On my way to Korea – where I’m currently studying as an exchange student I had a nice 9 hours transit in Doha, Qatar. I could have booked my ticket for the day before with much shorter transit time, but it would be a great sin to miss on the opportunity to visit the capital of Qatar.
It was my first time flying with Qatar Airways and knowing
that they are considered one of the best airlines in the world I started searching if maybe they offer any special services (meal, visa, city tour?) for those
passengers with longer transit times. I found out that they actually do offer
sometimes free meal and free visa so I decided to call their polish office and
ask.
The guy at the office told me that unfortunately they can’t offer me any
free meal or free visa, but…. they can provide me with transit accommodation + transportation and free visa (if the hotel is outside transit zone). Nice!
As most of you know I’m a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu geek and I love
visiting local academies abroad. So first thing I did after booking my flight
was searching for a BJJ academy in Doha. Right away I found out, there was this gym
called Qatar MMA and they had a training scheduled perfectly for my transit. I
texted the gym asking if I could drop by for a training – I got a quick
response and the plan was clear – land in Doha, get a cab, go rolling!
And that’s pretty much exactly what I did. After landing in
Qatar, we got our visas really quickly and
got a whole hotel mini bus with a driver for three of us (I was there with two other Polish from my
university, that I met on the plane). After checking-in at the hotel I went to change some currency and took a cab.
Cab ride to the gym was interesting. First of all, the guy barely spoke any English and had no idea where I wanted to go. After showing him some maps on my phone he got more or less the idea of where to go - that was already something! I had 30 minutes till the beginning of the training, so I figured I should get there on time easily. When visiting any gym I always try to be as polite and as respectful as possible, and obviously never to be late. The thing that I didn't take into account was Doha rush hours traffic jam. It took us 20 minutes or so to drive no more than 2 km, it was still 8 km to go - I already knew I would be late... I even thought for a second of asking the driver to turn back. After finally arriving to the neighborhood, finding the gym was another challenge. It took us (the cab driver was doing his best and so was I) 20 minutes to finally find the compound where the gym was located.
So eventually after having some troubles I arrived at the gym, 20 minutes late... I felt really bad about it but apparently it wasn't really a big deal for them. It was a fundamental class, taught by Brazilian 3rd degree black belt Fabricio Moreira. He showed few triangles set-ups from spider guard and a nice no-arm triangle. There were 10 to 15 white belts, few blue and purple belts and one brown belt - the owner. After technical part I got to roll with few purple belts and the professor. They have a very international environment there, plenty of foreigners, from what i remember there was at least one guy from UK, also one French and a Czech guy. All in all, it was a super nice experience.
The way back to the hotel was a whole different story. To get to the gym I paid something like 24 QAR (around 6-7$) for the cab. On the way back, few guys from the gym dropped me off in front of a shopping mall, where it was easier to find a cab. After 5 minutes of waiting I got a cab to the hotel. I asked the driver how much it would cost me more or less to get there. He said it would be around 50 QAR, it was double what I've paid to get there, so I told the driver that I only had 39 QAR, he then replied that it's ok and 'we will figure something out'. When we arrived to the hotel, I noticed the price chart on the door and there is no way it could be 50 QAR, or even 39 QAR. 25 would be reasonable, so I told the guy, no way I was gonna pay him 39. It was also mentioned that if the driver doesn't turn on the taximeter - the ride is free(and guess what - of course it was off). After few minutes of arguing I asked a hotel manager to help us solve the problem. The manager told me that it was clear, if the taximeter was off, I didn't have to pay at all. Eventually I ended up paying him 25 QAR which I figured was a fair price. Obviously I could have paid him the price he asked and avoid the dispute, but I really hate being ripped off!
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