London — Doha Qatar Airways QR16 Flight Report
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- San Francisco — Copenhagen Scandinavian Airlines SK936 Flight Report
- Copenhagen one night layover
- Copenhagen — London Scandinavian Airlines SK501 Flight Report
- A quick Gloucester day trip from London
The bus arrived at Heathrow’s Central Bus Station — pretty nice I could get a direct bus from Gloucester to the airport without transiting in London. Going to the basement from this bus station, I found myself at the very spot where I was at 3 days ago, the entrance for inbound railways.
From here (terminal 2 & 3) I needed to take one of the trains to terminal 4. Still suffering from carsick, I was stupid enough to not notice that terminal 4 and 5 were two different branches on the map, just assuming they were the same direction. I realized the mistake right after boarding the train heading to terminal 5. Taking the train to terminal 5, back from terminal 5 to terminal 2/3, then finally from terminal 2/3 to terminal 4 (yes there was no terminal 1. It had been retired.) just made me even more dizzy and exhausted.
Even though I probably only had my own stupidity to blame by now, I quickly realized why Heathrow had such a bad reputation — everywhere was crowded and the passenger flow looked quite badly designed. Thus the IHG “fast track” service looked very tempting. But exhaustion and dizziness may have played a role here, so take this with a grain of salt.
Qatar Airways had not a desk or two, but an entire corner of terminal 4 as its check-in area. I was very impressed to obtain my boarding pass from the automatic check-in machine, without waiting in lines for agents to check my travel documents. This saved me a lot of hassle. After all, the government of Qatar owned more than 20% stake in Heathrow, so it makes sense to give them some privilege.
While the requirement to put all liquid in a plastic bag was absolutely ridiculous (which is standard practice nowadays and not Heathrow specific by any means), Heathrow did a good job by providing these bags. I forgot how long the security line was, but officers there were a bit rude, only slightly better to the notorious American TSAs (it’s probably not the best job in the world). The metal detector kept beeping like crazy as I passed through, but they let me go without further searches.
There were two lounges available for priority pass in Heathrow’s terminal 4. I first tried the Blush Lounge. The lounge provided acceptable Indian rice, some vegetables and desserts, not really high quality food, but my dizzy head already appreciated it a ton, and couldn’t imagine how miserable it would be to sit outside with the crowds for several hours. The lounge was not particularly clean, with trash and rice stuck within the narrow spaces in sofas.
I then went to the other lounge — the Plaza Premium. I’ve used this in Taipei and Singapore, which were both pretty high quality, so I had high expectation on this one.
Turned out……..the previous lounge was also run by Plaza Premium, so the two lounges had exactly the same food…..the same Indian rice, the same vegetables. Well this one may be a bit more high-end, so it offered an extra dish or two, including the “Asian” noodles shown here, which was one of the weirdest noodles I’ve ever had. The chicken soup noodles they offered was better, especially to my exhausted body.
I grabbed some medicine from the store nearby before boarding. Now boarding Qatar Airways, the top airline of the world. Maybe I could finally get some rest?
I overheard many passengers on the same flight speak Nepali, and saw some of them holding Nepali passports. Nepalese in the UK seemed to be a sizable population It would be interesting to hear more about their stories.
Seats of Qatar Airways Boeing 777–300ER, with the airline’s iconic burgundy and grey color theme, and the famous orynx logo.
The amenity kit, however, was disappointing to say at the very least. It came with a paper bag for passengers to tear open, instead of real bags which many airlines (including the less luxurious ones) offer. The mask and gloves were redundant — they didn’t look very nice, and I would like to use my own anyway even if I needed one. What’s worse was that the bag was WET inside, which made me very uncomfortable not knowing what liquid I was touching.
As I cleaned my hands with hand sanitizer after touching the mysterious liquid, I soon found black stain all over my hands — it turned out that the black paint on the headset it provided was dissolved in hand sanitizer…. Overall, this amenity bag didn’t match Qatar Airways’ world-class reputation at all.
The flight attendant was a nice and friendly Asian woman (I guessed she was Korean). At least in terms of service, Qatar Airways seemed to be better than Turkish Airlines, which offered very good amenity kits and meals, but very poor service.
The entertainment screen showed Doha’s skyline, featuring the iconic Museum of Islamic Art, a museum not famous for its collections, but its architecture.
I feel I’m not very qualified to comment on the meal here, since I was so exhausted, and I literally just had a lot of Indian rice in the two lounges before…..After having access to priority pass, I’ve cared less and less about flight meals.
The seat had enough place anterior-posterior for me to put my feet, but barely any space left-right. As I was trying very hard to get some sleep during this brutal 7hr red-eye flight, the guy sitting next to me kept moving his elbow to my space, and wouldn’t retreat back after touching mine multiple times. Unfortunately still not getting much rest despite how exhausted I was.
The in-flight wifi was not available to use throughout the entire flight. I’ve never had luck to connect to wifi on aboard.
Flying above Basra, Iraq, I believe this is where Tigris and Euphrates merge, flow through marshes into the Persian Gulf.
Entering Qatar. Spotting a rare, colorful Air Seychelles flight parking over there.
Third time in the Middle East. On my way to immigration I already saw Doha Airport’s famous yellow teddy bear sitting in the middle.
The Immigration officer didn’t look particularly friendly, but offered me entry easily, barely checking my Hayya e-visa (I heard some people with Taiwanese passports got refused entry earlier this year.)
Expo 2023 (actually the horticultural Expo, not the big one) seemed to be the next big thing in Qatar after World Cup 2022, even the passport stamp was the specialized Expo version. Expo’s logo could be seen everywhere upon arrival as well. I am a huge fan of Expo, and this was certainly an important reason I chose to transit in Qatar this year (otherwise I may have chosen Bahrain.)
Before leaving the airport, I exchanged all my remaining British pounds to Qatari Riyal. The 3 guy in front of me were Indians trying to exchange their rupees. Qatar is a country practicing modern day slavery, exploiting countless South Asian migrant workers to build its glory. Not sure what fate would land on these 3 people after they finally got their money. I wished them all good luck.
Walking a bit through the sky bridge to the metro station, hell this looked luxurious. My Exhaustion was temporarily replaced by the thrill of setting foot in the Middle East again. This was the beginning of my 2-day stopover excursion in Doha, Qatar.
