12 years in Qatar!

So I have now been in Qatar for 12 years. 12! That's a long time.

Qatar has changed a lot over those years. I'm not kidding, only someone who has lived here or visited it frequently could really grasp just how much has changed. The amount of construction and other projects is staggering, there is always more stuff being built, more stuff completed, and yet it never seems to end. I recall saying eight years ago if I left Qatar I'd come back in 5 years "just to see it when everything is finished". I was a bit naïve about when everything would be "finished".

So I figured I would reflect a bit on just how much has changed since I arrived.

- Salwa road was a 6-lane road with a bunch of roundabouts. Now it's an 8-lane highway with overpasses.

- City Centre was easily the biggest andn best mall in Qatar (no Villagio, Mall of Qatar, Festival City, and Landmark was smaller than now)

- no Katara

- no Pearl

- no Souq Waqif

- no 22nd February street / D-ring road. I don't even remember how one went North without it.

- there were only a handful of hotels, I think maybe ten or eleven places served alcohol (including the Rydges, anyone remember that place?). Whenever a new hotel opened EVERYONE went there to check out the new bar. No one offered happy hour deals, they didn't need to.

- three-quarters of the buildings in West Bay didn't exist. It was mostly sand. Wanted to go to City Centre for lunch? Sure, there was always plenty of parking!

- Does anyone remember the old Musherib neighbourhood? Lots of inexpensive stores and restaurants and thousands upon thousands of South Asians would hang out there on the weekends.

- I remember the old airport, and I mean before the two expansions it went through before everything moved to Hamad International. The old airport was always playing catch-up with the rapidly expanding numbers using it.

- I remember expats moaning about how there's nothing to do in Doha. I don't hear that anymore.

- Education city was in its infancy, many of the buildings weren't there.

- The Ritz was basically out on its own in the desert (so was the Intercon and the Diplomatic Club now that I think about it)

- The population has tripled, TRIPLED. It was <900,000 when I arrived an now it's 2.7 million.

- No Aspire Zone, though Khalifa Stadium was almost finished as it would be needed for the Asian Games

- Right, the Asian Games was here in 2006. That was fun. Loved watching the sport Sepak Takraw.

- I remember parking being pretty good most places. I miss that.

- Does anyone remember Palm Tree Island? That little island just off the Corniche? It used to be a small park with concession stands and stuff. The ferry to it left from somewhere near the Sheraton. Shame it was torn up.

- Lusail was just a race track out in the desert.

Man, a lot has changed. It was cool being through all of those changes. It makes things back in Canada seem like it's standing still.

Ramadan 2018

Ramadan Kareem everyone! Ramadan was announced last night so for the next 28 or 29 days things change throughout the country.

All of the Muslims (i.e. most of the population) will be fasting through the day and life changes to accomodate that. Restaurants are closed until after sunset, you are not allowed to eat or drink in public, and the liquor store is closed for the entire month and no alcohol is served in any of the hotels. The working hours are also shorter for most people, where I work we've gone down to a five-hour work day. An eight-hour shift when you can't eat or drink anything would be pretty brutal and by late in the shift most people wouldn't be very productive.

Things come alive in the evening. When the sun sets everyone has their iftar meal, a small meal to break the fast. Then it's prayer time and Muslims go to the mosque to pray (the men anyway), there's a set of special prayers called "tarawih" that you perform during Ramadan. These usually end by 9-9:30 pm. That means that people don't generally start going out shopping, meeting friends, or dining in restaurants until after 10pm. Yep, 10pm is when you head out for the evening. Stores do open earlier, like 7 or 8pm for the non-Muslim shoppers, but they are typically open until midnight or 1:00 AM. Final meal is at 3am before going to bed.

It's a bit strange getting used to it. The change in timings was one reasons why I started fasting as well, so that I would be more "in sync" with what everyone else was doing. It is also a good way to experience a very important religious and cultural event in Qatar, akin in importance like Christmas or Easter is to Christians. The fasting started today and surprisingly I was so busy at work I didn't really notice the hunger or thirst. Got home, had a long nap, searched the Internet a bit, the next thing you know it was time to prepare dinner. Unlike many of my Muslim friends I spent the past week slowly decaffeinating, reducing the amount of caffeine I drink every day, and I don't get any caffeine withdrawal at work. Most people just take some Panadol instead.

I hope it will be an exciting month, tonight I'm meeting friends at a majlis for a Ramadan meal, and so far there are two sohour meals at hotels scheduled in the next couple of weeks. I am making an effort to not go too crazy with food.

I'll miss having a morning coffee though.

Souq Waqif Equestrian Festival

I'm finally back in Doha! I was on my usual annual vacation to Canada and got back on Saturday. This evening I decided to take a walk around and see what had changed while I was away. I went to my favorite place, Souq Waqif, and was surprised to see that they had a new festival on.

This was new. I've never seen an equestrian festival here before.

I'm sure the festival has a number of events but tonight was displaying individual horses in front of a panel of judges. There was a lot of very nice seating, including a VIP section with tables and food. I'm not VIP but in my section there was a gentleman wandering by offering everyone complementary Arabic coffee. There were a lot of Qataris there, as well as the occasional Omani. Horses are a big thing in the Arabian Peninsula and a lot of people own stables of horses, which would explain why there was a lot of interest from locals.

It was pretty straightforward, a horse would be led out and taken around the ring before being displayed in the center near the judges.

I don't know anything really about horses so I'm not sure how the scoring worked but there were 5 different categories the horse was being judged on and the scores in each category were added up.

I thing that I did notice was on the sides of the fence there would be people rattling plastic bags type to the end of sticks. I'm not entirely sure what that was all about but it was deliberate and was likely trying to help the horse. When a new horse came out different people would then go to the railings and rattle bags so it appeared that people working for the owner of the horse we're rattling the bags. I did a quick search online and found a couple of sites that indicated doing this was to help calm the horse, "overloading" it with noise so it would not become anxious if it heard any unusual sound. I'm not sure how well it works but most of the horse owners appeared to using that technique.

I lucked out and happened to be at the festival on the opening night. The festival is on until the 14th so you have a chance to go down to the Souq and see the horses.

Health Test

I was at Festival City Mall the other day and saw a new booth.

It's a medical booth set up by the Government to promote healthy heart awareness, providing a free check-up (weight, blodd pressure, and a quick blood test for blood sugar and cholesterol). So I lined up and after about 15 minutes got my results, which they wrote in a booklet for me.

In the meantime they had a simple test where you could see how healthy your heart is. It was a points-based one where you answer questions and add points based on your response. For example if you're normal weight add 2 points, if you're obese add 6 points and so forth. I was on the cutting edge of elevated risk but I wasn't too worried, being a male of my age it was almost impossible to score in the low-risk range.

Anyway the reason why I wanted to do the blood test etc was because I went to this booth in a different mall four years ago -- and I kept my booklet from back then. When I got home I found it and compared how I've done over the years:


Blood pressure: still normal
Blood sugar: still normal (not bad considering this time I had eaten maybe a half-hour before)
Cholesterol: Improved! I was at 129 mg/dL but now it's 110. That's what more veggies and less meat does for you I guess.

The big shock was my weight though - I'd gained 5kg! That was a real surprise, I had worked hard in 2016 on losing weight but I guess I gained it back. *sigh*


If you see the booth it's worth getting checked out. It doesn't take long and it won't hurt to know your numbers.

Souq Waqif Date Festival 2018

I went to the Date Festival at the Souq tonight. In the past it was a simple tent but this year they've really built it up. It's a huge tent with dozens of booths, and occasional majlis-style seating areas for people to relax at.

This time they included not only local dates but vendors from all over the Middle East and North Africa were there. I saw dates from Tunisia, Algeria, Iran, and so forth.

An Iranian buddy of mine was manning one booth. He told me business was pretty good, slow on Sunday-Tuesday but a lot more hectic on Wednesdays and the weekends. I picked up some dates from him as well as some sweet spreads from Iran. I didn't really shop at the other booths, I wanted some dates to take to a majlis this weekend and didn't want to buy them from someone else.


The festival is on until March 15th.

It Rained!

Thankfully Qatar had some decent rain over the last couple of days. Not enough to cause lakes and flooding everywhere but certainly enough to give everything a good soaking. Looking at the forecast that's it for the next week so it's possible that's all the rain were going to get for the year. Dry year so far.

Food Trucks at Qatar Sports Club

In case people haven't noticed that has been a lot of development going on at Qatar Sports Club (the stadium near Khalifa Tennis Stadium where there's an Appleby's and Burger King). The owner has allowed a number of food trucks and small restaurant kiosks to set up on the edge of the stadium and in the parking lot. I think it's a great idea, especially in the cooler months. Lots of little places to grab a coffee or a bite and either sit at tables or get it to go as a drive-thru.

So far I've seen around a dozen either open for business or under construction:

There's also a Tea Time, Doku (Egyptian Street Food), 100 Cafe, and others. It's working out well as the parking lot is way busier now with people visiting the kiosks.

You have maybe three more months to check it out before it starts getting too hot, unless you want drive-thru. Shame the tennis tournament is ending, it was nice to go there for a bite before walking over to the tennis.

Qatar Sports Day - Tennis

On Tuesday it was National Sports Day. Schools and many businesses close for the day so that people can get out there and enjoy sports. There were activities everywhere: Aspire Park, the Corniche, Sports Clubs, Katara, various parks. Thankfully the weather was really pleasant which made it a lot easier. It was also a bit fortunate - the next day was really dusty and windy.

I had the day off work but didn't have any plans so I wasn't sure what I was going to get up to. A friend came to the rescue, a group of them were going to the Qatar Total Open ladies tennis tournament and they had a spare ticket. I'll never pass on a chance to see some of the best ladies players in the world.

It was the early rounds so the stands weren't full, and some top names such as Sharapova had already been knocked out at this point, but I did get to see Gabrielle Muguruza play (she's a two-time Grand Slam champion and former world number one). She was playing against a top-100 ranked Chinese player but well have to say that after a shaky start in the second set the Chinese lady really upped her game and fought hard for everything. She broked-back to get some momentum (she had been down two breaks down at that point though) and then after saving seven match points, SEVEN, she finally lost the match at the eighth match point. Muguruza wasn't really starting to get annoyed, every time she had a match point and was ready to put the match away her opponent would scramble with some ridiculous shot, or Muguruza would fluff a return. I think she was getting worried that she was gonna throw this away. If she had lost the match after having eight match points if probably would've made the sports section of most papers worldwide. Unfortunately I didn't get to see Simona Halep or Wozniacki but since it's early rounds not every star is playing that day.

Another treat was that the tickets were VIP which allowed us into a nice courtyard area with free food and an evening buffet. Sweet deal, and a great place to relax in-between the matches.

I might be able to get tickets to the final, still waiting to see if a friend can conjure them up.

Where's the Rain?

The other day I was outside chatting with friends when it dawned on me that it hasn't really rained yet. Normally the rains start in November or December but aside from the odd shower in only some parts of the country there hasn't been much this season. I don't recall it raining in my neighbourhood at all. Around this time of year I'd be blogging about the rain and how it's flooded everywhere. Like this.

Qatar is a desert so even in rainy months like December or January it's an average of around 12-13 mm of precipitation per month, usually in one or two big storms. If it doesn't rain soon Qatar is looking at a very dry year as rain in April is uncommon and in May it's really rare. It could be possible that I'll see 16-18 straight months without rain here.

Waterfront Cities of the World - a follow-up

About 5-6 years ago I was invited to be on a travel documentary show called Waterfront Cities of the World. I have a post about it from 2015 when someone posted the episode on YouTube, you can find the link here.

I mentioned many times on this blog, even on the TV show, how things have changed so much in Doha and there is a constant flurry of construction. Well, I was wandering around the neighbourhood where I took the TV crew and things have changed since they were there.

Here's stills from the show, followed by how it looks now:

That building behind us is now an empty lot.

The daytime picture is from the other side of the street, facing where the cameraman would have been. Most of the buildings on the street have been shut and soon the buildings will be torn down.


I believe that this is due to the expansion of the Musherib Project, the edge of which was maybe 100m from where I was chatting with the lady from the TV show. Earlier in the TV show they got an overview of the Musherib project and was viewing it from a nearby hotel. I didn't realize the project was going to expand further into the surrounding neighbourhoods.


So another of the old neighbourhoods is gone. I know that progress needs to happen but those old neighbourhoods were some of the liveliest areas of the city. The new buildings will never have the urban density of the old areas, and the shops and rents will be expensive, basically pushing the lower-income people to areas further out. No, these old neighbourhoods are not pretty but they were teeming with people and life. Like it or not these places are the real 'soul' of the city. Most new developments are more sterile and nowhere near as busy. The crowds you see surrounding us in the TV show are never going to happen in new neighbourhoods.

If anyone from Waterfront Cities of the World is watching -- some of what you saw is no more.

Using the Google Art and Culture app

So one of the latest viral crazes is the Google Art & Culture app. You can upload a selfie and it will search artwork throughout the world for portraits that match your picture. A friend and I tried it out. I had two decent results, I figured I'd post them here and learn a little more about the artwork.

This is my favourite of the two. I look similar to Dutch Sergeant-Major Karel van der Hoeven. I think it's mostly due to the moustache and goatee but I guess the hair is similar as well. Unfortunately there's not much to say about the painting, it's an early 17th-century Dutch painting but the artist is unknown. It is part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam so I guess the quality of the work is good. I've been to the museum but don't recall seeing the painting, if I'm ever back there I'll keep an eye out for it.


The other match is a bit more odd.

I see only a passing resemblance, and it looks like an older, angrier, scruffier me. I think the app focuses a lot on the facial hair when it does matches.

The painting is a self-portrait of the late 19th/early 20th-century Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida. During his time he was a well-respected artist known for landscapes (which he preferred doing) and portraits (which he wasn't as fond of doing but it paid the bills). He also had some popularity in America and a number of his paintings are in museums there.

I was not familiar with Sorolla but the Spanish clearly saw him as an important painter. This particular self-portrait is at the Sorolla Museum in Madrid, his old home was turned into a museum and most of his works are there.

His other self-portraits look even less like me though.


That was an interesting side trip to the art world, thanks Google.

Beach Party

The New Year didn't start off well as that evening I was feeling a little under the weather but went out for New Year's Eve dinner anyway. Sure enough I had a cold and by Tuesday just stayed home in bed. I hate colds. Even now I'm still a little stuffed up from it.

I did get over the worst of it by Thursday, which was good because Friday a friend was hosting a party in Dukhan for about 40 people. It was on the beach but it was a bit chilly for swimming. Didn't matter as he had set up majlis-style seating with tables for playing cards. Good thing it wasn't windy that day. There was also a beach football game that many of the guys played in.

Yep, more tough "camping" on the beach. Electricity, comfortable seating, TVs. This year our host kicked it up a notch by having a shwarma stand as well as a karak & chapatti stand. No I'm not kidding.

So the day was spent hanging out. The Gulf Cup final was that evening so people were gathered around the TVs to watch the game. Oman won, to the delight of the crowd as their opponent was the UAE. Thanks to the blockade no one was a UAE supporter.

Dinner was served around 9:30. Platters of kids (baby goats) on rice. Unfortunately none of my pictures of the meal turned out.


And so ended another Qatari camping evening. There'll probably be a few more before the heat hits in May.

Reflections on 2017

Another year has come and gone, time to go through the pictures and reflect on what happened in 2017.

The biggest thing of course was Qatar coming under a blockade by neighbouring countries. Six months later it's still in place and there's no end in sight. When it was first imposed it was a nervous time, I had never experienced something like this before, and figured my embassy would be calling shortly to tell me to leave. That never happened though and now people are used to the blockade and life is going on as normal.

At a concert at Royal Albert Hall, London.

Relaxing in the pool. Koh Samui, Thailand.

Touring the walls of York, England.

Was there in April and probably the last time I'll see it. A mangrove forest in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

With the family admiring the enormous old-growth trees. Cathedral Grove Park, Vancouver Island, Canada.

With the gang at a ko-cart track. Thailand.

Lazing about on the riverbank. Cambridge, England.

No, it's not actually my tea, the tea planation it is from was called "Glenloch". Central Mountains, Sri Lanka.

Where in Canada can this be? It's actually not in Canada at all. It's a replica of the ship used by the explorer John Cabot, one of the first to reach what is now Canada. The replica is where he set sail from, Bristol, England.

Watching the fishermen at the Galata Bridge. Istanbul, Turkey.

At the Muy Thai fights, Thailand.

Prize vouchers from winning a pub quiz, Oxford, England. (I'm quite proud to have been part of a team that won a pub quiz at Oxford University)

From the roof of the ferry, Strait of Georgia, Canada.

The final steps (there were more than 1200). Climb of Sigiriya, Sri Lanka.

I'm ready for battle! Warwick Castle, England

Getting a trim. Mudanya, Turkey.

Watching a local band at a bar in Chichester, England

Dinner at the majlis with my friends. Doha, Qatar.

My new cap. From a shop on Portobello Road, London.

At the office. Doha, Qatar.




Happy New Year everyone. Here's to a fun and exciting 2018.