Qatar National Day madness

I have celebrated many different country's national days, and most involve their citizens putting up flags, banners, having parades, BBQ's, music etc.. There might be a few events in the morning but most are in the afternoon and stretch into the evening.

So imagine my surprise when coming back from Doha airport at 12:30 (midnight) on the morning of Doha's national day, and finding that 1/2 hour into the national day starting - there was a traffic jam on the Corniche. Men riding on top of their cars, music blaring, some wearing balaclavas in their cars (didn't understand that one, and it scared me a bit too), and generally just blocking the traffic completely.

The formal parades and music weren't scheduled to begin until 5 or so that evening - so I was surprised to see hordes of people starting their celebrations before 1am!

That day and the days following, there have never been so many Qatar flags. And cars completely covered in huge ones - making driving even riskier as who knows what the drivers could see out of their cars with their rear window covered by a flag. And most of the drivers and passengers appeared to no longer be wearing their seat belts as the flags were tied onto the seat belts through the windows.

But the maddest (craziest) thing I saw that night (at around 9pm) was a guy riding on a motorcycle with at least a 17inch LCD computer screen playing a DVD. It was mounted on his handlebars and he was watching it while driving/riding around Doha. I was at least glad to see that he had a full helmet on - but really it was bizarre to see a full size computer screen playing a movie on a motorcyle. Don't know how that was celebrating National Day...