Qatari style bar hopping

This short story happened in three hours on Thursday evening here in Doha, city which stabs you to the back whenever it can.

After 6 weeks I’m here I still haven’t found anybody who would be even close to what I like to do or how I want to spend time. Everybody just comes from work, starts watching TV, orders delivery dinner and sits at home. “Tough day man!! I need to rest” they say. Something which I just can’t understand!! I was into this alone. But better alone than never!!

So with a good mood I called for a private taxi at 9pm on Thursday and went for a beer outside. Next on my list of places was Sheraton Hotel with Irish Harp pub. When I got into the hotel I was welcomed by nice lobby and pyramid-like interior with around 15 floors of rooms. Bar was in the lower floor so I took elevator and confidently walked to the entrance smelling beer already.

“Ladies or couples only tonight” dryly said a bored security guard. I tried to ask him some questions willing to understand the situation, but the guard didn’t even bother to answer and only put his face into “You are not welcome here dude!! And it’s full anyway” expression. Still shocked a bit I went back to the elevator and went to mezzanine floor to Waterhole bar.

I’ve read some bad things about this place, but I just wanted to have a pint so I gave it a chance. “Membership card or Qatar ID Sir?” asked me the security. “What? Membership I don’t have. I have only Emirates ID. It’s not enough?” “No. You need Qatar ID or original passport with visa page to get in” “But I’ll do one exception when you are here for the first time” he smiled and let me pay the entrance fee and get in.

But after I got in I quickly realized why he did it, because the place was just horrible. OK, the interiors were fine. It was the people who were inside. I took a beer and was amused watching potbellied white guys around 40 shyly attacking Asian prostitutes of the same age and beauty under incredibly loud oldies sounds from a Filipino band. There was practically nobody else so I really felt like Alice in Wonderland. So I quickly finished second pint and went to Irish Harp again to see if the situation haven’t changed.

“Ooo two single girls coming in” I felt my chance. “Hi, do you think…” they even didn’t let me finished my sentence. “You wanna get in? Ok come with us” the English girls answered themselves and I was standing in front of the same security guard again. “Where is your membership card?” asked me with the same bored arrogant tone the guard. “Get the membership and we let you in” he told me and the girls disappeared inside. So I went to the desk where they were giving memberships. “We cannot give a membership to a single guy. You need to have the girl standing next to you” said another security with the same cold annoying tone. In that point I was really losing my temper under the pressure of all those unbelievable things.

“I have a friend over there. She can help you get the membership” said a girl doing hers just next to me. I felt the last chance, but just to be sure I’ve asked “Is this UAE ID card enough to get it?” “You need to have original passport with visa. This is the rule” replied that security and I exploded.

“Screw all this and you too” I almost shouted when I strode out with blood boiling and ire in the eyes. Outside the hotel, blinded with wrath, I pushed aside one poor businessman and stole his taxi. “Ramada Plaza” I ordered.

After five minutes of a calming drive I asked the driver “Do you know if I can get to QUBE without passport?” “I don’t think so Sir” he replied pretty confidently. And he was true. To get in you need a membership and for a membership you need, according to the big board next to entrance, a Residence permit. In that point I was not even sure if you can get in with passport, which I didn’t have anyway, so I just looked at a long queue for memberships and conceded to having one more cold pint today.

At midnight I was at home again. I paid three times more for taxis and fees that for the beer itself. But at the end I had to laugh. Country which has that few bars that they can refuse customers in big is just sad.

But as it is always, when there is no other chance, you just accept it. You have to. Especially here in Qatar. So next time I will bring the passport and I will give it another chance…Why? Because I want to survive here until I could go back. Because if I had a feeling that I don’t belong to UAE, here it is not a feeling anymore…it’s a fact!!

Qatar forever - First steps

First week was fast. I arrived Sunday midday form where my colleague Kutty took me to my new place, but had to take me immediately out to one of the three shopping malls in the country! To his astonishment I refused to stay for the rest of the day in the villa and do nothing, what would every Indian do, because they would need to rest, especially after travelling (my flight was 45 minutesJ)

So after I returned there was nothing more than couple of beers with the head of Qatar Envac office Alan in his villa just few building next to mine at the evening. There I’ve learned one thing. Instead of building luxurious villa districts and 40 floor apartment towers, here in Qatar they build villa compounds.

These “villages” are square areas full of squeezed identical two floor buildings, with no common facilities except for tiny children pool and tiny tennis court, where you cannot play tennis anyway because you have fence on your back line and it is full of screaming kids. That’s fine, but the worst is that there is no central AC so you have to choose if you want to boil or become deaf from roaring AC ventilators next to your ear!! And that the compound lies 15 kilometers south of Doha and getting a taxi out of there is impossible is just another black point on already black image.

Fortunately I got my personal Lancer the second day, so I could start exploring and try to put some white dots. I found two climbing walls, but one was not for public and another was too small. No white points. I found very nice kiting beach just 5 minutes from my house. First white point. I found out that you can go to Dubai from Doha for quite cheap money. 10 white points J So instead of trying my luck here, I took off to Dubai the first weekend for sure fun of two day Magic gaming J

The second week went equally fast, basically because two days I fell asleep for 12 hours directly after I came from work, one day was disappointment with “Release the Kraken” and on Thursday my friend Kaupo came from Dubai and we went to see some night life J

After tough search in the list of 15 bars and clubs in Doha I found on the internet, I picked up Intercontinental Hotel with one of the three most famous and most real “clubs” in Qatar, La Paloma.

We started easily around 8 outside the hotel in a beach/pool bar. “Don’t worry!! At the weekend it is packed with people here. Wait until around 10pm” said in a good mood the barman. We took another beer and around 11, when still sitting there almost alone, we left for Paloma inside.

How do you imagine one of the most visited discos in Qatar? Definitely not as a rather small hall with kitchen in one corner, tables all around the round bar in the middle and tiny dance floor with even tinier podium in the other corner. And on the top of that a chaotic DJ changing genders like if playing roulette. All full of guys and if there is a lady shyly standing next to a table and obviously willing to dance, there always is a lounged black Mr. Muscle drinking beer behind, who instantly jumps up when you try something and with a superior and angry grin “She is mine!!!” sends you packing crying. Not a place where you want to return to J

And when you are full of all that, you cannot even get a taxi home, because nobody wants to drive that far up to Al Wakrah. No escape from here!! But OK…we got home at the end, when literally bribing one the driver J

Saturday was supposed to be easy hangover day, but the best cure for handover is to go to the desert in 35°C and ride quads for two hours. In Qatar there is only one area where there is a proper desert with sand dunes.

It is in the south close to Saudi border and it is just next the sea line that water gets between the dunes and creates lakes and lagoons. Have you been ever riding quad in the sea? J

I took it for two hours and tried how it is when you drive one hour one direction and the other back. It was how I imagine Rally Dakar. Driving 50km/h on a desert track winding between yellow sand dunes, through black salt plains and between green bushes. With every kilometer I was getting further from noisy Hummers cruising around and deeper into the loneliness of the desert I was enjoying it more and more. Only me, quiet dunes, rustling sand under the wheels and 700cc under the hood J I was enjoying it that much that I almost forgot to turn back!! Then I discovered the dark side of Rally Dakar, when my hands were barely holding the handlebars at the end!!

Evening program consisted of why Kaupo actually came to Doha, athletic competition Diamond League. Qatar wants to be a sport capital of Middle East so they are hosting all kinds of sport events. Asian games, Handball championship or they are voting for Soccer World Cup in 2022 and Olimpic games. So Diamond League with many famous names attending was not a surprise.

We came to Villagio mall where was a booth with tickets. That was the only information Kaupo had about the event. Ticket booth location. “Tickets are sold out” told us a Filipino girl inside. “What?!!” we almost shouted. When we started to think again we asked “OK…so where is the stadium where the competition is held?”, “I don’t know” she replied as nothing would be happening. “What?!!” we stared in surprise again. After couple of more questions we got that the place was called Doha Sports Club, but where was it, we had still no idea. “Sir can you show us on the map where is Doha Sports club?” we asked and random Lebanese guy. “Sure” he replied and I pulled out my GPS mobile phone. “Damn…display is broken!! I have no idea how this happened” I was staring at a rainbow across he display. So no map, no tickets and the competition has already started!!

The guy explained us more or less where it is and we started driving. Fortunately four huge light posts shining to the night are pretty good guide so we found it easily. “Why there are so many busses blocking the parking lot” I wondered when we came there…

Ticket office at the stadium was closed…there was nobody checking tickets when we walked through open gate up to the tribune. And than we saw it…stadium was almost full. Except of VIP seats and that all spectators were Indian. Guess why? Organizer brought 100 busses of laborers and left tickets for free to fill up the tribunes J

Kaupo, former decathlonist, pulled out Estonian flag and we started watching. There was also few Czech athletes…javelin thrower Spotakova who came second and one pole jumper. Sometimes we cheered for somebody passing by, but basically anybody out of the Ethiopian / Kenyan sector had no chance to be heard!! There were enjoying the event so much, with flags, drums and songs. And because almost in every discipline they had somebody, they were heard all the time. Awesome…

Unfortunately Kaupo’s only Estonian athlete, a discus thrower who was supposed to attend, didn’t come and anyway…because we were late we missed the discus at the beginning J

Saturday we drove to the north to check some limestone rock formations, with possible climbing potential, but it was way too eroded for trying anything. I would need a 4x4 to get deeper into the area to maybe discover some more solid place. Next time…

On the way back we did a detour just to see that Qatar landscape is really just a flat dry wasteland full of loose stones. So after three hours of driving through this monotonous scenery we better went to the beach for some kiting…nice point after active weekend. When I told my Filipino colleagues what I had been doing, they could only say “Hmmmm…”. We’ve done in one weekend more than them in one year!!

Next two weeks went even faster. Three days kiting after office, some food shopping and basically playing Magic everyday to prepare for UAE Magic National championship. I even went for another weekend to visit Rune in Dubai and do some play testing.

And then my last week in Qatar came and I was looking forward to return home. “Jiri can you call me” I found email from Jacqueline, Envac business and manpower controller, on Tuesday. “Jiri, you know that there is still no work in UAE and Babu told me that he could use you in Pearl of Qatar. Would you be able to stay?”

And again…I was somehow anticipating this to happen and I was somehow prepared for it. I had even ready some conditions. “OK…that is no problem. But I want to keep UAE residence visa and as soon as there is work in UAE I’m the first guy coming back!” I calmly relied. “Of course Jiri. That’s how we want this to be. We want you to be ready for coming back” she ensured me.

When flying back to Qatar after another short weekend at home, with a tear in the eye and new return ticket for 29 of July in hand, I imagined my Tiguan sadly standing in the garage of my unoccupied apartment and thought “This probably will not end just there L”

Btw: I didn’t defend the title of “Magic the Gathering UAE champion”

Qatar forever - Choose your destiny!!

Everything started one and half year ago……

I was told that I had been hired for Al Raha Beach project. This huge development in Abu Dhabi was “just about to be signed” for at least half a year before I came and all the time after I came, until Envac’s chances died completely with leaving old Al Raha management only few months after I arrived.

But that didn’t look like a problem. We had still Yas Island and many other “promising” project were around. Until the world financial crisis came only few months after I arrived.

UAE’s happy spending finished and everything stalled. The biggest Dubai developer Nakheel bankrupt and with him disappeared many “happy times promising” projects like Waterfront (city twice the size of Hong Kong), one mile high Harbor tower or canal network going 50km deep inland. Rents dropped to half because people were losing jobs and going home in hundreds (180 Al Raha engineers got sacked on hour one sunny morning). Car loans and car prices dropped, because all cars have been left at the airport by leaving people, abandoning everything…even their loans.

Needless to say that I had everything already secured for the peak price and that Envac haven’t got any bigger project for our “cutting edge” waste collection system by now.

UAE was not hit by the crisis that hard as USA or EU, but it was. Who apparently was not hit were Saudi Arabia and Qatar and our salesmen, were more and more often starting to travel to those countries trying to secure our asses.

So one day, I think it was around March 2010, happened the inevitable. “As you probably see, there is not or soon won’t be any work for us here in Yas” begun my project manager our face to face conversation. “But there is a boat going to Qatar. Are you on the boat? Or you stay here on this sinking Island?” was his question he should have asked some people to report to our boss Mike.

I was suspecting that something is happening long time before this day. Longer we stayed on Yas, with more of our work being finished and more time without hearing any news about some future projects, more I was playing with thought, what I would say when this question comes? “I’m on board” I replied immediately.

I was not happy to say that. I had everything in Dubai. A lot of good friends, my apartment, car, my routines and activities I liked, I worked position I felt finally comfortable with…I had there my happy living. I didn’t want to leave all this, especially when traveling to a country where everything was supposed to be way worse than in UAE. But on the other hand it is better to lose it temporarily and have possibility to come to get it back when situation change, than sink with the Island and lose it all forever.

So on sunny Sunday morning 2.5.2010, I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to Doha. It was not my first flight to Doha, but this one was different in that it was the first, last and only one that day. No transfer, no continuation, no other destination, no way back…

Actually there was the way back in form of return ticket one month later, which was giving me something to look forward to, because I hadn’t heard a single positive thing about Qatar!!

Qatar is a flat, dry wasteland on peninsula of the size of Cyprus with one real city and capital Doha. There are no mountains, no proper sandy desert, just plains full of loose rocks and stones going across whole country. And where are no villages, there are oil and gas rafineries. In Qatar lives out of 1.5 million people in total only 1/3 of expats, which majority is from Asia and other Arab countries, so there are relatively few westerners. Also ratio of 3.5 men on 1 most probably veiled woman is not very pleasant environment.

Doha as a capital is more decent, traditional and Arabic with lower average road lane count, with much lower average building altitude, insignificant bar number and only one liquor store in whole country. Don’t need to mention that there is no climbing wall or Magic community. So what is there?

This was what I knew about Qatar so don't be surprised that I was worried. But I was comforting myself that it is only for one month and that I’ll survive and then go back, because we were supposed to get small Yas Island project extension. So I took it as easy as possible and tried to get my own picture about the country, because in the corner of my mind I thought that it couldn’t be that bad J