Doha residents relax on the Corniche as the weather finally starts to warm up.
The Qatar Natural History Group will be holding a ramble at the Doha Golf Club this Friday, taking advantage of the closure of the club to golfing ahead of the Qatar Grand Masters. The walk will start at 10am. Ramblers are required to park their cars in the lower car park before meeting in front of the club house.
Well, that’s the prediction. This incredible figure - Qatar’s current population is below a million, although it is expected to hit seven figures this year - was mentioned as an aside in a recent AFP interview with Hassan bin Ali, the chairman of the Doha 2016 Olympics bid.
As Qatar’s current native Qatari population is somewhere around 20% of this, presumably the vast majority of this increase in population will come from abroad.
Qatar Visitor has also recently learned for the first time that there are plans to improve the public transport system with railways.
Both underground and above ground railway systems are planned as part of the Lusail project, and the Doha bid details plans to build a metro/lrt railway, with additional tramlines and a feeder bus network, which will connect all the major Olympic sites. Construction of the first phase of the railway is due to begin next year.
There is also an incredible planned increase in the number of hotel rooms in Doha. Currently there are around 18,000 hotel rooms in Doha, well below the minimum 60,000 required for an Olympic bid. However, by 2016 Doha expects to have 83,000 hotel rooms available.
For more information on Doha's bid for the 2016 Qatar Olympics, visit the latest page on our website, Qatar Olympics.
The Commercial Bank Qatar Grand Masters, with a total prize money of $2.2 million dollars, will be held at the Doha Golf Club this week. The tournament will start on the 25th January, with the finale being held on the 28th. The annual tournament, which was started in 1998 and now features many of the world’s top players, is part of the Europe and Asia PGA tours schedule. This year’s tournament will see former US open champion Michael Campbell playing in addition to Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia, Chris DiMarco, Stuart Appleby and defending champion Henrik Stephenson.
Doha Golf Association contact details:
Address: PO Box 13530, Doha, Qatar
Tel: +974-4832338
Fax: + 974-4832679
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The fifth annual Qatar Fencing Grand Prix will be held from the 18th to the 20th January at Aspire Academy, with 222 competitors competing for $31,000. See Qatar Fencing for more information.
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Nigel of Qatar Journal has launched a free weekly Qatar television schedule, delivered weekly to subscriber's in boxes. To get the schedule simply sign up for Qatar Journal's Qatar news alert. Both news alerts and the television schedule are free.
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A guest of mine recently had severe toothache while visiting me in Qatar. My first reaction was panic, as I always seem to hear stories of people who have paid a fortune for dental treatment in Qatar.
Fortunately, a friend told me about the dental clinics in the health centres. While our local health centre was shut (it was Saturday), a trip to Muntazah clinic saw my guest being treated in the dentist’s room within two minutes of arriving at the clinic. The cost: QAR 30 for the treatment, as my guest did not have a health card, and QAR 5 for the antibiotics and painkillers.
The medical centres do not just provide emergency treatment: from Sunday to Thursday they are available for checkups.
Another acquaintance went to a private dentist here to be quoted QAR 25,000 for the treatment he required. He changed dentist, but when it came to having the operation the dentist referred him back to the health system, saying the dentistry required was too complex for his clinic. The whole thing - private appointments included - will now cost him in the region of QAR 8000.
All this has lead to our latest article on our website, Qatar Dentists, which includes the pluses and minuses of going private, how to go get treatment at the dental section of Rumeila hospital as well as including a list of private dentists.
Note - you can now rate the Dentists on this page - please do so if you have a positive/negative experience with Qatar dentists as you can then help to guide other people to best dentists!
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Confusion is currently ruling supreme amongst newly arrived residents as to just how long they can drive for before obtaining a temporary driving licence.
Almost all published information states that a driver can use a car for one week on a temporary driving licence. However, the police recently stated in the Gulf Times that a foreign driving licence is in fact valid for two weeks.
However, when we asked at the Traffic Department how long a licence was valid for, we were told it could be used for a week only.
It seems likely that a decision has been taken at the top to extend the use for two weeks, but that this decision has not been well communicated. Until this matter has been cleared up, we recommend not taking any risks and only driving on a foreign driving licence for one week.
Also see: Driving in Qatar: Practical Information
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I'd wanted to try the Ras Al Nassaa restaurant at the end of Doha's Corniche for a long time. While it looks a little run down, the location is superb: the restaurant juts into the harbour and offers views of the boats and harbour, with the Doha skyline in the distance.
Upon arriving we went to the family section outside. You can chose to sit in the shade, or along the terrace on huge leather beanbags, or even on a little pontoon floating on the water. There's also a small play area for children. Most people had chosen to enjoy a shisha - for good reason, as it turned out.
The service was, simply put, poor . I had to go in search for a waiter twice, and when we had ordered our food they had forgotten a dish. The food did arrive in reasonable time - although this didn't stop them from overcooking it, and the prawns were so dried out as to be uneatable.
We ordered coffee (after eventually locating a waiter), but it never came. As a result we checked the bill to make sure it had not been added , only to find that they had overcharged us by QAR120 - a fact they first denied, and then blamed on the cashier.
All in all, a shame given the location. In fact the location is so good I would still recommend a visit, although only when you are in a patient mood, and for a sandwich or a shisha rather than a meal.
After watching Andy Murray coming second in the Qatar Open last year, it was great to see him take the title yesterday in the match against Stanislas Wawrinka.
Although Murray is ranked much higher than Wawrinka, this is due to injury suffered by Wawrinka rather than to a lack of talent, and the victory over Wawrinka, who practises with Federer and has beaten Murray twice before, did not prove an easy one.
Murray took the first set 6-4 after a hard battle over the final point, but lost the second set 4-6. However, Wawrinka made some crucial errors in the third set leading to Murray's victory.
Murray was supported throughout by a vocal crowd, who also booed the umpire when he twice overruled the linesman in Wawrinka's favour.
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The Doha Media Freedom centre has been set up in Qatar, Gulf News reported today. The centre will be funded by the government and run independently by Reporters Without Borders. The centre was set up at the instigation of the Emir.
Reporters Without Borders currently rates Qatar 79 out of 169 countries in its press freedom index, just below Kenya and just above the Congo.
It is perhaps ironic that the move comes shortly after the Qatar Journal editor was refused exit from Qatar when attempting to attend a conference by the Arab Free Press Forum in Beirut. Nigel himself attributed this to a mistake made by the immigration authorities regarding his sponsorship rather than a deliberate policy of repressing press freedom - however, the issue remains that Qatar certainly does have borders for reporters!
If representatives of Reporters Without Borders have to follow local laws, they will have to be sponsored. This means that they will need permission to leave the country - a permission which is sometimes denied, as was the case with Nigel.
The move also follows on the recent ridiculous censorship of Qatar Living. Images of piglet being blacked out in a Winnie the Pooh book had been published on Qatar Living which had given forth to a tongue in cheek discussion of the issue.
The incident gained a couple of bare paragraphs in the Gulf Times, a paper that is so desperate for Qatar news that it will often devote a column to the death of someone who used to live in Qatar ten years ago. An outraged letter by Frances Gillespie was also published - briefly. The letter has since been removed. The Peninsula, which is owned by Qatar’s Prime Minister, decided not to touch the story.
Still, this move suggests that Qatar does remain committed to extending press freedom in Qatar, and no doubt Reporters Without Borders will be welcomed with open arms.
At least, as long as they don’t try to smuggle in any Winnie the Pooh books.
In the Gulf Times today Gillespie writes about the recent attack on a Qatar Natural History Group member by an irate ostrich at the Abrouq Reserve. (See Ostrich Attack Survivor Says “Lucky to be Alive”.)
Simon Flynn, the British resident who was researching a route for one of the QNHG’s rambles, was lucky to be alive, as the tiny brained birds have been known to kill not just people but also large and dangerous predators such as lions.
With a speed of up to 70 kph, if you do get in trouble with an ostrich running away is not an option. Instead, you should sit down on the ground, cover your heads with your arms and wait until the bird either moves away or help comes.
Fortunately, help did come for Simon Flynn in the form of the keeper at the film set in Abrouq. The keeper drove off the bird with a stick, although not before Simon had been repeatedly kicked and pecked.
Following the attack, it is now recommended that residents keep away from the Ras Abrouq Nature Reserve. If you do visit, try to do so outside the current breeding season.
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