Two Months in Doha

Forgive me, it's been almost two months since my last missive.  In my defence, it's been a bit busy - moving out of the hotel into the villa, the family (and dogs) arriving, Christmas and New Year and of course trying to settle into the new job.  All peppered with the usual delights that come with moving house - lack of broadband, plumbing issues, no cutlery, malfunctioning white goods - all in a country that isn't home.  

I've done an awful lot of shopping recently, most of it quite successful.  I've purchased two cars; I couldn't find a Range Rover in orange so I've gone for midnight blue which is admittedly more conservative (but I like to think still has slight edge to it); and then a silver Nissan Patrol for family transport.  The Nissan Patrol is a brute of a machine - in size it comes in somewhere between a Hummer and a Chieftain Tank, it transports eight adults comfortably, the seats are reminiscent of Lazy Boy recliners, the door handles are just within reach of the average adult and it takes 120 litres of fuel. 

Beetle and Basil in the
cavernous exterior of the Patrol

It also has three TVs and a fridge in it.  I recommend having a fridge in the car - it is surprisingly useful.  Where else would you keep fish and chilled water? Currently the car is more comfortable than the house (which is still without furniture) but so far I have resisted spending the night in it.

Anyway, enough about my settling in experiences: what you really need is a practical guide to the good and bad things about emigrating to the Middle East.  So here are my current thoughts:

Good things that are life enhancing:

• Furniture: There's nothing like living without furniture for a bit to make you realise that it's actually quite important if you want to live a normal life.  Without furniture, it's the floor or nowhere.  If you don't have a table, then you can't put anything down and without a chair you don't have anywhere to sit and that really makes life hard.  Also, shelves are amazing because you can arrange things on top of other things in an orderly way rather than just piling them on the floor.  In my view, the person who invented furniture is a genius and is clearly responsible (at least in part) for the success of the human race.  However, finding good value furniture in Doha is hard unless you want gilt armchairs with falcons atop them.  Even IKEA doesn't open until the end of February.  I think I've done quite well and currently we have three beds, two tables, ten chairs, one armchair, a low level TV unit, three lights, three beanbags, six plates, six knives/forks/spoons/mugs etc. but that's just not enough in a reasonably sized house.  Bring your furniture with you.  

Christmas Dinner utilising
almost everything in the house

• Having your own water dispenser:  
This everyday office object takes on a special significance in the home, allowing you access to 5 gallons of chilled, room temperature or boiling water at the press of a lever.  It helps you to drink lots of water in the heat, which as we all know is a good thing for your health (although the gloss has been taken off this a bit by a colleague telling me that that the water here makes you hair fall out, which I didn't initially believe but now do since I have noticed that the vast majority of Qatari men don't have any hair underneath their keffiyeh).   Get one.

• Still being able to watch Coronation Street:  Although it's on at 8am, the wonders of hard drive recording mean that you can catch up on what is going on in the Street every single day and remind yourself that life is progressing as normal for your favourite soap friends.  Watch regularly to keep some Mancunian normality in your life.  

• Having Take Away Christmas Dinner:  This makes Christmas Day a breeze.  All the hotels offer a takeaway turkey with all the trimmings (including veal bacon and sausages).  You get the gravy, cranberry sauce, vegetables and two types of potatoes: everything you need.  This year ours came from the Doha Golf Club: all you do is pay about £100 and pop along and collect it, then put it in the oven 30 minutes before you want to feast, leaving you the rest of the day free to sit out side in the sunshine drinking champagne and opening presents.  Never mind that one turkey is too much for a family of four: the dogs like it too.          

Christmas Dinner from Doha Golf Club

• Petrol at 1 Riyal per litre:  Imagine the scene.  Your large, 4 wheel drive SUV is running on empty. You pull into the nearest petrol station.  You do not get out of the car and fumble with a diesel smeared pump.  Instead, you lower the window and tell a nice man to fill it up, then nestle back into soft leather and listen to music.  A few minutes passes, you have taken on 100 litres of finest petroleum and then you pass over about £15.  Yes, £15!  What's not to like?    

• Alcohol and pork:  Enough said.  Once you have a license from the distribution company, these two essentials of life are within easy reach.   

Christmas Day: still with pink champagne and presents,
but without cooking and rain

• 24x7 Security:  Despite this being pretty much the safest country in the world,with the inhabitants being either too rich and lazy or just plain scared of the consequences to want to commit a crime, there are security guards all over the place and because they don't have to do much securing they provide a variety of other essential services like opening electronic gates, emptying rubbish, changing light bulbs or staring at you while you go about your normal life.  This leaves you free to relax and do very little.      

• Tea boys:  There is a lot to be said for a tea boy, and all the ones where I work are provided by G4S. Yes, the same G4S that apparently got the Olympics so wrong.  All I can say in their defence is that there haven't been any issues with their delivery over here.  The water they bring is chilled, the tea is piping hot, the cappucinos are frothy and creamy.  All that fuss about the Olympics seems a bit overblown. 

• Buying prescription medicines over the counter:  This is a big one and is frankly life changing.  No need to go to the doctor to get that prescription.  Slip into the pharmacy and order whatever takes your fancy.  Experiment to your heart's content.  I find an early morning cocktail of viagra, prozac and a strong codeine based painkiller sets you up for anything the day can throw at you.  Tricky meeting? A little Rohypnol added to a latte makes the aggressor much more compliant.  Strong laxatives make any board meeting quite entertaining.  It goes without saying that you need to approach this particular privilege with a measure of responsibility, and there are rumours that the authorities are planning to restrict over the counter sales.  Personally, I can only see the positives, although I am yet to be convinced that people should be able to self-prescribe antibiotics.      

Bad things that are debilitating:  I think I have gone on for long enough so I'm just going to focus on the one big downside of desert life:

• Sand: For those of you planning to live in the desert I think it is only fair that I warn you about the sand.  I know that sounds like a rather obvious thing to mention, but it gets absolutely bloody everywhere in a way that is very debilitating.  If you think mud is bad, wait until global warming turns the UK into a desert and then see which you prefer. Sand is the geological version of rats and cockroaches.  It blows into your house through the tiniest crack and then liberally spreads itself across every surface and you only notice it when it crunches under the sole of your shoe.  There is an inexhaustible supply of the stuff and it doesn't just stay on the ground, it gets into the air and then covers your car in a fine film of dust and drifts into little piles all over the house.  Carpets can sap it up, but there aren't any carpets so you need to clean the marble floors at least daily to avoid feeling like you are doing the Paris Dakar Rally every time you want to cross the room. Don't say I didn't warn you. 

Just look at all that sand

I think that does it for now.  I do need to brief you on the traffic and driving styles here at some point, but that will wait.  Happy New Year.   

  

   

Early Days in a New Country

It's not often you wake up at the start of the weekend and realise that you need to get up and buy two cars, three beds, a table and chairs, an armchair, two TV's and some outdoor furniture.  That's what I did this weekend though, having completed my first working week in Doha.  I arrived last Saturday and have got two weeks before I need to get out of the W Hotel (quite like living in a night club, all black wood and pumping music) and move into the Villa that I am hoping I have managed to rent (more like living in a mausoleum, all pale marble and no sound at all).  

The foyer of the W Hotel

In between then and now I need to buy enough stuff to make the villa habitable.  Hence the list, although that obviously excludes less exciting items like a hoover, ironing board, sheets, saucepans etc. which I will deal with next weekend.  I am focusing on the big ticket items for now, although I'm not sure how to pay for them: while I am in Qatar, none of my money is.

It's been an interesting week.  I've got a visa but I need a residents permit before I can do anything like get a driving licence or buy alcohol (or pork). That entails some blood tests, a chest X Ray, a very rudimentary medical and the most cursory examination by a doctor I have ever had.  She did this by just looking at me and very briefly putting her stethoscope on my chest.  It must have taken at least ten seconds.  This form of non-invasive, high speed treatment would make a big difference to the NHS.  Anyway, I'd imagined the medical process would be a nightmare but fortunately my employer provided me with a chaperone who just goes pushes to the front of every queue and sorts it all out.  So it is quite simple really, assuming you can tolerate the death stare from the people who are politely queuing.  I found this quite easy. All that remains is for me to have my fingerprints done by the CID (no, I don't think its the same one): that's on Sunday morning.  Sunday is the first working day of the week, which takes a bit of getting used to.

This is the car I want

Qatar is quite a new country and most people I speak to in the UK only know three things about it - it's in the Middle East, it's a hot and sandy, and it's hosting the World Cup in 2022.  The last fact is more widely known (and resented) than the first two.  So I feel I should educate you a little about my new home.  Here are ten things I think you don't know about Doha:

• It has the highest per capita income in the world
• The first school was built in 1952 and it didn't have a hospital until 1960
• It's a peninsula jutting out from Saudi Arabia and has about 560km of coastline
• It gets dark very quickly at about 5pm (6pm in the summer)
• It's not very big - at 11,500 square KM, it's about 15 times the size of the Isle of Wight (but hotter)
• Only 10% of the population is Qatari
• It was a British protectorate until 1971
• People here drive like twats.  Twats in very big cars with very big engines (petrol is 17p per litre)
• Only 1.5% of the population are over 65
• It has the lowest unemployment in the world at about 0.4%

So there's quite a lot that adds up to make it an extraordinary place, especially when you add in the rate of economic growth, the absence of most forms of taxation, and the wealth of the local people.  The pace of development is amazing - there are estimated to be about 1 million construction workers in the country, which is about half the population.  When you drive around you can see what they are all up to.  There is development everywhere - office towers, residential blocks and villas, roads and infrastructure, sporting facilities, amphitheatres.  You name it, they're building it.  Or rather the immigrant workers are.  Mostly they do it very well: I had dinner at the St. Regis, one of the new hotels, last week and it is the most opulent hotel I have been into, albeit in quite a tasteful way. In ten years time the outside will look like a Tunisian package holiday hotel, but architecture aside the interior is stunning and the swimming pool must be at least an acre in size.  If you managed two lengths you'd be exhausted.  A 747 could crash in it and people wouldn't make it to the side.  We had a barbecue on the beach (the first time I've been to an all you can eat buffet where they bring you your food; and then bring you a lot more of it). The view of the city skyline was amazing, as you can see.  The St. Regis aside, there is some very inspiring architecture here.     

The view from the St. Regis

That's probably enough for my first week and I need to go and buy a car.  I will try and update this regularly. I haven't mentioned some of the other positives like the rather pleasant climate, the appeal of executive bathrooms or the pleasure of having a tea boy to bring you chilled water in the office (to mention but a few) but I will cover those in the future.  On the downside, it's already clear to me that turkey strips are not an effective substitute for bacon. But once I get my fingerprints done and have a residents permit, I should be able to rectify that.