a village there once upon a time, but they were all crumbled down now. It looked really interesting though, they were made with rocks that were piled up with mud over top of them which baked in the sun. It was a really lovely afternoon and really relaxing. We came home very salty, sandy and windswept. I had a swim and it was almost refreshing instead of like a hot bath and Derek had dug for clams - a really good day. I will put some more pictures on tomorrow of some other things we saw.

A few more pictures from our beach trip. We came across a group of Herons that were wading in a pool beside the ocean. They wouldn't let me get any closer to take a picture before they flew off to join another group further down the coast. They are beautiful to see in flight with their large wings and long skinny body.

The place was absolutely full of shells and cuttle fish, and the sand itself seems to be made up of tiny shells. We really enjoyed wandering along the beach looking at all the different coloured shells

We stayed until sunset and turning the other direction, the moon was visible over the ocean. A really beautiful evening. The sunsets here never seem to last a really long time, but they have their own beauty with such a wide expanse of sky in the desert. Even though there are no clouds to bounce the colours off - there is a lovely warm glow over the whole sky which was beautiful , reflected in the tide pools.

I have no idea what this bird is - we will have to do some research, but it is absolutely stunning and nothing like we had ever seen before. We had a great day, just exploring and will definitely go back. Next time we will take a beach barbecue and stay and have supper on the beach. This time, we drove back and had dinner at Al Bandar in the souq, Derek had a hankering for a tray of hors d'oevres of the usual humous, moutabal, babaganoush etc. folowed by a mixed grill and washed down with lemon-mint drink. While we were sitting at the table outside, a parade of children all dressed in national costume came by singing the equivalent of "halloween apples"! It was the festival of Garangao where the children celebrate the 14th day of Ramadan and go around collecting chocolates and gifts. They all looked wonderful in their colourful dress and we saw a proud father taking a picture of his young son, probably not much more than 1 1/2 years old, the little fellow was dressed in the white outfit complete with headgear and he looked so cute. The same scene could be played out in many countries with many cultures. I always like to see the similarities rather than the differences.