Qatar and back

.....So, where was I?...  Ah yes, just about to move to Qatar I think.  I'm not really sure what happened after that, but for some reason I haven't managed to scribe any of my thoughts for the past 15 months on here at all.  Which is a shame as 2013 was a cracking year.  Here goes my renewed effort to keep my blog up to date... :-)

I moved to Qatar 'officially' on 3rd December 2012, after about a year of flying back and forth between there and Dubai.  That didn't stop though and I carried on commuting into 2013, until finally being forced to give up my passport (not without a fight I might add) for my Qatar residency visa to be processed.  However, in what was something of a rather quick about-turn, at the beginning of January 2013 I decided that I actually wanted to move back to Dubai permanently.  A bit of a shock to my employer, needless to say, given that it had only been a month since I'd moved to Qatar, but my mind was made up.  Not so much of a career move this time but based on some more important life decisions :-)  What followed was eight long months of trying to get myself back to Dubai, commuting back and forth each week all the time too.  Despite a great deal of wrangling at work, and trying to tie things up in one place and set them up in another, finally at the end of August 2013 I made my last trip out of Doha and within a few weeks was a full time resident of Dubai again.

This became a familiar sight

Qatar was an interesting experience.  I thought the UAE had ambition but the Qatari's possibly trump it - or at least try to with their mad and varied development plans.  It's almost as though time has no meaning there - it certainly isn't considered a limitation to their ambition - they will build what they want by whenever they want, using the principle that by employing more people and throwing more resources at a project, it will be finished on time.  I'm not too sure they have too many examples to back that up, but good luck to 'em, the next few years are going to be interesting to watch.

Some mad architecture

Doha as a place to live was not without it's numerous challenges: terrible road congestion, poor air quality, complete lack of consideration that people might want to walk to places, lack of taxis, lack of decent shops, lack of decent anything in fact.  My standard description of Doha to people was 'like Dubai but 10 years ago'.  I've no idea if this is true - I wasn't in Dubai 10 years ago - but it certainly seems like Dubai could have been like that back then.  Doha is developing fast and one day it will be a truly great city, a fantastic place to live and work.  But during my time there it got less and less enjoyable (or should I say bearable?).  The weekly drive from the airport to the office usually took around 25 minutes on a Sunday morning, but in my final weeks there, with the entire corniche road under development (and no alternative route until they build the Sharq Crossing in seven years time), the journey took an hour and a half.  In August, in a dusty taxi with air conditioning that couldn't cope with the 45 degree celcius heat outside.  The Qatari's are learning fast and they need to - they are under increasing scrutiny from the rest of the world, and this tiny little country that a few years ago most would have struggled to place on a map will soon be the focus of the planet.

Preparations for the World Cup in Brazil this year are behind schedule and I hope that Qatar don't make the same mistakes.  But 2022 is only part of the story - the greater focus is on their vision for 2030, and turning the country into a world class city.  I'm sure the place by then will be pretty unrecognisable from what it is now, albeit with their proud culture and heritage suitably preserved.  I can't wait to visit then to see what they've done.

There were some positives to being there - career development, the Qatari's love of sport, to live in a place the whole world seems to be regularly talking about - but now I'm back in Dubai it's difficult to think of too many more of them.  There is a reason the UAE is the most popular Gulf location for expats.  Still, on the whole being in Qatar was a positive experience, although I won't (and don't) miss the weekly commute - after 70+ return flights it started to get a bit boring.  I've been back once since and no doubt will have to go again this year, but I'm definitely glad I made the move back.