Qatar and Medical Care

I recently had to visit a clinic to check something out. Having medical insurance is a definite benefit in Qatar and almost all employers provide it to some degree. There is a public hospital system (generally known as Hamad but that is the name of the largest hospital, there are other public hospitals as well) but if you have insurance you can visit almost any clinic in Doha. Hamad and other public hospitals tend to be crowded.

Now most local clinics have an almost assembly-line approach. You go in, pay the fees, take a number, sit down and wait your turn, visit the doctor, maybe some tests, then get a prescription. It can be fast and at times you might be in the doctor's office for as little as five minutes, rarely longer than 15. It's not great if you were hoping for a thorough examination and discussion but it's great if you want some tests done.

This time I went to the clinic, saw the Dr., got an X-ray done, then the Dr. ordered a CAT-scan, then when I was waiting outside the CAT-scan lab for the results the Dr called the technician to make sure they scanned/focussed on a particular spot. They hadn't, so they called me back in for a second scan. The Dr. then looked at the results, and gave me prescription.

I was in the clinic for less than two-and-a-half hours.

Yep, I walked into a clinic, saw the Doctor twice, had an X-ray and two CAT-scans, all in under three hours. Pretty impressive that there was no waiting for any of the tests. Many years ago I went into clinic and had a same-day MRI done. I like that aspect of Qatar's health care system.


The quality of medical care can be hit or miss, but if after going to one of these clinics the issue doesn't seem to be improving I'll then go to one of the more expensive clinics for a second opinion, which costs more (most health insurance schemes have a larger co-pay for the top-end places, or don't have them on the network at all). I'd say maybe one time in three I go for a second review though so I always use the less-pricey place as my first stop.

If you are new to Doha, don't be put off by a clinic that looks 'old' and is not one of the fancy high-end places. You might be able to get tests done much quicker at a local private clinic, and for less money. If you're not satisfied with the diagnosis you can then take your test results to the other places for a consultation.

I'm Back

Back again after a long delay, went on a big summer vacation and then a couple of weeks later fell ill for a few days with a stomach bug.

Unfortunately because I was away and/or ill I missed out on a few things going on in Doha:

-- The recent Hunting and Falconry exhibition, I was hoping to go to that.
-- Qatar playing a qualifying match for the 2023 Asian Games (but qualifiers are also for the 2022 World Cup but Qatar gets in automatically for that)
-- I figured the Green Line of the Metro would be open, but it's been delayed to the latter half of September

-- I did catch the unveiling of the new 2022 World Cup logo. I must admit when I first saw it I didn't quite get it. I was with a Qatari at the time and he understood how it was a shawl but he wasn't sure about the other symbolism. Once I read all about it its obvious now how it looks like the trophy. I still think a more obvious football motif incorporated into the design would have worked better, like having a football in the middle of the loop. The design, being long and slender, will make it easy to put on the sides of skyscrapers though.
-- I didn't miss the heat though, it is still over 40° in Doha. It should start to mellow out in the next couple of weeks.

I've actually been getting lazy over the years about checking out new things. Most of my evenings involve going to various friends' majlises (majlisi?) and I've also joined a gym to get exercising. I don't have a lot of spare time for things like I used to. I haven't been to the new National Library yet (was waiting for the green line to start to do that) nor the new Qatar National Museum (too hot out right now). And I think some more stuff opened recently at the Pearl but I haven't seen that either.

In time. When the weather cools down I'll head out there. I do feel bad about missing out on the Museum when it first opened.

Carded!

I was tidying up my apartment and came across a series of art cards.

These were from a gallery exhibition in Vancouver called Carded. Every year they would invite artists to create an artwork to put on a card. Then, at the one-night only show, they would display the paintings and you could buy packs of random cards for $5. You would then go around and trade people for cards that you liked while looking at the originals. Some of the artists were there so you could chat with them as well. It was an interesting concept. I went in 2016 with my brother-in-law, as he had done a painting for the show, and bought a number of packs so I had most of the set by the end of the evening.

You can see pictures of the event here: http://hotartcard.com/category/photos/2016-photos/. I can't see my brother-in-law or I in the photos, we must have been in one of the other rooms at the time.

So what to do with the cards? I had an idea, why not mount them and use them as a poster. I don't have a lot of wall space, and a friend of mine likes artwork, so I brought the cards to him with the idea and he loved it. So we went through the cards, removing the ones with nudity (he's Qatari and doesn't want to display artwork with nudity), then gluing it on a backing-board and putting it under glass.

Here's the final piece:

Looks good.


You can see the cards from every year of Carded at hotartcard.com. I'm not sure if they do it anymore but it was a cool concept so maybe someone in your town would be interested in doing a similar event.

Metro Update (rumour)

I wandered down to Souq Waqif last night, taking the metro to the closest station, Musherib. With all of the nearby construction I'd say walking to the Souq from there is not a great option, you need to walk along the road next to construction fences and no sidewalk, you can't cut through the new Musherib neighbourhood yet. A metro-bus is available though so I recommend taking that.

Anyway I went over to Souq Al Nejada to see how its development was doing. It's coming along nicely, it looks like it will focus on selling carpets.

It also appears that the plaza is over the Souq Waqif metro station, which is part of the Gold Line.

The Gold Line is set to open sometime between now and the end of 2020 but I'm going to say it won't be open in the next few months for sure. The Souq Waqif station still has a lot of work to do, and it was the same at Al Sadd Station when I drove by there the other day.

But the Green line looks a lot more further along. I was at Al Bidda Station (both the Green and Red line go through there) and they were testing trains on the Green line, including the information signs. So I expect in the next few months some or all of the Green line will become operational, at a minimum I figure the Mansoura to Education City section. It would make sense to try to have that ready for September when students head back to the Universities.

Qatar Rail's website is silent on upcoming openings but that's my guess: Green Line by September, Gold Line much later.

Travel in the Digital Age

Yesterday I got back from a big vacation (Greece & Turkey. Santorini really is as stunning as pictures show it to be). When I got home I noticed that there just seemed to be a lot of clutter in the apartment, stuff slowly building up over the years, so it was time for a spring cleaning (well, it's summer but you get the idea).

Cleaning a bookshelf I found tons and tons of papers from previous travels. Maps, transit information, pamphlets that they give out at various attractions, just tons of vacation stuff. It made me reflect on why did I bother saving all of this? I chucked it out of course but I figure that I kept it because I was being old school and thinking I might need it again if I ever visited those places.

Thanks to the internet age how people travel has really changed. Papers maps? Use Google maps or other mapping apps. Need info on a place? Wiki or the attraction's website. Plane tickets? Just show them the confirmation email on your phone. What do you want to do tonight? There'll be tons of tourism websites, reviews, nearby restaurant listings, and sites with up-to-date events happening in the city. Heck, use your phone to buy tickets to the show you just found online. It's almost quaint to have guidebooks and printed items with you these days. Not that I'm entirely digital -- I still pre-print hotel reservations and things like that just in case something happens to my smartphone, but there's really not much of a need to carry books and papers with you when wandering around seeing the sights.

I'm old enough to remember travellers' cheques. Do those even exist anymore?

So out they went. The maps, pamphlets, guidebooks, all of it. I'll try to break the habit of keeping stuff like that with me. It'll save paper as well, one of the great benefits of digital technology. Maybe 10 years from now we'll find reading a physical newspaper or magazine to be 'old school'.


I'll still print tickets and reservations though.

Ramadan 2019 - the Car Parade

And it was time to see another Qatar Ramadan tradition. Every day around 5:00pm tons of people cruise up and down the Corniche, biding time until iftar. It's a chance for Qataris to show off their classic or expensive cars, but others don't drive anything too out of the ordinary and just join the crowd. Meanwhile other people stand on the side to take photos. It happens every afternoon during Ramadan.

As an aside this was the only time that day that I saw children hanging out of sunroofs or windows. In years past it was a lot more frequent but the police started cracking down on it, and that's a good thing. So this year I only saw this one time.

Otherwise enjoy some of the vehicles from that day's "parade":

Ramadan 2019 - The Ramadan Cannon

Yesterday I made my annual trip out to see the Ramadan Cannon. Every Ramadan the Government sets up a cannon next to the State Mosque, which is fired when the sun sets to tell everyone that the fasting period has ended.

So off to the mosque.

It's in a beautiful location, on a small hill with one of the nicest views of West Bay.

As usual plenty of families were there. The military guys overseeing the cannon let kids climb on it.

By the way if you ever want to know where to get those military uniforms for children I suggest Souq Al Ali, a number of shops there carry them.

So as the time approaches the soldiers move the spectators to a safe distance.

... ready . . .

FIRE!

And then everyone heads back to their vechicles to drink something, have some dates and snacks, then go to iftar.

I had packed some food and water, but then I forgot it (smh) so I raced home to have iftar.

If you live in Doha you still have a chance to see it. The cannon is fired every day of Ramadan at around 6:15-6:20 (depending on when the sun sets).

Ramadan 2019 - Eating

So we're half-way through Ramadan. The Qatari holiday of Garangao was yesterday. I was at a friend's house that evening but he is in a new neighbourhood under construction so only one set of kids showed up. My friend was not expecting anyone at all so he didn't have anything prepared, he wound up giving them some oreos (lol).

I've been really good about not going to tons of Ramadan buffets at hotels and restaurants. I've only been to one so far and while I won't say I was just sticking to salads I did cut back a lot more than I would normally do. The buffets are lavish and have so many options that it's difficult to not overeat.

That is not to say I'm losing a ton of weight. While my iftar has been pretty good most of my evenings are spent at friends' majlises, and temptation is always around. Every majlis has stuff like this on hand:

Chips, chocolates, cookies, biscuits, you name it. And inevitably people bring desserts like cakes and donuts.

Sometimes healthy options are available though.

Then it's sohour time. Even on a weekday we will be eating around 1am. A lot of time it's delivery fast food (burgers, pizza) or Arabic takeaways. Once it was a more traditional platter of chicken on rice (not always as healthy as it might sound, sometimes a lot of oil is used when cooking), and sometimes we get subs, which are a bit healthier if they don't use mayo or high-cal sauces. I try to be good but at the same time you're starving, and your next decent meal will be in 17 hours, so you tuck in.

Hopefully I've maintained my weight or lost a little bit of weight so far.

Ramadan at Katara

Last night I met friends at a restaurant at Katara. It had been a while since I had been there so I went early to wander around and see what had changed. A lot it turns out.

Katara had some beautiful decorations up across the roads for Ramadan.

And a new section had opened, sort of a small, upscale mall with buildings that to me look Italian.

Not all of it had opened yet, there were a few cafes and restaurants and a number of clothing shops, the heart of it being the French Department store Galeries Lafayette. I didn't have a chance to go in and wander around but I'm assuming that it's high-end luxury brands inside. A number of Qataris were there shopping and enjoying the cafes.

What was most surprising, and it took me a minute to notice, was that the temperature was surprisingly cool outside. This new section had air conditioning bulit into the walkways, so even though I was outdoors it was still cool. When I left the area to go to the rest of Katara the temperature increased sharply.

So with the new section there are a lot of restaurants and cafes at Katara now. Luckily there is a Metro station at Katara (opening soon), which will make it a lot easier for people to get there.

Also new, at the far end of Katara, on Shakespeare Street, the parking lot at the end now had a ton of small kiosks selling various food, similar to what is happening at Qatar Sports Club and Lekhwiya Club. So now there are even more food choices.

I left there and headed to the restaurant to meet my friends, walking along the beach to take in the view. Katara has developed into a really nice place. While some of it is underutilized (like the amphitheater) there is more to do there now and it has some of the best views in the city. Hopefully the Metro station will open soon and allow it to be busier.

Metro Update

I took the metro again on Thursday and the train was pretty busy with commuters, around 90% of the seats were occupied. This was good to see as it probably meant and just my train alone kept 50-70 cars off the road.

Staff at the stations were handing out pocket maps of the metro.

I took a look through it and it contained a lot of information about how the metro would run normally instead of during the soft opening, which was good as it allayed some of my worries about how this was going to work.

Key points:

-- the full network of three lines (Red, Green and Gold) will be open by or during 2020

-- when the full network is open (hopefully sooner than that for the Red Line) it operating hours will be 05:00 until 01:00 (5am until 1am), except Fridays where it will be 09:00 - 01:00.
-- while at standard times trains will run every 5 minutes during peak hours it will be every 3 minutes
-- peak hours will be 6am to 8am, noon-2pm, and 5pm to 7pm
-- late in the evenings the trains will only run every 7 1/2 minutes

-- you're allowed to bring luggage on the train. A maximum of two bags per person, no bigger than 85cm x 60cm x 30cm (the size of a large suitcase). Thumbs up to Doha Metro for allowing luggage, while you might think it would be common sense for a metro that goes to the Airport to allow luggage the Dubai metro does not allow luggage (or maybe it does now, it's been years since I've been).

-- no animals allowed. I assume that does not include service dogs but now that I think about it I have never seen a service dog here.

-- multi-line tram service will start in Lusail in 2020.

-- regular fares at QAR 2 for a one-way trip, there are no zones so you could go from Wakra to Mall of Qatar (about a 30km trip) for 2 riyal!

-- Gold fares, allowing you in the Gold (first-class) cars are QAR 10 for a one-way trip.

A couple of people mentioned to me that Qataris will probably not use the metro. Um, yeah, it was not meant for them. Most Qataris now live in homes in the suburbs, especially in the Northern areas of town, and the Metro will not have stations in those neighborhoods. The Metro targets high-density areas and commuter routes (such as Wakra to West Bay). The metro is primarily for low-middle income users. Qataris can enjoy the lighter traffic.

As for my commute to work on Thursday I timed how long it took from my apartment building to get to my office. Door-to-door was 37 minutes, and I just missed the train so I had to wait 5 minutes for the next one, so on average it should be 30-35 minutes.

That's pretty good because here's the alternative.

Hopefully, in time, crazy rush hour traffic will be a thing in the past.

The Doha Metro has Opened!

Monday evening there was news going around that the Doha Metro was going to open its first line, the Red Line, on May 8, going from Wakra, extending up the Corniche/coast and into West Bay. And it so happens that my apartment is near a Red Line station, as is my office in West Bay, so I decided to take the Metro on its first day of operation.

I headed out to the station at around 8:20am.

There is still some construction to do. A multi-storey parking garage right next to the station is going to take a while yet, but it is a good idea to have a space where people can park close to the station. I hope people who might not be within walking distance of the station take advantage of these parkades to drive a short distance then take the Metro.

This is a soft opening so the hours are limited. At least I hope these hours are just for the soft opening. 8am is just too late for the first train for people trying to commute to an office in the morning. In Ramadan it might be okay, many offices open at 9am during the Holy Month, but outside of Ramadan people start and commute way earlier than 8am. I'm sure the hours and eventually change, and include the weekends.

Down a couple of escalators and onward to the spacious hall.

There were only two ticket machines, and one of them wasn't working when I tried it. Thankfully the other machine worked. There was a manned booth nearby where you can purchase cards (I'm guessing here) but having only two machines seems low, should have been at least three I think.

I bought a rechargeable pass. It costs QAR 10 to get the pass and you can charge it up with however much riyal you want. I bought QAR 50 worth of credit so in total I paid 60. The machine accepted cash without any problem. You then just tap the cards at the gate to enter/exit, similar to Oyster Cards in London.

Onward to the platform.

Trains were every 5 minutes. There was plenty of signage everywhere.

There are different classes of train car, in the front is "Gold Class", which had much nicer seats (I caught a glimpse on my way home but didn't get a picture). I think the second car might have been ladies or family only but I'm not sure. Dubai was like that but I might be projecting.

The seats were upholstered and reasonably comfortable, nothing too fancy. And there were electronic signs showing the stations on the route and where the car was.

Now for where the Metro really shines -- the speed. The train accelerates and decelerate smoothly but it is fast. I had to go three stations to get to the DECC stop in West Bay and from the moment the train started in took less than 7 minutes to get to DECC station, including the time stopping at the other two stations. 7 minutes!! My typical driving time in morning traffic to get there? 25-30 minutes. Wow! Make sure you're sitting down or holding on to something when the train moves though.
Oh, and the price was QAR 2 (~US$0.54) for a one-way trip. I don't think the price depends on the distance either, none of the signs I saw had any kind of zoning typical for increased fares after a certain distance. I'm sure that can't be right though, QAR 2 to go from Wakra to West Bay would be an amazing deal.

So I got out at DECC station (the Exhibition Centre in West Bay). It will be a main station for the Metro and they are planning for cafes and other shops to be there.

The station is right next to City Centre Mall so I was hoping there would be some tunnel or quick connection to get into the mall. Instead I saw this:

That's not the Metro's fault though but it was a bit disappointing. City Centre should be building some kind of connection. As it was I had to walk through the heat to get to the mall, quickly pass through, then go back into the heat to cross the street to the office. It was not ideal and I was sweating a bit by the time I reached the building. I went on the Qatar Rail website and it looks like there will be busses that will go around West Bay and that you can reach your office building without hiking in the heat. I don't think it was operational yet though.

While the Metro wasn't too busy in the morning in the afternoon it was a different story. We'll see if this is typical or if this was people just trying out the Metro.

So all-in-all it was good. I do not have to worry about facing the morning traffic, finding parking on the street, and keeping my car in the hot sun all day. The Metro was faster than driving but with the additional walking time to and from the stations I figure that it evened out. But saving wear-and-tear on the car, being more environmentally friendly, and commuting for $1 a day? Amazing.

This is only the beginning though for the Metro. There are more stations to open (especially looking forward to the opening of the one at the Airport) and two more Metro lines, which will open in the next year. Until the parking garages are built I can see that only people living very close to a station, like me, will use it, and only then if their destination is very close to a station, but in time ridership will increase. I will continue to use it during Ramadan, but won't be able to for the rest of the summer unless the starting hours shift and the Metro starts earlier.