MB is holed up in Doha, Qatar – And he’s run out of TimTams!

Thursday evening 05 February 2026 @ 19.15

Holy schmoley!

MB ran out of TimTams this morning. He made his way immediately to the local Megamart supermarket, which is a well-known source of TimTam biscuits and all foods and goodies from Western countries. For that reason, prices are somewhat on the high side, and the customers are generally higher-income expats, often from Europe.

Anyway, MB arrived at the Megamart with a smile on his puss, knowing that his favourite chocolate fix would soon be acquired and the deliciously smooth creamy chocolate would soon be mixing with the crispy central biscuit and Celtic saliva of MB, and all would again be right in the Doha world of MB, when the drones and the hypersonic projectiles and the interceptor missiles and the percussion booms would fade into insignificance.

MB made his way along the well-worn pathway and arrived at the normal TimTam isle location. But nothing, or Mafi as the Arabic translation of ‘nothing’ has it. A sweat broke out on the brow of MB as he looked around the entirety of both sides of the biscuit aisle, hoping the staff were playing some TimTam humour-games with MB. But again, mafi.

And that’s when it struck MB.

MB was the author of his own misfortune. His previous blog post about the benefits of TimTams in a war zone had had an inordinate number of hits. Followers and the general populace of Google searchers had latched onto the primary chocolate biscuit/war comfort food on the market, and they had descended in droves on the Megamart and scooped up all the TimTams for themselves!

And MB was left with mafi!

MB returned to his hotel, thinking that most of the explosive booms had dissipated or even disappeared. Yesterday was on the quiet side. And noting yet today. Maybe the Qatar authorities had reached some sort of agreement across the Arabian Gulf with their Persian neighbours. Moments later, some 20 to 30 explosions ripped through the Doha air and the relative peace was gone. One hour or so later, thankfully, things quietened down, and it’s been relatively peaceful since then.

The airport remains closed and MB is unable to fly back to his Riyadh base. He has therefore come up with a cunning plan. He discovered, through some local friends, that some Sudanis are running a minibus service between Doha and Riyadh at present, hypersonic missiles or not. MB is on friendly terms with the Sudanis, having visited their country in the past to attend the wedding of a Sudani friend and has attended two Sudani weddings in the last year, in Egypt and Qatar. So, MB will be amongst brothers, and no doubt MB and the Sudanis will chew the fat over all things Sudan, Ireland and the Middle East during the seven-hour journey.

The bus leaves Doha in approx. 75 minutes from now. So, MB’s gotta go.

Fingers crossed!

Thursday evening 05 February @ 20.30

MB arrived in good time at the bus company and immediately fell in with some fellow travellers, who like MB had been stuck in Qatar for the last week due to the hypersonic missiles and whatnot: a German couple, a midlife Moroccan couple, 2 single Sudani males, a well-travelled Dutch girl who was also a vegetarian, and MB. And a Sudani bus driver, who would soon become the centre of MB’s attention in this escapade of escape from Qatar to the safer Saudi deserts.

English language skills were in short supply amongst the Bus Company staff, but MB was able to use his Arabic skills, relatively limited it must be said, to discover the following:

1. The bus departure would be delayed from 9pm until 10pm. It later transpired to be closer to 11pm.
2. Many of the people waiting in the company office, and there were many, were travelling on different buses to Mecca and elsewhere in Saudi. Thank God thought MB. 50 people in a minibus might be pushing boundaries.
3. The toilet was just around the corner from the reception.

MB had previously considered asking the Sudani bus company owners if they would paint a shamrock on the roof of the bus, much like the Red Cross does with their vehicles, so that the Persian Drone Operators would know that MB was aboard the bus and under no circumstances was it to be transformed into a mangled mass of smouldering metal and humans. However, when travellers made their way down to the street to the waiting buses, MB immediately noticed that all bags and suitcases were being transported on the open roof of the buses, tied down with some string, and would then hopefully last the 7-hour journey to Riyadh. Inshallah.

End of ‘painted shamrock’ idea!

MB’s bus finally arrived, and the cases and backpacks were roped to the roof. MB noticed that his small Bugatti suitcase, made of some high-impact plastic material, was on the edge of the roof, the rope was not intertwined into the handles, and only the compressive force of the rope, squeezing the case material into an out-of-shape shape, seemed to be securing it in place. Whether this would last a 7-hour journey was another matter, and MB asked St Patrick to keep a special eye on it as the Sudani-piloted bus traversed the deserts of two countries in the dead of night.

Not far off midnight, MB and his fellow travellers arrived at the Qatar border post. There were many buses in the queue ahead, and unfortunately, the procedure of stamping passports and taking permissions to cross the border took some 2 hours. A shorter period followed to complete the formalities at the Saudi post, and all-in-all the process took some 3 hours. But finally all was complete, and a kilometre or so into Saudi Arabia, the driver stopped to buy all a hot chicken sandwich at a fast food outlet. It’s Ramadan season in the Middle East (and all over the Muslim world) and this would be the final meal for the Muslims on board before fasting commenced at sunrise, until sundown on the following evening.

Finally, the Sudani driver (SD) had no impediments, and it was open-road from the border post to Riyadh. MB had done this drive many times in the past and he wondered if some of the road would have disappeared under vast mountains of blown sand as he had previously seen. As it turned out, for the first 50km or so, one entire lane of the two-lane carriageway had disappeared under the desert, and sometimes the remaining lane was also not fully available. In this location also, and for much of the journey, there is no street lighting, and driving conditions are difficult, with many oncoming drivers not dimming their headlights and crazy drivers going in the same direction flashing lights from behind to allow them to pass at the speed of light.

Meanwhile, all travellers fell into a deep slumber; all except MB, who had no headrest on his seat, making sleep in the cramped minibus an impossibility. MB was also precariously placed in the front row of seats and if any crash were to happen, MB would have gone head-first through the windscreen.

The difficult driving conditions were quickly assessed by SD. He immediately decided that if he travelled faster than everyone else, nobody would need to pass him, and his slipstream might somehow vacuum all the desert sand back into the desert. So, MB sat transfixed to the dark road ahead and the huge encroaching sand dunes, as SD took on all at some 150 and 160km/hour.

MB also soon discovered that the bus suspension was not maintained very well, if it even existed, and it felt like SD would lose control at even the slightest bend in the highway. MB watched as forty or fifty speed cameras on the route flashed as the 120km/hr max speed was broken; literally every single camera between the Qatar border and Riyadh. MB also drives a Qatar reg car in Saudi Arabia, and he is aware that breaking the speed limit and having the camera flash does not result in any speeding fines, as the Qatar vehicle registrations are not connected to the Saudi traffic penalty system. Only difference between MB and SD is that MB’s transgressions are rare and accidental, whereas SD default was 100% deliberate, as he seemed to want to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for a single road journey. SD succeeded for sure!

To give followers a flavour of the speed travelled by SD – MB has taken 6 hours approx. every time he has done the same drive, slowing where necessary and generally maintaining the speed limit, albeit the cameras allow plus 10km/hour before activation. DS did it in 4!

The sun slowly rose over the Saudi desert landscape, and the travellers arose from their slumber, unaware of the perils that might have befallen them if, for example, a camel had crossed the road at night at the wrong moment, or a tyre blew out. Soon, the outskirts of Riyadh appeared in the low morning light, and it wasn’t long before the bus arrived beside the bus company office in the industrial area of South Riyadh. The rope was unfastened, and thankfully, MB’s case appeared, no worse for wear and the journey.

MB was finally back in his home based of Riyadh, and it’s relatively safer conditions, given that the UAE and Qatar are facing the brunt of the drone and other attacks. A 20-minute taxi ride later, at a relatively sedate pace with a Pakistani driver (not a Sudani thank God), and MB was soon in his bed for a well-deserved sleep.

A journey to remember, and MB lived to tell the tale!