Remote desert camps house World Cup fans on a budget

AL KHOR, Qatar (AP) — For scores of foreign soccer fans, the road to the World Cup in Doha starts every morning at a barren campsite in the middle of the desert.

Visitors who found hotels in central Doha booked up or far beyond their budget have settled for the faraway, dust-blown tent village in Al Khor, where there are no locks on tents nor beers on draft.

Others simply wanted an adventure. On Wednesday a DJ blasted electronic dance music around a fire pit as a smattering of fans lounged on beanbags, sipped sodas and gazed up at big screens roughly an hour from Doha.

“I'm here because I couldn't find anywhere else,” said Haidar Haji, a 27-year-old architectural engineer from Kuwait. He said it was a pain to trek into Doha every morning from the tent village, but he had no other option. “The hotels were just too expensive. It was crazy.”