Finally comes the barbed wire. The drive from Doha was bland, an hour past sand and a few bushes, through a landscape as flat as the Marchfeld. But no camel transporters are overtaken there. A village and a camel farm lay along the highway, otherwise sand, sand, sand. With a driver, the border is a simple matter. You don’t have to understand why five different people are looking at the passport at five different checkpoints, but everything is done in a good half hour and you’re in the country that may be hosting the World Cup in eight years.
