Doha: An attempt to visit Purple Island

Friday morning, we got up early, and after a quick raid of the hotel’s breakfast buffet, we started our trip to Purple Island. The reason why Purple Island is called Purple Island isn’t that it’s purple, but because people in ancient times used to harvest shellfish from the surrounding waters to produce purple dye.

The drive from Doha to Purple Island is supposed to take around 45 minutes, but our driver got lost and none of us had cell phone data, so Google couldn’t help us. Though finally we made it to a bay with shallow water and mangrove trees, which Purple Island is known for.

From the photos, I had seen online, I would guess that we were very close to the narrow path of land which connects Purple Island to the mainland. Though it was still quite a walk to get to the beginning of the path, and I could sense that the driver thought that we had already pushed his Toyota to the limit and beyond, so we decided to stay where we were. I saw a flock of flamingos out in the water, but they were too far away. Even with full zoom, they still remained small dots on my lens, so I wanted to sneak out to get a closer look. I was doing my best to mimic flamingo moves, standing on one foot at a time, but flamingos are clever birds, and there was no way they wanted to pose for a selfie with me that day. As soon as I was ready to take my shot with the camera, the flamingoes took off and flew to the other side of what we think was Purple Island.

Man, this trip really starts sounding like an epic failure. And if I tell you that I’m still happy that we went, I start sounding like a blogger, desperate to save face. Though Purple Island (correction; the area close to Purple Island) was beautiful, and it provided a very interesting contrast to the sandy city life in Doha. Even though I didn’t get a good photo of the flamingos, it was still an impressive sight to watch them take flight. I actually got it on video and I’ll put it on YouTube later. Hopefully, the flamingos will look better in the video than in the photos.

Friday morning, we got up early, and after a quick raid of the hotel’s breakfast buffet, we started our trip to Purple Island. The reason why Purple Island is called Purple Island isn’t that it’s purple, but because people in ancient times used to harvest shellfish from the surrounding waters to produce purple dye.

The drive from Doha to Purple Island is supposed to take around 45 minutes, but our driver got lost and none of us had cell phone data, so Google couldn’t help us. Though finally we made it to a bay with shallow water and mangrove trees, which Purple Island is known for.

From the photos, I had seen online, I would guess that we were very close to the narrow path of land which connects Purple Island to the mainland. Though it was still quite a walk to get to the beginning of the path, and I could sense that the driver thought that we had already pushed his Toyota to the limit and beyond, so we decided to stay where we were. I saw a flock of flamingos out in the water, but they were too far away. Even with full zoom, they still remained small dots on my lens, so I wanted to sneak out to get a closer look. I was doing my best to mimic flamingo moves, standing on one foot at a time, but flamingos are clever birds, and there was no way they wanted to pose for a selfie with me that day. As soon as I was ready to take my shot with the camera, the flamingoes took off and flew to the other side of what we think was Purple Island.

Man, this trip really starts sounding like an epic failure. And if I tell you that I’m still happy that we went, I start sounding like a blogger, desperate to save face. Though Purple Island (correction; the area close to Purple Island) was beautiful, and it provided a very interesting contrast to the sandy city life in Doha. Even though I didn’t get a good photo of the flamingos, it was still an impressive sight to watch them take flight. I actually got it on video and I’ll put it on YouTube later. Hopefully, the flamingos will look better in the video than in the photos.