Day 1: Home to Doha

We've got a more adventurous trip than usual planned this year: attending the World Esperanto Congress, which is taking place in Tanzania. Getting there is a very long journey and has necessitated some more complex travel planning that usual. The event is taking place in the town of Arusha in northern Tanzania, the nearest international airport to which is Kilimanjaro, around 30 miles away. The number of airlines which fly to Kilimanjaro is a bit limited. The conference organisers suggested flying with Ethiopian Airlines, which I think would have required changing in Addis Ababa. As Arusha is fairly near the border between Tanzania and Kenya, other attendees decided to fly to Nairobi and take a bus. We went for a different option and decided to fly with Qatar Airways, the advantage being that this meant we could fly from nearby Birmingham airport and avoid a long drive down to London.

The initial plan was to fly from Birmingham to Doha, then Doha to Kilimanjaro. But when I was booking the flights I discovered that Qatar Airways have an unusual stopover programme, where you can stay overnight in nice hotels in Doha for essentially nothing in between flights. It worked out as cheaper for us to fly to Doha and spent three nights in a hotel there before continuing on to Kilimanjaro than to take the flights back-to-back. And so we found ourselves booking a three-night stopover in Qatar!

The flight from Birmingham really was very convenient and at the civilised time of 14.55, so we had a relaxed start to the morning yesterday, followed by a short drive to the airport parking. There has been some bad publicity about long queues for security at Birmingham Airport recently, but there didn't seem to be too much chaos when we arrived. We did have to queue for a while at the Qatar Airways desk to check in our bags as there were some large families checking in a lot of luggage, but we had fast-track tickets booked for security so we whizzed through that in no time at all, before heading to the All Bar One in the quieter part of the terminal for some lunch.

Our flight was called for boarding about an hour before departure and we caught sight of what must be our plane as we walked towards the gate.

It looked like it was going to be quite a big plane!

Somehow we'd ended up in the first group for boarding, so we didn't have to wait very long at the gate. When we boarded the plane we found it was quite comfortable, with a cushion and blanket provided (although I suspected we weren't going to be cold enough at any point to require a blanket!). There were also free earphones to make use of the in-flight entertainment options.

Soon we were off and the first of many complimentary drinks services began, followed by a late lunch. I wasn't a massive fan of my chicken cacciatore (which featured courgettes!) but I did enjoy the lemon cheesecake. All the food served on Qatar flights is halal, but they were serving all sorts of alcohol.

The weather was quite cloudy as we flew over Europe so we didn't have a lot of views. It began to clear up once we got as far as Romania and then began flying over the Black Sea, but by that point it was getting dark.

It looked like there would have been some nice mountain views as we flew across Turkey, but it was pitch black by this point so all I could do was look at the in-flight map.

It was a long flight - over 6 hours - but soon we were nearly there!

When we landed in Doha and stepped off the plane, the heat was incredible. Despite the fact that it was nearly midnight it felt like we were stepping out into a furnace. Wow! Looking the bus which came to meet us off the plane was air-conditioned, because we had a surprisingly long drive from the aircraft to the terminal building; must have been about 15 minutes so it's obviously a huge airport! We had to queue for a while for passport control too, which involved a combined system of staring at a camera like at an e-gate but also with a man to stamp you in and attach a small visa sticker to your passport.

Soon we were officially in Qatar! Our bags arrived on the baggage carousel almost immediately, so we were able to walk straight out into arrivals. Because we were arriving so late at night, I'd booked us a transfer in advance and so there was someone waiting for us holding a sign with our names on. We were soon speeding through the streets of Doha, passing countless tall buildings, many of which were brightly illuminated at night.

When we arrived at the hotel, first impressions were that it was definitely very posh. As soon as we stepped out of the taxi, a man came to take our bags. We had to pass through an airport-style security scanner before we got to reception and checked in. And when we got to the room itself, it was very fancy!