Qatar is unlike what it is thought to be

Alternative editor toured Doha, Qatar on a business trip. Below, he recorded his impressions.

My first surprise upon landing in Doha was to see the airport 's personnel being drawn from both males and females. The women, however, do everything. They are even part of the police force and some of them are not veiled.

Qatar that I thought would be part of the Arabian Gulf especially concerning women (no voting in Kuwait, no driving in Saudi Arabia) turns out to be something completely different.

Pubs and even some nightclubs exist here around and alcohol is sold everywhere. An exotic scene for me was to watch a Qatari old man dressed in the traditional kaffiyyeh and deshdashah along with his "all in black" wife drinking beer by the pool of our hotel.

Speaking about hotels, those are the center of the social life in Doha.

The main pubs, restaurants and gyms are inside hotels. Run mostly by Eastern Europeans, Asians and Arabs, the hotels are quite luxurious.

Our hotel, the Ritz Carlton was the kind of a place you would first nationalize and turn into a museum once your anti-capitalism leftist revolution succeeds.

The luxury the Ritz has is too much to the point that it is disgusting. I thought simply that no one needed all of this luxury which includes putting Pringles chips and a camera inside every room's closet.

Islam a landmark in the life of most Arab countries is present herebut without any extravagance.

While the TV in Iran, for instance, always broadcasts speeches of clerics, and while the hotel room has a big arrow on the ceiling pointing to Mecca for prayer, the hotel in Doha has all the satellite channels you would dream of while the prayer arrow is a small sticker pasted inside a drawer.

In the mall (another big deal in Doha apart from hotels) you find everything including all in black veiled women as well as those dressed casually.

The wealth of the country is also quite obvious everywhere. The most simple post office here is located in a modern building.

But beyond the wealth, the city is also well-planned and maintained. Doha has more green spaces than any European city. There are about a million roundabouts with water fountains and oriental sculptures.

Tourism is developing in Doha. It all started in 1996 when then crownprince now prince Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani overthrew his Saudi-backed father who did not want to open the country for American investments.

Therefore, the US sponsored Hamad's "white coup."

About politics, the Qatari regime is in open conflict with the Saudis as seen on the al-Jazeera sateelite channel. Doha also has several border conflicts with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrein and even Kuwait. The current guard claims that if it were not for US protection, all those countries would have attacked Qatar and reinstalled the deposed emir.

Qatar's only friend, however, is surprisingly Iran. But even this friendship dates back to the days of the Shah when the two countries signed a deal to split the off shore oil fields. The deal stood despite all the turmoil in the region and Iran today is on good terms with Qatar.

Foreign presence is important in the country. One can easily say that Qatar is managed by Amercians, Brtish, French and other Arabs while at the same time run by Indians, Pakistanis and other Asians. Every company has at least an Anglo-Saxon in its top echolons and several Asians under him in the hierarchy.

The gulf is indeed in a metamorphosis period, Qatar is groomed to become the center of this change or maybe it is already this center.