Persian Gulf: Doha, Qatar

Tuesday, June 20

TROUBLE LEAVING RUSSIA!
As I almost predicted, the airport transfer from my Moscow hotel to the airport NEVER SHOWED UP! This, despite the fact that I had pre-arranged and paid ahead of time! I had to scramble to arrange an alternate - and then pay outrageous prices to get me there in time.

Now, that I am out of Russia, allow me a moment to gripe about one obvious problem - the total disregard for customer service. My experience with service workers in Russia was - without a doubt - the WORST I have ever seen in all of my travels. Hotel workers, restaurant workers, retail workers - just don't seem to give a damn. You can literally stand in front of a clerk or waitress, etc, and they will not even look up. And if you are expecting such things as "please" and "thank you" you can forget about it. Russia is not the right country for that, apparently.

Luckily, the rest of my journey out of Russia went very smoothly.

Persian Gulf:
I flew Qatar Airways for the first time, and was impressed. Very good service and modern equipment (for example, 30 channels of on-demand video in every seat!) and so many meals that I'm sure I gained weight on the flight!

The flight path should have taken us directly over Iraq, but we diverted over Iran instead (was that really more safe?). Then we flew along the coast near Kuwait, and on to Doha, Qatar. I saw some rather interesting sand storms over the desert on the way down.

It is interesting for me to be in the Persian Gulf - although I don't know if I would be up for a full stopover here. This is just a transfer on the way to Thailand.

You know, I'm still confused about how to pronounce the country - the airline staff said "Ka-TAR" but the announcements inside the terminal and on TV all said "Cutter." Take your pick.