What was Eid in Qatar like more than a decade ago? It was…different.

Gazanfarulla Khan reminisces:

No high rise buildings, less traffic, narrow roads cheaper cost of living and 1 Riyal meant alot during the Eid’s back in late 90’s and early 2000…

I was about 12 years in 1998 when we used to visit the Eidgah for the eid prayers. The Emir HH Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani and all the other higher digniatires used to come in to his eidgah for eid prayers. I remember meeting HH Sheikh Hamad once as we had gotten to the eidgah quite early to stand in the second saf for prayers.

They used to fire 30 shots from the canon to represent the 30 days of Ramadan. We used to get QR5 as eidiyah and that meant alot. A chocolate and pepsi would cost us about a Riyal.

After the prayers we used to head out to corniche with family and have lunch in the Grass. The old Qtel/HSBC towers (Twin Towers opp Sheraton) was the only high rise in that area.

In 2012 with traffic jams everywere in the City, Towers standing out on the Corniche you can say things have changed alot.

Were you in Qatar back in the day? What do you remember?

Credit: Photo by Sam Agnew