Anyone have advice about things to do in Qatar?
The only Persian Gulf area country i've been to is Oman, which was nice. I've travelled to a lot of countries but avoided these countries like Zeerak avoids pizza parlours.
Do I have to get prepared for entitled Persian gulf arab culture?
Are there good Persian restaurants?
Speaking about what I saw 3 years ago:
Generally not a fun country,
Many new and impressive buildings, mainly empty, it is odd
A lot of traffic on the main roads, almost no activity as soon as turning into neighborhoods
Big empty shops in the modern malls, light shelves and few customers
Sogh (traditional bazar) very crowded, too many Indians and Bangladeshis and so on, they are very rude staring at women who don't have hejab
As I said before, except Arabic joints, the food is average or below,
There is one Persian restaurant I mentioned, I give it 5 star for sure. I visited another one, 2 star at best
Cab drivers are clueless, they don't even know the small city so 2/3 o the trip is for them to find their way
Top tier hotels are clean and staff are nice
Qataris in general are nicer than other Arabs, and they don't hate Iran. True Qataris are polite and quiet. Devout muslims. Needless to say rich.
You don't see them much, except when you are trading. You don't see the elite and rich except through families
Outside of Doha is only sand, except small oil towns which are basically village size
A lot of people in Qatar have roots elsewhere, some are actually Iranians in origin, usually very good businessmen, but make no mistake, they consider themselves Qataris
Everything is slow and cliche, you can loosely mix an American and 9 Pakis, dilute by factor of 10, add heavy Arabian spice, put it under 42 degree sun and you get Qatar as far as population and daily culture
Overall, I think Qatar is a wrong choice for WC from tourism standpoint but the sport schedule will run exemplary high standard by European contractors
There is enough in the country to keep you busy for 2-3 days, after that it is going to be boring
It will not be a trip you will remember for fun, food or drink