The process of going through processes in Doha – is amusing at best! It seems everything of importance (licences, permits, bank cards etc) are temporary – until the ‘real’ ones come…sometimes the temporary things are replaced with other temporary things – but the second temporary things are permanent for a bit longer…. if you understand that – you should come over here and start a support service for expat living!
The day we went for our first temporary licence – we were taken by the obligatory bus to the department of driving and licensing and road thingys…. it all looked legit with a big building and all – except we were ushered into the makeshift ‘el dodgy’ office with old fashioned touch typewriters (Arabic of course!) sitting on 5 or so old school desks. We all stood randomly in this rather warm room smiling in confusion to each other…and took ‘turns’ in handing over our important papers to the ‘guys’ who were translating the English to Arabic for the licences…(I assume). Once that long process was taken care of and all of us able to go to the ‘real building’ we made our way to the respective women’s and men’s areas to take our eyesight tests!
Consequently the segregated gender sections are next door to each other and if you’re nosey enough you can look into the other room anyway! The sight test was a bit of a concern for me (Kerry) as I’d heard on the grapevine that you have to cover each eye separately and read aloud the letters and numbers on the screen…. in Australia, we simply stand at a distance and read with both eyes. I have myopic vision in one eye and virtually no sight – which is irreparable…so I was a little uneasy about having to do the test and was conjuring sneaky ways to get around it on the way….I had every intention on cheating somehow!
Standing in the room – the head honcho in her black robes and face covered was ordering us to move here and there and sit and stand and put bags down and wait in line and generally a bunch of orders that we didn’t understand well and so we did as best we could and made our own order! Then it came to my turn!!! I sat nervously as she gestured to me to take a circular piece of paper from the desk (which were just round scraps of paper from other eye tests … eewww!) Covering my bad eye – I read quickly through the letters which ranged from smaller than I’ve ever seen on an eye test to bigger than the air con units! (I was told that if you just fluently speak any letters in English – it throws them and they just give you the licence…. That was going to be my next trick! Except she continually changed the screen – even before I’d finished my lines – swapping from huge to small and middle sized letters AND NUMBERS!!!)…I was starting to get worried that I would fail this test. She asked me to cover my other eye by demonstrating roughly with a circle paper over her own face…. which was a funny sight! Little black head with white circle eye! I tried to cheat, by sitting a little to the side and thought she couldn’t see me move – but she did…’’straight, straight, look, look” or something along those lines she uttered. I sat very straight and quietly moved the paper aside to let a bit of vision through….”no, no, no, cover, cover, you!” I started to laugh at the whole situation and told her I couldn’t read the letters…. She said “what you can’t see????” and was quite terse with me…I ended up just telling her calmly that I have a medical condition with one eye and I have little sight, but I have perfect peripheral vision because of this and that…and basically my flow of English stumped her…She threw her hands in the air – muttered something in Arabic and stamped my papers and told me ‘GO!’…Some of the others were laughing at the debacle – but I got my licence!!
I met Michael in the shared hallway afterwards who has his own story to tell! We all ended up waiting back in our bus for over half an hour until the licences were printed and returned. We paid 250 QAR each for the privilege of receiving our under the table licences which actually only cost 150 QAR (South Africans paid 50 more! – South Africans seem to get the raw deal with most things here for whatever reason). At this point in time – we have no licences (just a photocopy) as we have had to surrender them to get the REAL ones…Its funny to think we just surrender things here and there and trust blindly that all will be returned and in order! I’ve heard it said a few times now and tend to agree – the Muddle East!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Moving... and then Not Moving!
Kerry here! Surprise…Surprise! Believe it or not – but I’m here too…In fact, I’m the one with ALL the good ideas (hence we’re here). I came home from work on this day full of excitement at the prospect of moving to some ‘inner city’ apartments! I had it from a good source (Medhat Taha) who is the Arabic teacher/HOD of one of the schools who also came to Doha when we did…Medhat, Michael and I would chat together on the busses to and from the places mentioned in earlier posts as newcomers…Medhat would often ask me in the corridors at school ‘how is Michael going?’ – I think he had some type of soft spot for Michael and was concerned he’d get bored in the compound….or perhaps he was envious of Michaels ‘free time’ to explore at will?
Anyway, the lovely Medhat was telling me a very long story on the way home from school one day in his broken English – and the gist of that story was that there are vacant apartments in a building paid for by the school and those wishing to move there from the compound could do so (overnight basically) and be offered a car and driver as compensation….at least that’s what I understood – and I asked him repeatedly to explain that bit! The following day, an entourage from school left to view the apartment block, which is situated in an area of the city called Najma (pronounced Nashmaa).
Apparently, the new staff at AJA who were put up in serviced apartments were to move to these Najma apartments, but were not impressed by their unfinished state and size – they all refused blankly and wanted to move to the compound where we live. These staff who refused – had only seen the compound for one evening at Monique’s (my boss) villa and made their decision by the standards of her very large 3 bedroom villa, with large grassy front yard, polished wooden floors (paid for by them) and gorgeous Arabic furnishings…
The apartments were perfectly fine – in fact, if they were what we had been given when we arrived without comparison to any other living quarters – we would have been quite impressed! Each floor of the 12 (or so) storey apartment block has 3 units with different floor plans…One was definitely the best of the three. All appliances and furnishings were new and much more ‘tasteful’ and appealing than our daggy stuff. The apartments were small though….I almost said ‘yes’ to the move as we would have been smack bang in the centre (or close enough) of Doha….looking out over a shopping mall and busy streets….it would have been a great way to live and feel a real part of the place. At that stage – I was still in my high wuss factor with driving on the roads and the thought of getting out onto the main arterial road from there to get to work did my head in! There was never any mention of the ‘car or driver’ once we were all there to view the apartments, so I made the executive decision to stay at ‘home’ and give Ashur the extra space.
I did laugh when I saw the shoddy workmanship of the interiors of the apartments though. Considering these were ‘brand spanners’ and actually unfinished! Wall to wall carpets (in glorious blue swirl reminiscent of a bad 1960’s bachelor pad) in some rooms literally meant ‘wall to wall’…they kind of curled up over the corners of the wall and you could clearly see the jagged cut marks from a dodgy Stanley knife! The bathroom was interesting to say the least too…it was TINY. To get to the shower/bath required you to step over the toilet to dodge the stupidly big hand basin. The actual shower/bath (thing) was a moulded plastic thing set onto the tiled floor. It was raised in the centre – with no edges or sides…just moulded plastic flush with the floor…no curtaining could be fixed and there were no walls…just a large showerhead peering from above! I was trying to imagine how to use it with the other people curiously crammed into the bathroom. – and we decided that its just a matter of resting against the raised centre….? But we could be wrong – and most probably are!
In hindsight – now that I’m a much better seasoned road traveller – we would have liked living there! Instead though, we’ve bought a few more homely things – painted the door surround in our living room gold – to accentuate the gorgeous maroon and gold (made in China of course) Arabic curtains we have there….and are working on beautifying what we have.
Anyway, the lovely Medhat was telling me a very long story on the way home from school one day in his broken English – and the gist of that story was that there are vacant apartments in a building paid for by the school and those wishing to move there from the compound could do so (overnight basically) and be offered a car and driver as compensation….at least that’s what I understood – and I asked him repeatedly to explain that bit! The following day, an entourage from school left to view the apartment block, which is situated in an area of the city called Najma (pronounced Nashmaa).
Apparently, the new staff at AJA who were put up in serviced apartments were to move to these Najma apartments, but were not impressed by their unfinished state and size – they all refused blankly and wanted to move to the compound where we live. These staff who refused – had only seen the compound for one evening at Monique’s (my boss) villa and made their decision by the standards of her very large 3 bedroom villa, with large grassy front yard, polished wooden floors (paid for by them) and gorgeous Arabic furnishings…
The apartments were perfectly fine – in fact, if they were what we had been given when we arrived without comparison to any other living quarters – we would have been quite impressed! Each floor of the 12 (or so) storey apartment block has 3 units with different floor plans…One was definitely the best of the three. All appliances and furnishings were new and much more ‘tasteful’ and appealing than our daggy stuff. The apartments were small though….I almost said ‘yes’ to the move as we would have been smack bang in the centre (or close enough) of Doha….looking out over a shopping mall and busy streets….it would have been a great way to live and feel a real part of the place. At that stage – I was still in my high wuss factor with driving on the roads and the thought of getting out onto the main arterial road from there to get to work did my head in! There was never any mention of the ‘car or driver’ once we were all there to view the apartments, so I made the executive decision to stay at ‘home’ and give Ashur the extra space.
I did laugh when I saw the shoddy workmanship of the interiors of the apartments though. Considering these were ‘brand spanners’ and actually unfinished! Wall to wall carpets (in glorious blue swirl reminiscent of a bad 1960’s bachelor pad) in some rooms literally meant ‘wall to wall’…they kind of curled up over the corners of the wall and you could clearly see the jagged cut marks from a dodgy Stanley knife! The bathroom was interesting to say the least too…it was TINY. To get to the shower/bath required you to step over the toilet to dodge the stupidly big hand basin. The actual shower/bath (thing) was a moulded plastic thing set onto the tiled floor. It was raised in the centre – with no edges or sides…just moulded plastic flush with the floor…no curtaining could be fixed and there were no walls…just a large showerhead peering from above! I was trying to imagine how to use it with the other people curiously crammed into the bathroom. – and we decided that its just a matter of resting against the raised centre….? But we could be wrong – and most probably are!
In hindsight – now that I’m a much better seasoned road traveller – we would have liked living there! Instead though, we’ve bought a few more homely things – painted the door surround in our living room gold – to accentuate the gorgeous maroon and gold (made in China of course) Arabic curtains we have there….and are working on beautifying what we have.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Cats and Kittens
Well it would seem that we have not only semi-adopted a cat, but that she is a mummy cat with a kitten.
They don’t come inside, nor do they hang around our place all day, but seem to make it here at the appropriate times (namely when she’s hungry or thirsty). We haven’t been able to come up with a suitable name/s as yet, and not quite sure if they are English or Arabic cats, but “puss puss puss” seems to work. Our lack of understanding of Arabic doesn’t help; we don’t want to be outside calling something that causes offence (but sounds nice to Western ears).
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Hyatt Plaza
Went for our first adventure to Hyatt Plaza today. Not actually sure why the name Hyatt is associated with this, but from the looks of it, it is one of the older centres around. Like most of them it is built around a hypermarket with everything from expensive brands down to cheapo stores. Also seems to be designed to be a family friendly centre with an amusement centre plus huge indoor slide in the food court. The hypermarket is a Giant Stores one, which as with them all has a range of things – just about anything you can want under one roof. The place actually seems a bit of a mess, which I think is for one of a few reasons… They are upgrading to compete with Vallagio which is right next door; they are actually going to be integrated as a part of the Vallagio Center; they are trying to fix it up before the Games due to it’s proximity to the stadium; or, maybe that is just the way it is normally and western eyes are a little more critical than they should be!
Note 1 – Fast Food
One of the things you notice is that “fast food” isn’t quite the same. Of course many of the brands are the same (naturally there is no bacon which makes the whole concept of McDonald’s breakfast not very appealing)… the fact seems to be that the whole “fast food” process hasn’t really been adopted fully. You end up waiting quite a while at the counter for your food as I don’t think they actually make anything until the order is put through… given that, what we have tried so far more or less tastes similar apart from KFC (don’t know how many herbs and spices they use, but it sure isn’t 11 although it is all probably still a secret). They also seem to give you tomato sauce with everything; even a pizza from Pizza Hut! My theory on all this is with all the beautiful Arabian foods around you don’t need to rely on the western fast food brands for a quick meal anyway. We just have to work out what we like and more importantly, don’t like! (Haven’t seen any goat out there yet, but know it is out there somewhere!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Note 1 – Fast Food
One of the things you notice is that “fast food” isn’t quite the same. Of course many of the brands are the same (naturally there is no bacon which makes the whole concept of McDonald’s breakfast not very appealing)… the fact seems to be that the whole “fast food” process hasn’t really been adopted fully. You end up waiting quite a while at the counter for your food as I don’t think they actually make anything until the order is put through… given that, what we have tried so far more or less tastes similar apart from KFC (don’t know how many herbs and spices they use, but it sure isn’t 11 although it is all probably still a secret). They also seem to give you tomato sauce with everything; even a pizza from Pizza Hut! My theory on all this is with all the beautiful Arabian foods around you don’t need to rely on the western fast food brands for a quick meal anyway. We just have to work out what we like and more importantly, don’t like! (Haven’t seen any goat out there yet, but know it is out there somewhere!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Where's A Taxi When You Need One!
Today was an adventure! That is the best way to describe it anyway.
This morning we headed off by bus to City Center Mall once again, partly to exchange the sandals I had got from Carrefour last time we were there, but also just to get away from the compound area (can start to feel a little isolated out here at times).
We actually got out there a bit before 10am so nothing was really opened, so did what so many seem to do and sat at Starbucks and had a coffee. I have read previously that coffee houses have always been a popular meeting place for locals. With the introduction of the franchises, they are equally popular. There were a few groups of Qatari’s sitting around pondering the days events and watching the world pass by. Is always funny to see men smoking in these places regardless of the no-smoking signs being plastered everywhere. I think it tradition is a difficult thing to compete with (and possibly ownership as well).
Anyway had the obligatory wander around and then ventured into Carrefour once again, which we discovered is open 8am to midnight (hows that for convenience). We decided to catch a taxi to Souq Waqif, the old one in what to a non-local, seems like the middle of Doha. First thing of interest – the taxi driver wasn’t actually sure at first where we wanted to go (Q is pronounced like a G).
One thing that seems to come up in conversations is that many of the Karwa taxi (the new “public transport” taxis) driver’s haven’t been in Doha very long so probably aren’t used to bad pronunciations or directions. They are very quickly taking all the old and privately run taxis off the road and importing new drivers (I am sure there is logic behind this beyond the fact the old taxis just look scary).
We made it to the old souq in one piece and it looked exactly like you would expect… many narrow lanes going off in various directions with many dark interested faces watching your every move trying to entice you through their doors. Actually not many off the stores were opened because as silly as westerners on their first trip there would be, we actually didn’t think about the fact that:
- Nearly everything in this part of Doha is closed between 12-4pm
- Not all the stores even bother to open during the morning session
The first place to entice our interest (actually Kerry’s desire for a bargain) was a small little Abaya store. I think the owner spotted tourists – we were already carrying bags from Carrefour, plus we were there at the wrong time of the day. He proceeded to hold one of the full-face veils (can’t remember their name) over his face, and then demonstrate how to wrap a headscarf. With a little shrewd bargaining (from Kerry of course) we walked out of there with a scarf, but no veil. I actually thought him holding the veil over his face was a little disturbing! Anyway our first time in a souq, our first store, and a purchase made – would you expect anything less.
We were then approached by an old sun-worn face of a man pushing a wheelbarrow. He managed to communicate the concept of “taxi” and “2 riyal”. Now stupidly I will admit I thought he wanted to either push all of us (which would have just been hilarious), or at the least Ashur (which would have been just as funny) around… the idea of our bags didn’t occur to me at first. Obliviously he was one of the men who push your purchases around in wheelbarrows and then take them to your car (or taxi as the case may be) for you.
There is something I have worked about this… and it might just be me, I’m not sure yet! While it is said that tipping is not required here, there is something to be said for the concept of sharing the wealth. To me at that point in time I thought the idea of giving someone even the measly amount of QAR 2 to carry a couple of bags was silly, because I don’t want someone following me around for 50 cents! But really what it is about is an endless stream of very low paid workers trying to make some extra Riyals here and there… whether it is a little old man in the souqs pushing around wheelbarrows, the guys who sit at the filling stations waiting for cars to pull up, or the little guys who want to pack your bags and take your trolley from you as you leave a hypermarket. They all see westerners as being well paid and if they think, “what difference does a few Riyal here and there make”, they are probably right. I just don’t really like the idea of someone (no matter who they are or where they are from) serving me… at the same time that will probably pass with time.
Anyway after working out that everything was closing as we were walking around and also feeling how hot it was getting we decided to try to get a taxi home and leave further exploration to another time. The taxi driver that took us there told us that we would be able to get one near the bank, so we strolled up there and waited for a little while… no luck! We then decided to walk around the front of HSBC, which is on the corniche… still no luck!
Something that was realised very quickly, there is a very good reason why you don’t get stuck in the sun in the middle of the day! It was hot! We found a tree to wait under, and then a friendly Arabic man stopped to help wave down a cab for us… still no luck. He gestured for us to follow him around the corner, as that was the way we were heading… now I am not sure how long we were standing around for but it felt like a long long time! The sun was hot, we were thirsty, Kerry had to carry Ashur… it was not fun.
After a little more time on the corner a women from the parking lot behind us called out from her car to find out where we were going and said she would take us. It turned out that she was a “policeman” that had just come off duty, and understood (more or less) where we needed to go. At that point in time any offer to get Ashur out of the sun was a good one. I think it was the family thing… I am pretty sure if we were a group of “bachelors” we would have been standing around for a lot longer. Unfortunately she didn’t speak a lot of English (but Kerry did manage to have snippets of a conversation with her along the way), nor did she understand the road map we had! But she did spend a lot of the drive on her mobile phone… don’t know if it was asking directions or just having a general chat with friends about the silly westerner family that were standing out in the midday sun that she was rescuing. We did go pass AJA, so she understood Kerry was a teacher, and I managed to give directions from there with only one missed turn.
We were driven all the way to our front door, which we said wasn’t needed. We actually tried to get her to drop us off out the front of the compound, but she proceeded to go through the boom gate (which the security guys opened very quickly on seeing her uniform). We showed great appreciation and gave as much thanks as we could… did think about offering money, but not sure about that one so didn’t… she was a policeman after all!
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Tuesday
Today we did the drive to school solo for the first time. Roads were busy as per usual with large and small vehicles jostling for position, making there own lanes, and large trucks and buses looking as though they are going to pull across in front of you. Most people don’t use their indicators and that is probably one of the problems. Also with only some of the roundabouts having the three lanes marked on them, people sort of head in various directions once on them. I think I am deciding that this is probably the way things are in most of the world, and perhaps we have just been a little sheltered… oh well it all adds to the experience now doesn’t it!
Ashur’s enrolment consisted of waiting around for a while and then handing over yet another form to the school registrar. With everything in order (to the best of our understanding) he will be starting school on Sept 4th in the Reception year.
The years confuse me a little because Pre-School is the children’s first year at school, followed by Reception. These two years are spent in the Early Learning Center prior to children actually starting primary school in Year 1. Now while that concept is logical as that would mean Reception is basically the same as the Prep-Year, there really doesn’t seem to be much difference between the level of structure in Reception to that of Primary… poor Ashur! He really is being thrown in at the deep-end (I am sure Kerry will have far more to say about this than I do though).
After making it home safe and sound we mutually agreed that we wouldn’t be driving that much for the moment… just start off with short local driving then slowly spread out from there.
Tuesday evening was our free dinner all paid for by AJA. All the new staff (and there seems to be a lot of those) were taken by bus to Al-Shamal (think that is right) near Ramada Junction (which by locals is seen as more or less the centre of Doha). For the next two hours we were provided with what seemed a never-ending stream of plates with various Arabic dishes, none of which I can remember the names of. All I know is we all ate far too much, and all of it was enjoyed immensely.
The only downer for the night was finding out there was going to be a delay of the rest of the Resident Permit process, and the medicals and fingerprinting won’t be taken care of until after school starts at some point in time. Also we will not be able to go off to get our temp driving licenses yet (not actually sure about this one but apparently has something to do with our visas). But that means we technically can’t drive after Thursday although we were reassured that apparently it isn’t really a problem at all as long as you don’t cause any accidents!
At the end of the day it would just be nice to get something more from the resident process completed and out of the way (I am not even 100% sure whether I can start looking for work yet or not). I guess that will be yet another adventure sometime in the not too distant future!
Ashur’s enrolment consisted of waiting around for a while and then handing over yet another form to the school registrar. With everything in order (to the best of our understanding) he will be starting school on Sept 4th in the Reception year.
The years confuse me a little because Pre-School is the children’s first year at school, followed by Reception. These two years are spent in the Early Learning Center prior to children actually starting primary school in Year 1. Now while that concept is logical as that would mean Reception is basically the same as the Prep-Year, there really doesn’t seem to be much difference between the level of structure in Reception to that of Primary… poor Ashur! He really is being thrown in at the deep-end (I am sure Kerry will have far more to say about this than I do though).
After making it home safe and sound we mutually agreed that we wouldn’t be driving that much for the moment… just start off with short local driving then slowly spread out from there.
Tuesday evening was our free dinner all paid for by AJA. All the new staff (and there seems to be a lot of those) were taken by bus to Al-Shamal (think that is right) near Ramada Junction (which by locals is seen as more or less the centre of Doha). For the next two hours we were provided with what seemed a never-ending stream of plates with various Arabic dishes, none of which I can remember the names of. All I know is we all ate far too much, and all of it was enjoyed immensely.
The only downer for the night was finding out there was going to be a delay of the rest of the Resident Permit process, and the medicals and fingerprinting won’t be taken care of until after school starts at some point in time. Also we will not be able to go off to get our temp driving licenses yet (not actually sure about this one but apparently has something to do with our visas). But that means we technically can’t drive after Thursday although we were reassured that apparently it isn’t really a problem at all as long as you don’t cause any accidents!
At the end of the day it would just be nice to get something more from the resident process completed and out of the way (I am not even 100% sure whether I can start looking for work yet or not). I guess that will be yet another adventure sometime in the not too distant future!
Monday & Cars
Well Monday was the day for Ashur’s enrolment at school which actually consisted of sitting around in the waiting area for some time then collecting the enrolment form… after waiting for a while we decided to sign off on the rental car and that heading back on Tuesday to actually submit the form would be a far better strategy.
After a brief conversation with the rental car guy, I signed a piece of paper and handed over another photocopy copy of my passport (I think people just collect these as you seem to have to hand one over for just about everything you do) then proceeded outside to the rental car guy’s offsiders (rental car guy’s guys?) where they did a quick check over the car and handed over the keys after I signed yet another form. So for 1650 riyals a month we have a brand new Lancer (brand new in terms of I think it had only been driven from where ever it came from out to the school for me to collect). Just your basic small 4 door automatic car, but has the all-important air-conditioning. If anything goes wrong with it they give us a new one. Likewise when it is ready for it’s 1000 klms service, we get a new one! Must admit I love the number plates here!
We are allowed to drive for the first 7 days after our arrival on our Australian licenses, but then have to get a temporary Qatar license until the the Residence Permit comes through. Then you can apply for a full Qatari driving license ... but more about all that later!
Driving on the wrong side of the car was relatively easy (although I have the habit of hitting my left hand on the door when I try to put it in P). Went for a short drive around the inside of the school’s fence first to get use to turning etc. Really, driving on the other side isn’t too bad… when there is no traffic at least! Drove back home which was a bit scary and made me realise why people have powerful cars (the Lancer is a little like our old Daewoo!) Anyway we did make it home in one piece; so we survived our first experience driving on the roads of Doha (and that is a good thing).
Later in the day went for a drive to the local Carrefour to get more essentials (yet another huge hypermarket). They are building a huge shopping complex beside Khalifa Stadium (the main Games venue) called Vallagio (but at the moment Carrefour is the only store in the centre which is open). The strange thing is that Vallagio is also right next door to Hyatt Plaza (the one with the huge green shopping trolley out the front… just like the big pineapple or the big cow)… oh well we aren’t going to complain as it is all just a few minutes drive away from home.
Well I should elaborate on the “few minutes away from home” thing! There are major road works on Al Waab St, which is the main arterial road leading to the sports stadiums. For us to actually get to the centre’s we have to either go around the block (block being a huge understatement) or drive all the way along Al Waab St to the next major roundabout and then drive all the way back. I know no one can follow this, but it is a long way.
For our first adventure I decided the around-the-block route would be safer… wrong! Along Salwa Road there is a huge roundabout that has a fort on it (naturally called Fort Roundabout so I am lead to believe). If you ever drive in Qatar, start with the small roundabouts! Anyway we did get to drive pass the entrance to Doha Zoo which is not far away at all (will wait until it cools down a little before heading there though). After that road got a chance to fight through another roundabout then head for what seemed a few kilometres along Al Waab St towards town – through make shift roundabouts (yes, even in the road works), single lanes that get turned into dual lanes by Range Rovers and Land Cruisers… then you get to another roundabout and get to do it nearly all the way back again. Was not fun and not a good introduction to driving here (although it is all getting better now, and the road works are progressing but more about that all later). The traffic here freaks Kerry out, but I just think it is scary to begin with and sooner or later you will get used to it to at least some level of acceptance!
After a brief conversation with the rental car guy, I signed a piece of paper and handed over another photocopy copy of my passport (I think people just collect these as you seem to have to hand one over for just about everything you do) then proceeded outside to the rental car guy’s offsiders (rental car guy’s guys?) where they did a quick check over the car and handed over the keys after I signed yet another form. So for 1650 riyals a month we have a brand new Lancer (brand new in terms of I think it had only been driven from where ever it came from out to the school for me to collect). Just your basic small 4 door automatic car, but has the all-important air-conditioning. If anything goes wrong with it they give us a new one. Likewise when it is ready for it’s 1000 klms service, we get a new one! Must admit I love the number plates here!
We are allowed to drive for the first 7 days after our arrival on our Australian licenses, but then have to get a temporary Qatar license until the the Residence Permit comes through. Then you can apply for a full Qatari driving license ... but more about all that later!Driving on the wrong side of the car was relatively easy (although I have the habit of hitting my left hand on the door when I try to put it in P). Went for a short drive around the inside of the school’s fence first to get use to turning etc. Really, driving on the other side isn’t too bad… when there is no traffic at least! Drove back home which was a bit scary and made me realise why people have powerful cars (the Lancer is a little like our old Daewoo!) Anyway we did make it home in one piece; so we survived our first experience driving on the roads of Doha (and that is a good thing).
Later in the day went for a drive to the local Carrefour to get more essentials (yet another huge hypermarket). They are building a huge shopping complex beside Khalifa Stadium (the main Games venue) called Vallagio (but at the moment Carrefour is the only store in the centre which is open). The strange thing is that Vallagio is also right next door to Hyatt Plaza (the one with the huge green shopping trolley out the front… just like the big pineapple or the big cow)… oh well we aren’t going to complain as it is all just a few minutes drive away from home.
Well I should elaborate on the “few minutes away from home” thing! There are major road works on Al Waab St, which is the main arterial road leading to the sports stadiums. For us to actually get to the centre’s we have to either go around the block (block being a huge understatement) or drive all the way along Al Waab St to the next major roundabout and then drive all the way back. I know no one can follow this, but it is a long way.
For our first adventure I decided the around-the-block route would be safer… wrong! Along Salwa Road there is a huge roundabout that has a fort on it (naturally called Fort Roundabout so I am lead to believe). If you ever drive in Qatar, start with the small roundabouts! Anyway we did get to drive pass the entrance to Doha Zoo which is not far away at all (will wait until it cools down a little before heading there though). After that road got a chance to fight through another roundabout then head for what seemed a few kilometres along Al Waab St towards town – through make shift roundabouts (yes, even in the road works), single lanes that get turned into dual lanes by Range Rovers and Land Cruisers… then you get to another roundabout and get to do it nearly all the way back again. Was not fun and not a good introduction to driving here (although it is all getting better now, and the road works are progressing but more about that all later). The traffic here freaks Kerry out, but I just think it is scary to begin with and sooner or later you will get used to it to at least some level of acceptance!
Monday, August 21, 2006
Sunday
Sunday we were all taken out to Al Jazeera Academy for our introduction and tour. The school is quite large and all enclosed so you don’t need to leave the air-con to get from one class to another. It has a full-sized indoor swimming pool and basketball court as well as the co-ed primary, boys and girl’s secondary schools, plus the Early Learning Centre (where Kerry works, that is the only building that isn’t under the main roof). All the facilities are 1st class as you would expect, as AJA is owned by Qatar’s Foreign Minister & First Deputy Prime Minister and his wife, with the Sheikha being the Academy Chairperson.
It actually isn’t that far from the compound, but further than we had thought. Added to this, it is through at least 2 of the scary major roundabouts that adds to the drama in getting from here to there. To get there you have to drive past two of the major market areas in Doha; the wholesale souq (fish, fruit and vegetable), and the animal souq (for all your livestock, bird and camel needs) that adds further to the overall traffic chaos.
Regardless of all this we decided to get a one month lease on a car. The rep from the rental company was at school on the Sunday so all we needed to do was go back on the Monday and pick it up – QAR1650 for a month with a max QAR500 to pay if we have an accident that is our fault (seems like a safe way to go if you ask me). So we have done a few small trips around to the shops and to school. Driving on the wrong (or right depending which way you look at it) side of the road is no problem at all, just dodging all the other traffic that doesn’t follow the road rules. It is all very much like riding a motorbike I think, so not all that bad, but do worry about having Kerry and Ashur in the car.
Although it seemed like a good idea at the time, now can’t drive for the moment anyway! Although we have been to have our blood group type done at a clinic, thus far that is the only element of the Resident Permit process that has been completed with everything else being delayed for one reason or another. Thrown into this is our passports are in the system somewhere until the permits are in there. This means that we are currently on an extended business visa and as we don’t have access to my passport I can’t actually go and get a temporary driver’s license (which was supposed to be done within 7 days of arrival). All a bit messy and confusing if you ask me, but once everything is sorted we can then go for our medicals and be fingerprinted we will have our permits and can go and collect a drivers license and whatever else we need our permit for.
Anyway I digress! Sunday was also the day for our blood group test. This consisted of getting in the bus and driving around in circles for a while until the drivers worked out where the clinic was. We were greeted by some AJA people, given a form and shuffled into a waiting room. The actual test (which we thought was going to be a full blood test) consisted of someone sticking a surgical pin in the end of our thumbs and spreading blood all over one of things that goes in a microscope… I said ouch because it did hurt, Kerry cried, Ashur sat down and held is finger out quite happily and got a round of applause from everyone in the waiting room for being so brave … I think he was far braver than Kerry or I! The actual clinic was very clean and modern inside which was a bit of a relief, as most the buildings (at least the ones that don’t fit in the tall glass category) are dusty and crumbly looking (I know what I mean).
Next was our journey to the infamous LuLu Hypermarket. We had seen this place mentioned many times on discussion forums prior to arriving, but realistically it is just another hypermarket. We did buy various bits and pieces including some speakers for the laptop so we have music once again, and a DVD player (which was changed to Region 0 in store at our request). Ended up with a trolley full of bits and pieces watching the cats laze around outside.
Note 1 – The Cats of Doha
There seem to be a lot of cats here. Although they are supposed to be feral, many are very friendly and look like they have just wandered out of someone’s house. If what I have read is true there once was quite a bad rat problem in Doha. When many expats left Qatar in a hurry at the outbreak of the first Iraq war, they left their cats. These cats have now made a home for themselves by keeping the rat population down. I think there have been moves to reduce the number, but if you remove all the cats logic would suggest the rats would return… give me cats any day! We even have one that comes for a visit to the back door of our villa around dinnertime.
M
It actually isn’t that far from the compound, but further than we had thought. Added to this, it is through at least 2 of the scary major roundabouts that adds to the drama in getting from here to there. To get there you have to drive past two of the major market areas in Doha; the wholesale souq (fish, fruit and vegetable), and the animal souq (for all your livestock, bird and camel needs) that adds further to the overall traffic chaos.
Regardless of all this we decided to get a one month lease on a car. The rep from the rental company was at school on the Sunday so all we needed to do was go back on the Monday and pick it up – QAR1650 for a month with a max QAR500 to pay if we have an accident that is our fault (seems like a safe way to go if you ask me). So we have done a few small trips around to the shops and to school. Driving on the wrong (or right depending which way you look at it) side of the road is no problem at all, just dodging all the other traffic that doesn’t follow the road rules. It is all very much like riding a motorbike I think, so not all that bad, but do worry about having Kerry and Ashur in the car.
Although it seemed like a good idea at the time, now can’t drive for the moment anyway! Although we have been to have our blood group type done at a clinic, thus far that is the only element of the Resident Permit process that has been completed with everything else being delayed for one reason or another. Thrown into this is our passports are in the system somewhere until the permits are in there. This means that we are currently on an extended business visa and as we don’t have access to my passport I can’t actually go and get a temporary driver’s license (which was supposed to be done within 7 days of arrival). All a bit messy and confusing if you ask me, but once everything is sorted we can then go for our medicals and be fingerprinted we will have our permits and can go and collect a drivers license and whatever else we need our permit for.
Anyway I digress! Sunday was also the day for our blood group test. This consisted of getting in the bus and driving around in circles for a while until the drivers worked out where the clinic was. We were greeted by some AJA people, given a form and shuffled into a waiting room. The actual test (which we thought was going to be a full blood test) consisted of someone sticking a surgical pin in the end of our thumbs and spreading blood all over one of things that goes in a microscope… I said ouch because it did hurt, Kerry cried, Ashur sat down and held is finger out quite happily and got a round of applause from everyone in the waiting room for being so brave … I think he was far braver than Kerry or I! The actual clinic was very clean and modern inside which was a bit of a relief, as most the buildings (at least the ones that don’t fit in the tall glass category) are dusty and crumbly looking (I know what I mean).
Next was our journey to the infamous LuLu Hypermarket. We had seen this place mentioned many times on discussion forums prior to arriving, but realistically it is just another hypermarket. We did buy various bits and pieces including some speakers for the laptop so we have music once again, and a DVD player (which was changed to Region 0 in store at our request). Ended up with a trolley full of bits and pieces watching the cats laze around outside.
Note 1 – The Cats of Doha
There seem to be a lot of cats here. Although they are supposed to be feral, many are very friendly and look like they have just wandered out of someone’s house. If what I have read is true there once was quite a bad rat problem in Doha. When many expats left Qatar in a hurry at the outbreak of the first Iraq war, they left their cats. These cats have now made a home for themselves by keeping the rat population down. I think there have been moves to reduce the number, but if you remove all the cats logic would suggest the rats would return… give me cats any day! We even have one that comes for a visit to the back door of our villa around dinnertime.
M
Roads in Doha!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I think there will be much to say about this over the first few months)The roads are very deceptive as Doha is much larger in size than when seen via a map or Google Earth. Ring-Roads are 6 lanes wide at least, as are some of the main arterial roads, plus there are many with slip-roads along the sides to access the shops etc. So while something may look like it is not far away, it is actually all quite deceiving.
For some reason everything is interconnected via roundabouts. Now while to some this may at first seem good, I think it is one of the main problems as this causes a constant flow of traffic from one roundabout to another and along most of the major roads with nothing to actually break the flow. Added to this is the amount of four wheel drives flying along the road (speed limits optional) and everyone changing lanes whenever they want or making there own when 2 or 3 or 4 lanes just isn’t enough. Not too mention the fact that only a few people use the 3 lane roundabouts as 3 lane roundabouts – one lane for left, one for straight, one for right – instead once you manage to get the nose of the car far enough into the flow to push into the roundabout itself because someone coming towards your car has to slow down and not just ram your car, you then have to negotiate the magic-roundabout in terms of everyone going in whatever direction they want once there. As soon as you exit this circle of chaos you take a breath and prepare for the next one.
It may be just me, but if the road rules here were actually enforced it would not only be a safer place to drive, but most of the problems on the road would disappear overnight. They are slowly adding in traffic lights at some major intersections, but that doesn’t change the fact that you need to go through the messy roundabouts to make it to the relative safety of the traffic lights (although even there, there are more cars lined up along the front than there are lanes at times).
One of the best comments heard thus far was when someone showed a level of surprised when we tried to explain that traffic in Australia is not as crazy as this (i.e. people actually follow the road rules) and that we thought this was just plain dangerous… the response to that was driving in Kuwait is twice as bad as Qatar… we are not going driving there… EVER!
M
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Compound Shopping
The compound store has all the essentials for those times when you can't make it out of the compound, or just can't bothered. It is run be some young Indian guys who will deliver anything you want if you ring and ask for it. Feel a bit guilty about getting them to ride here with a basket of whatever so for now we are happily walking to pick up anything we need.Our first little journey was an experience of trying to work out
what was what etc... so stuck to things we knew. Things are a little more expensive at the local store. We think they just buy things from other stores and resell them onto the compound residents; but everyone has to make a living here somehow. Bring on the "real" shopping I say!
Welcome to Doha!
Unfortunately didn’t have window seats, so our first view of Doha was just before we landed. Exactly what we expected… dry and hot looking. Walking out of the plane reminded me of walking out of the place at Brisbane airport for the first time. You think it is just the heat from the jet engines, but soon realise that it isn’t.
The airport is small and is going through an overhaul prior to the games. The construction of the new airport is due for completion in a few years and will do the country a great service. But in the meantime they have renovated the old one, built a new 1st & Business Class terminal, plus another for athletes and officials when the games are on.
We went through immigration and showed our photocopied/emailed business visas, which all seemed ok. Baggage claim was an adventure, as we ended up spending what seemed like an hour waiting for one of our bags, but this gave us the chance to meet and talk with two fellow AJA travellers from Australia. One of them had lost all her luggage, us just one bag, and the other was providing moral support. But with all bags finally collected we headed through the doors to a sea of faces of all races of people, to be greeted by the familiar face of Dr Ken (the head of AJA).
We were then whisked away by mini bus via the streets of Doha to our new home, a Villa in Aziziyah Compound. The bus trip was an experience in itself - to see the roads (and the driving), the mosques and prayer towers, Arabic writing on signs, and things as simple as LuLu Hypermarket… I think the bus only nearly got hit twice, so that was a good bus trip!
Anyway once in our villa we were left to our own devices. We were provided with some essentials as far as food goes, but it didn’t take us long to venture out in the heat to the compound store to try our luck with the Mastercard to see if we could buy some basics. Luckily two boxes of belongings that had already arrived in Qatar were here which had bedding and pillows otherwise our first night wouldn’t have been very comfy!
Initial reaction to our villa was how dusty it was inside, as well as how big! Even though we are in one of the smaller two bedroom villas, it is still big - high ceilings and huge bedrooms. The compound itself is big with over 200 villas. The one thing about the compound that is blatantly obvious is that it one of the older ones, and hasn’t been looked after very well. It is also located quite a way from the centre of Doha itself. Even though there are lots of buildings and shops nearby, as well as being only down the road from the main games complex, it does have that outer suburbs feel to it.
The first night was an experience as I blew the power out at 2am, which meant no water or air-conditioning (the toilets flush via an electric water pump…)! The nice part to it all was our first morning in Qatar was greeted by the sound of morning call to prayer followed by the sounds of birds. These are things you miss being inside with multiple air-cond units going. We have four in our little villa, and like everything else here they are a little old (and noisey). But the power issue was all fixed with a call to Zaheer, the compound odd jobs boss from what we can work out – if anything goes wrong you call Zaheer and sooner or later he or someone else turns up to do something about it. Although this time he did send around the air-con guy to fix the power problem. This was followed by the power guy later in the morning who seemed to do the same thing as the air-con guy, but assured us he would return to fix the problem on Saturday morning at 8.00am – he arrived at 10.00!.
Note 1 – Friday is like Sunday and the weekend here is Friday & Saturday… some point in time it used to be Thursday & Friday but was changed to Fri/Sat, although most shops are open Friday afternoon and evening and Saturday is a normal shopping day, 10am-10pm for the shopping centres and various others time for other things. Many places close between 12 noon and 4pm. But schools and govt businesses are closed Fri/Sat so that is as close to a weekend as we get.
Note 2 – There are lots of “guys” in the compound that do various things. We don’t know where they come from, but once you get in touch with Zaheer the appropriate guy will turn up either by bicycle or walking. We have the security guys, the air-con guy, the power guy, the carpenter guy, stone mason guy (who we think does concreting), the gardener guy, and so on. Then there are various other guys who seem to walk around doing stuff around the compound all day… not sure if they have a title or not, but they seem to be the main guy's guy's guys (if you follow that). One did come up to me one afternoon asking if I had any work for him cleaning house although I have seen him doing gardens as well (but I think he answers somewhere along the line to the hierarchy of guys). From what I can work out women from the Philippines clean villas and Indian and Sri Lankan men are the various “guys”… don’t know if anyone is actually qualified to do their particular jobs, but one way or another everything seems to get done sooner or later.
Note 3 – Insh’alla… Insh’alla by direct translation means “God willing” What this is actually used for by many as a way of saying something will be done sooner or later, or potentially not at all. It is not in the culture to actually say “no” to something, so in other words you are told yes when yes doesn’t really mean yes… worse still you are given the response of insh’alla which can mean something may happen tomorrow “God willing”, which naturally could mean at any point in the future. Patience is important and there isn’t much of a hurry about anything here apart from on the roads.
After our morning of no water and power we headed off with more AJA arrivals via bus to Ponderosa (like Sizzlers, only without the bacon of course) for lunch and salary advances. Was good to actually see so many new staff that makes you realise just how many people are going through the same transition as we are. After our lunch we were all taken off to a small shopping centre to purchase essentials, one of a number of such shopping trips over the next few days. This first one was to The Centre, which is basically just a food store. Was interesting to see prices and brands for the first time… many the same as what we are used to, and virtually everything imported. Prices seemed all comparable or lower as expected with even some Australian imports on the shelves.
Part of Saturday was spent at the City Centre mall… one of the biggest malls in the Middle East (I think) with an ice skating rink on the ground floor, which the rest is built around. The drive there was our first chance to see the Corniche and West Bay (which is actually the northern part of Doha Bay), which is all rather nice and surrounded by much construction and much concrete and glass. Even driving there, you realise just how much of the city is a construction site. The amount of development and beautification projects that are being carried out is amazing. Apparently much of it is supposed to be completed for the Asian Games, but with only a couple of months to go it seems as if it is all part of a much longer term project. It looks like Qatar really does want to compete with the other more developed emirates such as Bahrain to the north and Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE to the south.
Shopping once again comparable with Australia, with City Centre having the full range from the discount mega hypermarket Carrefour through to exclusive (and very expensive) stores. Once we get past the practise of trying to exchange all the prices from Riyals to $AU in our heads, I think it will make things much easier. Basically everything from the general cost of living to the most expensive clothing and cars are cheaper or equal, but I have yet to see anything that has been much higher in price to what we would usually pay apart from basic imported things like breakfast cereals, Vegemite, strawberries, etc… so it is more just random little things.
We were taken home via the stadium and Aspire sporting complex, which are more or less just up the road (in Doha terms) from our compound; huge development and all very impressive. Doha being based on ring-roads, means everything looks close and the size of the place is very deceptive. This is a big and very spread out city! There are many empty spaces between roads which is probably a result of the way they distribute water as much as anything. They don’t pipe it through out the city underground, but rather have water tanks that are refilled daily by trucks or in the case of the compound, the tanks are refilled daily from a underground reservoir which intern is filled by water trucks. I think what happens is someone builds something on one of these huge lots of dusty land on a major arterial road, then other things get built around or nearby. This ends up in there being huge lots of dusty land with nothing on them; even close to major built up areas and shopping areas. When and if more buildings and parks fill these in, this place will end up being huge!
M
The airport is small and is going through an overhaul prior to the games. The construction of the new airport is due for completion in a few years and will do the country a great service. But in the meantime they have renovated the old one, built a new 1st & Business Class terminal, plus another for athletes and officials when the games are on.
We went through immigration and showed our photocopied/emailed business visas, which all seemed ok. Baggage claim was an adventure, as we ended up spending what seemed like an hour waiting for one of our bags, but this gave us the chance to meet and talk with two fellow AJA travellers from Australia. One of them had lost all her luggage, us just one bag, and the other was providing moral support. But with all bags finally collected we headed through the doors to a sea of faces of all races of people, to be greeted by the familiar face of Dr Ken (the head of AJA).
We were then whisked away by mini bus via the streets of Doha to our new home, a Villa in Aziziyah Compound. The bus trip was an experience in itself - to see the roads (and the driving), the mosques and prayer towers, Arabic writing on signs, and things as simple as LuLu Hypermarket… I think the bus only nearly got hit twice, so that was a good bus trip!
Anyway once in our villa we were left to our own devices. We were provided with some essentials as far as food goes, but it didn’t take us long to venture out in the heat to the compound store to try our luck with the Mastercard to see if we could buy some basics. Luckily two boxes of belongings that had already arrived in Qatar were here which had bedding and pillows otherwise our first night wouldn’t have been very comfy!
Initial reaction to our villa was how dusty it was inside, as well as how big! Even though we are in one of the smaller two bedroom villas, it is still big - high ceilings and huge bedrooms. The compound itself is big with over 200 villas. The one thing about the compound that is blatantly obvious is that it one of the older ones, and hasn’t been looked after very well. It is also located quite a way from the centre of Doha itself. Even though there are lots of buildings and shops nearby, as well as being only down the road from the main games complex, it does have that outer suburbs feel to it.
The first night was an experience as I blew the power out at 2am, which meant no water or air-conditioning (the toilets flush via an electric water pump…)! The nice part to it all was our first morning in Qatar was greeted by the sound of morning call to prayer followed by the sounds of birds. These are things you miss being inside with multiple air-cond units going. We have four in our little villa, and like everything else here they are a little old (and noisey). But the power issue was all fixed with a call to Zaheer, the compound odd jobs boss from what we can work out – if anything goes wrong you call Zaheer and sooner or later he or someone else turns up to do something about it. Although this time he did send around the air-con guy to fix the power problem. This was followed by the power guy later in the morning who seemed to do the same thing as the air-con guy, but assured us he would return to fix the problem on Saturday morning at 8.00am – he arrived at 10.00!.
Note 1 – Friday is like Sunday and the weekend here is Friday & Saturday… some point in time it used to be Thursday & Friday but was changed to Fri/Sat, although most shops are open Friday afternoon and evening and Saturday is a normal shopping day, 10am-10pm for the shopping centres and various others time for other things. Many places close between 12 noon and 4pm. But schools and govt businesses are closed Fri/Sat so that is as close to a weekend as we get.
Note 2 – There are lots of “guys” in the compound that do various things. We don’t know where they come from, but once you get in touch with Zaheer the appropriate guy will turn up either by bicycle or walking. We have the security guys, the air-con guy, the power guy, the carpenter guy, stone mason guy (who we think does concreting), the gardener guy, and so on. Then there are various other guys who seem to walk around doing stuff around the compound all day… not sure if they have a title or not, but they seem to be the main guy's guy's guys (if you follow that). One did come up to me one afternoon asking if I had any work for him cleaning house although I have seen him doing gardens as well (but I think he answers somewhere along the line to the hierarchy of guys). From what I can work out women from the Philippines clean villas and Indian and Sri Lankan men are the various “guys”… don’t know if anyone is actually qualified to do their particular jobs, but one way or another everything seems to get done sooner or later.
Note 3 – Insh’alla… Insh’alla by direct translation means “God willing” What this is actually used for by many as a way of saying something will be done sooner or later, or potentially not at all. It is not in the culture to actually say “no” to something, so in other words you are told yes when yes doesn’t really mean yes… worse still you are given the response of insh’alla which can mean something may happen tomorrow “God willing”, which naturally could mean at any point in the future. Patience is important and there isn’t much of a hurry about anything here apart from on the roads.
After our morning of no water and power we headed off with more AJA arrivals via bus to Ponderosa (like Sizzlers, only without the bacon of course) for lunch and salary advances. Was good to actually see so many new staff that makes you realise just how many people are going through the same transition as we are. After our lunch we were all taken off to a small shopping centre to purchase essentials, one of a number of such shopping trips over the next few days. This first one was to The Centre, which is basically just a food store. Was interesting to see prices and brands for the first time… many the same as what we are used to, and virtually everything imported. Prices seemed all comparable or lower as expected with even some Australian imports on the shelves.
Part of Saturday was spent at the City Centre mall… one of the biggest malls in the Middle East (I think) with an ice skating rink on the ground floor, which the rest is built around. The drive there was our first chance to see the Corniche and West Bay (which is actually the northern part of Doha Bay), which is all rather nice and surrounded by much construction and much concrete and glass. Even driving there, you realise just how much of the city is a construction site. The amount of development and beautification projects that are being carried out is amazing. Apparently much of it is supposed to be completed for the Asian Games, but with only a couple of months to go it seems as if it is all part of a much longer term project. It looks like Qatar really does want to compete with the other more developed emirates such as Bahrain to the north and Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE to the south.
Shopping once again comparable with Australia, with City Centre having the full range from the discount mega hypermarket Carrefour through to exclusive (and very expensive) stores. Once we get past the practise of trying to exchange all the prices from Riyals to $AU in our heads, I think it will make things much easier. Basically everything from the general cost of living to the most expensive clothing and cars are cheaper or equal, but I have yet to see anything that has been much higher in price to what we would usually pay apart from basic imported things like breakfast cereals, Vegemite, strawberries, etc… so it is more just random little things.
We were taken home via the stadium and Aspire sporting complex, which are more or less just up the road (in Doha terms) from our compound; huge development and all very impressive. Doha being based on ring-roads, means everything looks close and the size of the place is very deceptive. This is a big and very spread out city! There are many empty spaces between roads which is probably a result of the way they distribute water as much as anything. They don’t pipe it through out the city underground, but rather have water tanks that are refilled daily by trucks or in the case of the compound, the tanks are refilled daily from a underground reservoir which intern is filled by water trucks. I think what happens is someone builds something on one of these huge lots of dusty land on a major arterial road, then other things get built around or nearby. This ends up in there being huge lots of dusty land with nothing on them; even close to major built up areas and shopping areas. When and if more buildings and parks fill these in, this place will end up being huge!
M
Saturday, August 19, 2006
The Journey
An Update For All!!!
Well believe it or not we are now in Doha, Qatar and are slowly finding our feet; but our adventure started far before then…
After selling up nearly all our worldly possessions we headed off to Mackay for 10 days. Flight was no problem and Ashur proved himself to have no problem with flying. His first trip on a plane was taken in stride, and a display of a seasoned air traveller. Actually he was far more relaxed about the whole thing than Kerry who doesn’t really like take-offs, turbulence or landings… just the plane food!
Returning to Mackay is never something I fully enjoy as it always reminds me why I left the town in the first place. It is just so slow to progress. That isn’t to say there isn’t development and change, but behind the changes is still the same lives and attitudes. I suppose 13 years in Brisbane makes me too far removed from that life and lifestyle to appreciate it anymore.
Regardless of progression within and personally from Mackay, the main reason for heading north was to spend some time with mum and Geoff before heading to the MidEast. The house still feels like home and it was nice to have Kerry and Ashur in that environment (regardless of how worried we may have been that Ashur would break something). And it was fantastic to catch up with Chris and Saxon (only the 2nd time I had seen him; last was when he was under a year old I think).
The 10 days went very quickly in hindsight! After storing away the boxes we sent to the house of essential thing we didn’t want to sell or throw out (which as we looked through them really just ended up being bits and pieces of stuff), and finding a corner of the garage to locate the Ducati, we headed back to Brisbane. Sad farewells at Mackay airport.
Our final 2 days in Australia were spent in an apartment on Roma Street. Had plans to catch up, or at least get in contact with people before leaving but didn’t realise our final day was a public holiday. So as with everything else, time just got away from us. Before we knew it we were spending our last afternoon in Roma Street Parklands, and then our last evening at Kerry’s best friends place.
Headed out to the airport nice and early on Wednesday night, as all good travellers should, to check-in and meet up with those who had come to see us off. Well that was the plan anyway. It wasn’t until the check-in counter that we discovered one of our bags was overweight, so spent many frantic minutes trying to reorganise the contents of bags to distribute the weight. That was the easy part!
Next hurdle was finding out that because we were changing airlines in Singapore, if we checked our bags all the way through to Doha they would have to charge the full excess baggage rate for the Qatar Airways leg of the journey (about $2500). Of course the other option was to go through immigration in Singapore, collect our bags, then go through the whole process again to see if Qatar would allow the bags on. Obviously not a viable option to take with only 2 hours between flights with an over-tired 4-yr old at 5am.
When then spent the next 30 minutes in the middle of Brisbane airport culling 20 kilos of contents from our luggage! Just think of Kerry and I in the middle of the departure area beside a set of scales with 4 suitcases opened picking and choosing from our worldly possessions, throwing then randomly into a big striped shopping bag… then continually weighing the shopping bag trying to get it’s weight up to 20 kilos! Now that was a photo opportunity not one person grabbed which was a shame, but it will live in our memories! Lesson learnt – weigh bags if at all possible prior to getting to airports!
But all was ok in the end… no excess baggage charge… and (we think) everything we really needed remained. Unfortunately that only left us about 30 minutes to talk and say our farewells. Was probably better that way, but still time for sad farewells. Boarded our Singapore Airlines flight about 11pm. Flight was everything you expect from Singapore – comfy, good entertainment range and food.
Arrived at a hot and steamy Changi Airport about 5am. Had a very long hike from one end of one terminal to the far end of another. We are thankful for the travelators! Getting on the Qatar flight wasn’t the easiest thing to do… much walking and a bit of waiting around. Changi was still on a high level of security so everyone on our flight, which originated in Cebu had to get off the plane and go through security, and then once that was done, turn around and go back through security with those getting on at Singapore all over again.
Qatar Airways… what to say! They are one of only three airlines in the world that have a 5-star rating. Unfortunately we have yet to experience that. I am assuming it has more to do with the flight itself and where it originated from, as most of those who travelled from Europe have stated it was one of the best (if not the best) airline they have flown with! We will wait and see and leave our verdict until another flight.
M
Well believe it or not we are now in Doha, Qatar and are slowly finding our feet; but our adventure started far before then…
After selling up nearly all our worldly possessions we headed off to Mackay for 10 days. Flight was no problem and Ashur proved himself to have no problem with flying. His first trip on a plane was taken in stride, and a display of a seasoned air traveller. Actually he was far more relaxed about the whole thing than Kerry who doesn’t really like take-offs, turbulence or landings… just the plane food!
Returning to Mackay is never something I fully enjoy as it always reminds me why I left the town in the first place. It is just so slow to progress. That isn’t to say there isn’t development and change, but behind the changes is still the same lives and attitudes. I suppose 13 years in Brisbane makes me too far removed from that life and lifestyle to appreciate it anymore.
Regardless of progression within and personally from Mackay, the main reason for heading north was to spend some time with mum and Geoff before heading to the MidEast. The house still feels like home and it was nice to have Kerry and Ashur in that environment (regardless of how worried we may have been that Ashur would break something). And it was fantastic to catch up with Chris and Saxon (only the 2nd time I had seen him; last was when he was under a year old I think).
The 10 days went very quickly in hindsight! After storing away the boxes we sent to the house of essential thing we didn’t want to sell or throw out (which as we looked through them really just ended up being bits and pieces of stuff), and finding a corner of the garage to locate the Ducati, we headed back to Brisbane. Sad farewells at Mackay airport.
Our final 2 days in Australia were spent in an apartment on Roma Street. Had plans to catch up, or at least get in contact with people before leaving but didn’t realise our final day was a public holiday. So as with everything else, time just got away from us. Before we knew it we were spending our last afternoon in Roma Street Parklands, and then our last evening at Kerry’s best friends place.
Headed out to the airport nice and early on Wednesday night, as all good travellers should, to check-in and meet up with those who had come to see us off. Well that was the plan anyway. It wasn’t until the check-in counter that we discovered one of our bags was overweight, so spent many frantic minutes trying to reorganise the contents of bags to distribute the weight. That was the easy part!
Next hurdle was finding out that because we were changing airlines in Singapore, if we checked our bags all the way through to Doha they would have to charge the full excess baggage rate for the Qatar Airways leg of the journey (about $2500). Of course the other option was to go through immigration in Singapore, collect our bags, then go through the whole process again to see if Qatar would allow the bags on. Obviously not a viable option to take with only 2 hours between flights with an over-tired 4-yr old at 5am.
When then spent the next 30 minutes in the middle of Brisbane airport culling 20 kilos of contents from our luggage! Just think of Kerry and I in the middle of the departure area beside a set of scales with 4 suitcases opened picking and choosing from our worldly possessions, throwing then randomly into a big striped shopping bag… then continually weighing the shopping bag trying to get it’s weight up to 20 kilos! Now that was a photo opportunity not one person grabbed which was a shame, but it will live in our memories! Lesson learnt – weigh bags if at all possible prior to getting to airports!
But all was ok in the end… no excess baggage charge… and (we think) everything we really needed remained. Unfortunately that only left us about 30 minutes to talk and say our farewells. Was probably better that way, but still time for sad farewells. Boarded our Singapore Airlines flight about 11pm. Flight was everything you expect from Singapore – comfy, good entertainment range and food.
Arrived at a hot and steamy Changi Airport about 5am. Had a very long hike from one end of one terminal to the far end of another. We are thankful for the travelators! Getting on the Qatar flight wasn’t the easiest thing to do… much walking and a bit of waiting around. Changi was still on a high level of security so everyone on our flight, which originated in Cebu had to get off the plane and go through security, and then once that was done, turn around and go back through security with those getting on at Singapore all over again.
Qatar Airways… what to say! They are one of only three airlines in the world that have a 5-star rating. Unfortunately we have yet to experience that. I am assuming it has more to do with the flight itself and where it originated from, as most of those who travelled from Europe have stated it was one of the best (if not the best) airline they have flown with! We will wait and see and leave our verdict until another flight.
M
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Welcome!
This is our little place online to keep in touch with all our family and friends while living in Qatar.
No doubt we will have many thoughts and reactions to the things we see and the experiences we share.
Read at will and feel free to add comments as you wish. We will be uploading as many photos as this will allow (not sure about that yet, but if not here we will find somewhere for them to go).
Both Michael and Kerry will be typing away when we feel the urge to, and might even get Ashur to type something. Of course we are missing one family member, who we miss dearly, but is in our thoughts with us here constantly.
Hope you enjoy sharing our journey.
Cheers
M
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