What to Expect When it Rains

This week it started raining, nice proper rain. The dry season is officially over!

It started on November 17 and by my recollection it was a bit early this year, as late November or early December seem to be the usual time. But why rely on my memory when there's plenty of data. Thanks to weatherspark.com I was able to go back and look at when the end of the dry season was for the last 10 years.

Turns out my memory was pretty faulty. Mid-November is not that unusual and in the majority of the years November was when the first rainfall occurred. A couple of times it was even late October. There is a lot of variance as to when there was a decent rain though, in 2005 and 2007 technically the first rainfall occurred in October or November but it was one day and just a tiny sprinkle. In both those years the “real” rain didn't occur until January of next year. You can also have December be the rainiest month one year, then next year have no precipitation at all during December. Weird.

So for you people new to Qatar or planning to move to Qatar, what can you expect from the rainy season? Here’s my tips.


1) Drainage can be spotty

Let's face it, it doesn't rain much in Qatar so there isn't a pressing need to spend billions and billions of dollars on sophisticated drainage systems that might only be needed once or twice a year. Drains do exist on roads but not always in the most efficient way which means it is not usual to find huge puddles on roads. Roundabouts are especially vulnerable to this, if the roundabout is angled slightly towards the center then of course all the water flows towards the center and the inside lane becomes a massive puddle.

Qatar is not very sandy, more like clay with a thin layer of sand on top, which doesn’t drain water very well. With a heavy rain the open areas like empty lots can quickly become small ponds as all the water just sits on top. For example here’s a 2006 photo of an empty lot near Salwa Road.

That said there is some design to the drainage so Doha seems to fare better in rainstorms than some other cities in the region. Sadly large Saudi cities like Jeddah and Riyadh can have flash floods that result in casualties.


2) Things might leak

Construction is not always of the best quality and since heavy rain is so rare it could be a long time before anyone figures out a place is leaky. Today it was Villagio Mall making headlines for flooding in numerous areas of the mall:

http://dohanews.co/qatar-copes-with-flooding-as-rain-showers-continue/


3) Things will get coated in mud

You would normally think rain will do things like wash the dust off your car but in truth it makes things worse. Qatar has a lot of sand/dust in the air so when it rains the rain takes the dust, deposits it on your car, and then when it evaporates your car is filthy.

Some of the shades you see in parking lots can really make your car dirty when it rains. Most of them are a fine mesh that water can get through so the rain takes the 8-9 months of dust that accumulated on the shade and puts it on your car.

Only after it has rained for a while and taken the dust out of the air will the rain be “clean”.

On the bright side when it stops raining the air looks remarkably clear.


4) Be wary on unfamiliar roads

Many of the smaller roads and side roads in Doha can have potholes of various sizes, and in areas like the Industrial Area these can be huge. But when it rains the water fills up the hole so you won't know how deep it is when you drive over it. Some of these are much deeper than it looks so you need to be careful when driving down unfamiliar roads. Heck, sometimes when you drive down a road you are familiar with you need to be careful, because . . .


5) Shifting sand = shifting asphalt

Roads and sidewalks are built over that clay-like sandy soil and a heavy rain can cause it to shift or settle, which then causes the sidewalk or road above it to sink or warp. Don't be surprised if after a heavy rain there are unexpected bumps in the road.


And finally,

6) Go to the desert a month or so later

If there has been a good amount of rain then the normally dry, dusty desert will bloom. Grasses and shrubs start appearing from everywhere, and up north it can even look like grassland or prairie. I've only seen it once, after prolonged heavy rains in 2006, but it was cool to see. Check out these pictures from an abandoned village in northern Qatar. One was in September, the other in February after the rains.

I’m hoping the rains are good this year so maybe we’ll see the “Qatar Prairie” again.

Registration for the Qatar National Library

As noted previously I registered online for access to the Qatar National Library’s e-books but it requires you to visit their temporary offices in Education City. If you haven’t registered yet first go to the following link and register:

https://library.qnl.qa/selfreg

So then out I went to find them. I knew they were somewhere near Mathaf Museum and when I got to the end of the area just past the Museum there was a parking lot with a bunch of what looked like temporary buildings. I walked into one just to ask for directions and by sheer luck was in the right building!

The temporary offices of the QNL are located in the QMDI building, and there are signs around pointing you to that building. Look for “QMDI”, I don't think there any signs mentioning the Library.

As for a map QMDI’s website has their location (click on the link that says “map” at the bottom of their page)

http://www.qmdi.com.qa/QMDI/contact-us

When I asked for the Qatar National Library the front desk receptionist immediately contacted the QNL staff. A gentleman came to the lobby and once he knew I was here to register he apologized for people having to come to the office in person. Apparently some of the materials are age-restricted so the QNL has to have people register in person to ensure only adults are registered, otherwise kids could just go online and use their parents ID to register.

I gave him my Qatar ID so he could copy it and he went back to the office to get a PIN code for me. I had my passport with me just in case because the website seemed to indicate that you needed to show your RP but he only needed my Qatar ID. I waited in the lobby maybe five minutes and then I was given a PIN code. That was it, I can now log on to QNL’s e-book and periodicals collection. Your access is timed to the expiry date of your Qatar ID.

Browsing the collection I've discovered that some of the sections can only be accessed by researchers and Education City students but there appeared to be a huge amount of material for general registrants covering sciences, business, social sciences like anthropology, and so forth.

I am looking forward to some interesting reading.

Update on Beirut Restaurant in Souq Waqif

Tonight I was at Beirut Restaurant in Bin Mahmoud so I asked the guy at the counter what happened to the one in Souq Waqif. He said it was “closed for good” but he didn't know why.

So after almost 50 years it's gone. So much for my hope that it was just closed for renovations.

Wandering Around Souq Waqif

Now that the weather is better it makes it much easier to enjoy Souq Waqif. I was there last night and it looks like the 2013 Fall Collection of falcons is in the stores now.

They have also set up a tent in the middle of the Falcon Souq in case you wanted somewhere comfortable to sit.

The nearby horses are also enjoying the cooler weather.

The Pet Souq is also doing brisk business, I'm glad the weather is getting cooler as I always felt sorry for the animals sitting out in the heat, especially the rabbits and kittens.

Consider visiting the Souq for an evening. I'm sure you haven't been all summer.

Qatar National Library

[Update: Full details on the location of the Qatar National Library's offices can be found here]


Thanks to Dohanews I learned that Qatar National Library (currently under construction) is currently allowing online and e-book access with registration, including access to science journals and periodicals. I’m all for that!

To register you have to go here: https://library.qnl.qa/selfreg

But then you have to go to their project offices and show proof of ID. I clicked on their map but it's still a bit confusing and as far as I can tell they are somewhere in the outside edge of the Qatar foundation. Compounding the challenge they're only open Sunday-Thursday from 7:30 to 3:30, which means you have to get out there during working hours -- which means dealing with all the traffic.

Well I'm going to try to get out there. I'll let everyone know how it works out and see if I can provide better directions.

More Traffic Woes

I don't know what it was today, maybe another road or roundabout was closed unexpectedly, but the traffic in West Bay was nightmarish. When I left the office and started walking to my car all I could see was gridlocked traffic in front of City Center, both ways, and a huge line of traffic coming from Arch Roundabout. Someone told me it been like that for at least the last 20 minutes. Nowadays traffic out of West Bay is pretty bad but this was something else.

I was in a rush to get anywhere so I went to a café, had a coffee, read the newspaper, occasionally checking twitter to read all of the "OMG what is with all the traffic?" tweets, and had a light snack. After about an hour I got in my car . . .

. . . and promptly got stuck in gridlocked traffic at Sheraton Roundabout.

Wow, so this has been going on for probably close to two hours? I think I was catching the tail end of it, there were cops at the intersections on the Corniche trying to keep traffic moving, but even then I'd say it took me almost 25 minutes just to get to Arumaila Park.

I feel sorry for all the people who are in a rush to pick up kids from school and so forth, having to deal with this kind of traffic every day must be a nightmare.

I sure hope this was an unusual event and that for some reason traffic got snarled up worse than usual but unfortunately I think this is providing a glimpse of the future. With over 75 cars being added to the road every day, more office towers being built in West Bay, and no new roads to West Bay, I'm sure by next year this will be the norm. I might be eating dinners every day at City Center Mall just to wait the traffic out.

Let's hope that the roadworks going on will actually make a difference and within a month things will have improved somewhat. In the longer term though I can see nothing but problems on the horizon.

Qatar‘s population is growing rapidly and will likely grow by 10% in 2014, adding another 200,000 people to the country. It is estimated that for the 2022 World Cup construction they could bring in up to 1.5 million construction workers alone, close to the current population of the entire country! Despite all of the road construction going on I don't think it will keep up with the growth -- it would require at least 30,000 new buses just to transport the workers alone.

As for the area north of West Bay: the embassy area, West Bay Lagoon, the Pearl, and Lusail, I haven't seen any plans yet for affordable housing in those areas. The plan is for Lusail to have dozens of office towers, where are most of the office workers going to live? I suspect the plan is for Lusail to have nothing but the same luxury housing found in West Bay, the Pearl etc, which leaves your average worker having to find cheaper accommodation, which means staying in the city, which means commuting. Can the highway being built between Lusail and West Bay handle all of that traffic? Are lots of people looking at two hour commutes from the city to Lusail? Hopefully I'm wrong about the planning and there will be plenty of affordable housing in Lusail so that your average office worker will be able to live much closer to the office.

What's the plan Doha? Let me know.

A Day at the Beach – Arab Style

Some friends of mine invited me to join a bunch of people for a day at the beach.

So we headed out in 4x4s to the Western edge of Qatar, to a shore just south of Umm Bab to set up camp.

While some of the guys had brought some burgers and hot dogs the main attraction was barbecued sheep. A Yemeni friend of mine agreed to treat us all to a Yemini-style barbeque so he brought large chunks of sheep marinated in Arabic spices and wrapped in tinfoil for cooking.

First, we needed to dig a pit.

Then fill it with wood and some lighter fluid to get a good fire going.

Once it has burned down to a hot charcoal you put the packages of sheep on it, then cover it with sand.

Then put logs on top and start another fire.

From this point the meat had to cook for two hours, so some of the guys went into the sea to catch crabs. Here the sea was way too shallow for swimming (Can you see three other guys in the distance?). It looked like they were walking on water.

And as the sun set we sat around playing cards, chatting, and cooking some burgers and hot dogs. One guy took advantage of the abundance of charcoal to break out his shisha for a smoke.

After a couple of hours the meat was ready, all that was needed was a shovel to dig out the packages.

And voila, barbecue sheep, Yemeni-style. It tasted great, and the meat simply fell off the bones.

There was enough sheep that I was given a pack to take home. I had it for dinner tonight with some grilled vegetables.

After a couple more hours of eating, chatting and playing cards we called it a night and went back to the desert to the highway to get us back to Doha. All-in-all a great day.

3-Star Living

Last night I was out at one of the 5-star hotels catching up with a couple who were visiting Qatar that I hadn't seen in years (no, it was not a Halloween party, no costumes). It was pleasant sitting at the lounge chatting with people. Since I was driving I passed on the wine and fancy cocktails that everyone was drinking and only had a diet coke. Unless the law has changed in the last few years I believe the drinking and driving limit in Qatar is 0.00, if you drive after having even one drink you could be in big trouble. It's highly unlikely I'd be caught -- the police almost never do drinking and driving road checks, but I'm not going to jeopardize my job and living in Qatar for a glass of wine.

So when it was time for the bill I braced myself for what I knew was going to be a ridiculous charge for a soda and looked at the bill. Sure enough, QAR 30 (~$8.25) for one Diet Coke. I usually pay less than that for an entire dinner at the restaurants in the city. Oh well, the evening was about meeting friends and having a nice time.

I honestly don't understand why many people in Qatar frequently eat and drink at these 5-star hotels and pay those exorbitant prices. As far as I'm concerned once in a blue moon is fine when you want to treat yourself to something nice but many people are in these places two or three times a week, or more. *Shrug*, it’s their money I suppose. When laborers and other low-paid workers hear about the prices at these hotels they are absolutely dumbfounded. QAR 30 would be a day's wage for many of them, and you can buy a soda at a store for QAR 1.5.

I suppose many people would consider me cheap. That's fine, because I consider myself cheap. I just don't like paying lots of money for things that I know I can get for much less. I don't enjoy paying ridiculous prices for things. Some people ask me why I don't pay for business class tickets when I go to Canada and it's because, to me, paying an extra $3,000-4,000 so that I am in a more comfortable seat for 16 hours is just not worth it to me. There are much better things that could be done with that money, like giving it to my niece and nephew’s education fund.

Maybe it’s a Canadian thing, lots of Canadians that I know are like this. Perhaps it's a legacy of decades of the Canadian dollar being much less than the US dollar, making everything in the world seem expensive to us. I dunno.

However, for the record, I may be cheap but I'm not what I call “damn cheap”. What's the difference? “Damn cheap” is when someone is so cheap people go, “Damn, that guy is cheap!” essentially miserly. There is a difference. I like to travel, I eat out all the time, I have a cleaner who comes by once every couple of weeks, I treat friends to dinners, I enjoy having cappuccinos and lattes. I just don't drive a fancy car, live in expensive neighborhoods, or fly first class and stay in top hotels. I’m a 3-star guy and proud of it!

Cheap, not damn cheap.

Bin Mahmoud

Tonight I was wandering through the neighborhood of Bin Mahmoud just going for a walk and I noticed that in the last couple of years a number of Filipino restaurants and businesses have opened up in the area (sorry, I don't have any pictures I didn't have my camera with me). I think I counted four Filipino restaurants along Ibn Mahmoud street, a café, as well as a couple of Filipino barbers. Most surprising was when I came up to a fast food place that had a huge line of people. I looked at the sign and had never heard of the place, “Jollibee”, but it was really busy. Sure enough one Internet search later and I discovered it was a popular Filipino fast food chain. I might have to give that a try sometime.

I’m not sure when many of these businesses opened but it looks like Ibn Mahmoud street is starting to become a popular Filipino neighborhood. Maybe if more Philippine shops and restaurants open I’ll start referring to it as "Little Manila”. It's a nicer street than the area near Souq Al Jaber where there's a few Filipino businesses.

Gundogan

Gundogan is a small town about 20 minutes from the main tourist city of Bodrum. It has a number of nice hotels but unlike Bodrum it caters mostly to Turks.

Pleasant place, not too crazy with tourists. Went for a walk along the Corniche and there were many cafes and restaurants serving Turkish home-cooking. There was also a small mosque on the seaside.

The Riviera area of Turkey is not as religiously devout as other parts of the country. The mosque would sound the call to prayer and one morning my Turkish friend went for prayer only to find the mosque empty and the call to prayer was a recording on a timer. He wound up being the only one there to pray.

The hotel was a small 4-star on the shore. It was nice and quiet, too quiet as we found out. When we stopped by at 7:45am to have breakfast and checkout we discovered there were no staff on the premises! It was weird wandering around areas like the kitchen calling out to see if anyone was around. Eventually someone showed up at 8:10, and others around 5 minutes later. They were really apologetic about what happened, I guess there was supposed to be someone at the front desk, and quickly made breakfast for us so we could be on our way.

Kas

We've moved on from Oludeniz about an hour down the coast to the small town of Kas. My friend Murat has an old friend who owns a small hotel a couple of kilometers from town in a small neighbourhood on a peninsula.

Spent the day chilling out at the hotel beach. Again not a cloud in the sky.

The hotel has a great view and we spent the evening having dinner on the patio with his friend.

Fethiye

Today we were on a boat tour of the nearby islands.

As you can see, not a cloud in the sky. Had a great time wandering around in the boat and swimming in the Aegean.


This evening we were on the main street of Oludeniz. It caters to British tourists, who I think make up 95% of the visitors. Everywhere offers British drinks and food.

Even the real estate is listing in pounds sterling. The realtor said Brits make up 99% of his customers.

Some of the stores are clever spoofs of famous British stores. This was my favourite.

Blue Lagoon

Eid is approaching so of course it's time for a vacation. Today I'm in Fethiye, Turkey, enjoying the famous beach at Oludeniz (also known as Blue Lagoon). Great place.

Beirut Restaurant Closed

I was in Souq Waqif the other night heading to one of my favorite restaurants, Beirut Restaurant, to get hummous, only to find it was closed. And I don't mean “closed for the evening”, I mean gone.

Even the old sign above the door was gone. I took a peek through the windows and the place was empty, all the tables and chairs were gone.

What in the world happened? That restaurant had been there over 50 years! I hope the waiters weren't all fired, they were nice guys.

Man, what a drag . . .

[November 11, 2013 update: I was told by a guy at the Bin Mahmoud location that the Souq Waqif location is closed for good]

Quick Trip to Dubai

I was in Dubai for the weekend. Qatar Airways was having a seat sale and I had some good friends in Dubai that I had not seen for a long time so I took advantage of the sale to book a 2-day, 1-night trip. It was great to see my friends again.

Booked a hotel through a “last-minute deals” website and wound up in a really nice five-star hotel in Dubai Marina, and was immediately upgraded to a suite. Shame I was only there for one night -- I think my hotel room was bigger than my apartment.

With all of the recent grumblings from people in Doha about traffic and construction it was nice to be able to compare and contrast it with Dubai. I do have to admit that Dubai just seems more “finished”, whole neighborhoods have little to no construction. Traffic was not bad except for a few areas around Jumeriah and JBR but it was the weekend so I didn't get to see rush-hour traffic. My friends tell me it still isn't too bad, having the metro helps as well.

I don't think Doha will ever reach the grand scale of Dubai but then again I'm not sure it wants to. Doha does not appear to want a lot of package-holiday tourism where thousands of vacationers sit on the beach and drink themselves silly for a week. Dubai is also more glamourous, kind of like Vegas, whereas Doha wants to remain more conservative and retain its Arabic character. I don’t have an issue with that, Arabic character is one of the reasons why I prefer traveling to Oman. Shiny malls and tall buildings do not impress me too much.

I just wish Doha could improve the traffic situation.

Learning Arabic in Qatar

So I've been continuing Arabic lessons and things have been going well. I've also found myself in a situation where I'm now working with a number of Qataris who do not know English very well, this is really forcing me to use Arabic. It's a challenge but I must admit I'm grateful because I think it's making a big difference for remembering the words and how to structure sentences.

Over the years I've taken Arabic lessons from many different sources and if you're interested in learning Arabic there are a number of options:

1) Use a language school

This will probably be the most expensive option as some of these schools can charge upward of QAR 200+ an hour but can be a useful way to tailor the learning to what you want, especially if it's just yourself or a small group.

I've never used one of the language schools so I certainly can't recommend which ones are better than the others. Many of them advertise in books like Marhaba or in classified ads in the newspapers if you're interested in contacting them.

2) University courses

Qatar University offers Arabic for non-native speakers, at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. I took this once (intermediate) and they definitely push you on speaking, writing and pronunciation. It was pretty intensive, I think nine hours a week, and between that and the distance to get to the University I didn't continue on once I completed the course. Decent program though. I think the cost worked out to around QAR 50 an hour but don’t quote me on that.

Stenden University also offers Arabic courses for beginners. I did one of these many years ago as part of a work program and thought it was also decent but I recall it was more about reading and writing as opposed to conversational.

3) Fanar (the Islamic Cultural Centre) offers six different levels of Arabic, ranging from complete beginner to very advanced. It's probably one of the most affordable ways to learn -- a 35-hour course costs something like QAR 300 or 400. I think the cost also makes it very popular, typically they have hundreds of students and class sizes are typically around 20-30. I've taken levels two and three twice each, while level 1 is definitely for people who don't know any Arabic the jump in difficulty from level 1 to level 2 is big, same for going from levels 2 to 3. Even after taking it twice I struggled with level 3. Maybe now it would be different since my Arabic has improved. Ultimately I wasn't all that happy with the structure of the lessons, and I think there could be a lot of improvements in that regard, but for the price Fanar is definitely worth trying.

As it is an Islamic Centre the classes are gender-segregated, with different classes for men and women.

4) Private tutors

You would think since this is an Arabic-speaking region there would be a ton of people posting fliers offering Arabic lessons but in truth it can be a challenge to find people advertising such services. It took a while to set up but a private tutor is what a friend of mine and I are using now. He is not a professional teacher, we met him through a mutual friend and since his English and Arabic are both excellent he agreed to tutor us whenever we can arrange an evening (sorry I can’t give you his contact details as he does not plan to spend lots of spare time tutoring people – he has a day job). So far I’ve enjoyed this as it allows a lot more flexibility in terms of when we meet and what subjects we cover. For you it is unlikely to be the cheapest option but the flexibility makes up for it. If you’re interested in private tutoring maybe ask around and see if anyone knows someone.

If people know of other Arabic-language classes please let me know in the comments. However please note I'm not going to advertise for “for-profit” companies so unless it is a school, university, or Islamic centre it’s unlikely to go into this post.

Corniche Construction and Traffic

Does anyone know if they are adding an additional lane to the Corniche and Al-Bidda Roads? I've heard from people that they think it is happening but they don't know for sure. Let me know in the comments if it's true, it would be great if they expanded the road to relieve traffic.

Ezdan Mall Update – 20th September 2013 (with 4th October updates)

Well I happened to be at the mall today, here are the updates:

Open:

Mado, the popular Turkish café and ice cream chain. My Turkish friends were eagerly waiting for this. The staff were getting ready this afternoon and the manager said they were opening at 5:00pm. Despite being famous in Turkey for ice cream Mado is more of an upscale café, kind of like Paul or Lenotre. I believe standard opening hours is 10am.

Sharaf DG, the electronics and appliance chain. I recall they opened two weeks ago and the first few days of their opening was apparently a madhouse (guess they had some good deals).

Lina’s Café has also opened, as has Coldstone.


Almost there:

WHSmith. There were boxes of stock on the floor as they were just starting to put the books on the shelves. [4 October update, still closed but around 75% of the inventory was on the shelves]

Papa Roti is getting close to opening too, as is Starbucks. [4 October update: Papa Roti is open, Starbucks is not]


Not yet:

Any other restaurants. If you consider Mado a restaurant that means Mado, Lina’s Cafe and Royal Tandoor are the only restaurants open. There are also a few places in the food court open as well but still around six or seven places in the food court are closed. Opening food & beverage outlets has been slow going at the mall.

Astronomical Distances

Reading about the Voyager 1 probe leaving the solar system got me thinking about the unbelievable distances there are in outer space. Voyager 1 was launched 36 years ago and only now has it left the solar system, despite the fact that it's traveling over 17 km a second (or around 62,000 km/hr).

This got me tinkering with some calculations to try to convey how big astronomical distances are. Back in elementary school you may have done a project where the earth was a small size and then had to determine how far away the other planets were. Let's do something like that again.

If you shrank the universe such that the Earth was a tiny dot only a quarter of a millimeter in diameter (so the entire Earth shrunk to the size of a dot you can barely see):

• The Sun would be 2.9 meters away (and it would only be 2.7 cm in diameter)
• Pluto has a very elliptical orbit but on average it would be around 114 meters away.
• The next nearest star, Proxima Centauri, would be 786 kilometers away. Not meters, kilometers.

(remember, the Earth is the size of a dot you can barely see)

• The star Sirius would be 1595 kilometers away.
• The Orion Nebula would be over 250,000 km away.
• And the Andromeda Galaxy would be 473 million km away!

And that’s why it takes probes like Voyager 1 a long time to get anywhere -- the distances are unbelievably big. It will take tens of thousands of years for the probe to reach another star system.

Sometimes I feel sci-fi books and TV shows do a lousy job at capturing this vast emptiness. Most get around the distances with tricks like “warp” or “hyperspace” travel, or some other way to quickly traverse the distance such as wormholes. A few recognize the long time it will take to cross interstellar distances so use things like suspended animation for travelling. I suppose it wouldn't make for an exciting book if it was all about hurtling through empty space for your entire lifetime.

Anyway, I’m thrilled to have been around for the momentous occasion of the first man-made object to leave the solar system.

Population Growth, Vehicle Growth

In an intriguing coincidence, just a couple of days after my post about traffic congestion local newspapers have published a study by the Statistics Authority and QNB discussing population growth over the last nine years and also how many vehicles have been added to the roads.

http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/253118-population-set-to-reach-2m-rents-to-rise.html

For 2013 and 2014 the study expects the population of Qatar to grow by around 10.5% a year. 10.5%! That would be equivalent to Canada gaining 3.4 million people in one year. Imagine the place you live (or used to live) growing by 10% a year. Not surprisingly that will make Qatar the country with the fastest-growing population in the world. It also means Qatar has to somehow keep the infrastructure-building going to stay ahead of population growth of 200,000+ people each year. Yikes. Is it any wonder there's construction everywhere?

Even more shocking it states that from 2004-2009 the population grew on average 15.5% a year! When I arrived in 2006 the population was just under 1 million, now it's almost at 2 million just over 7 years later -- and that was including the slowdown due to the global financial crisis.

It also notes that by the end of 2012 there was 876,000 vehicles, compared to 287,000 in 2000, a growth rate of around 53,000-58,000 a year on average. That means my initial estimate of 75 new vehicles a day on the roads of Doha is way too conservative -- it should be more like 140 cars a day. How can the road system keep pace with that kind of traffic?

I'm not sure the housing construction can keep up with that kind of growth either. Yes, most of the new arrivals will be laborers housed in dormitory-style accommodation, but if even 5% are people who will be renting accommodation that is still 10,000 new apartments/houses needed every year. Looks like rents will start soaring again, much like pre-2008 when they were going up 20+% a year. And even now I'm told it's very hard to find places at decent schools and I doubt new school openings will be able to keep up with 10% population growth either.

Looks like a rough few years ahead. I expect that by 2017 things will settle growth-wise (almost all of the staff needed for building things like the 2022 World Cup infrastructure will be in the country by then) and then 6 to 9 months later the construction of accommodation will catch up and the supply/demand curve will stabilize. Until then I don't think traffic and rents are going to get any better.