How to Get a Speeding Ticket in Doha

cameras placed strategically throughout Doha

photograph errant expat (and other) drivers in action

 

In America.  How to obtain a moving violation:  drive too fast.  Watch rearview mirror for black and white sedan with strobing red and white lights.  Pull to side of road, unroll window, wait.

 

Snap of door opening, closing.  Keys jangling, heels on pavement, rush of passing traffic, bitter exhaust.  Blue uniform with hat, belt and holstered weapon.  Hand on hip, officer bent at waist, stern face in window, smooth Old Spice cologne.

 

"License and registration, please."

 

Tattle tale lights flash.  Cars slow to pass.  Children point from back seats, laugh:  Speeder!

 

Pounding heart, tears.  The shame.

 

surreal, sardines-packed-in-a-can, Doha traffic

too many cars for personal attention between officers and rule breakers

 

In Qatar.  How to obtain a moving violation:  you have to look it up.

 

 Qatar Traffic Violation Website

enter your Qatari id, license plate number, establishment ID

download the phone app to view others' violations while stuck in traffic

 

In Doha, yellow and white cameras situated at intersections and along highways weed through the crush of sedans, SUVs, trucks, semis, motorcycles to photograph plate numbers and assign violations, such as:

• exceeding posted speed limit - 500 QR
• not giving adequate signals as required - 200QR
• driving a vehicle at abnormal low speed that may obstruct traffic movement without a good reason - 300QR
• motorist does not abide by the automatic traffic signals (running a red light) - 6000QR
• driving a vehicle in the wrong direction - 6000QR

Link: traffic offenses that can be settled by paying a fine.

 

Caught on Camera

Somewhere in Doha

Bob or Cindi (but probably Cindi):

 

November 9, 2013, 7:06 AM, Al Bidda (per website) or the Corniche (per agency):

"The motor vehicle's operator exceeds the maximum speed limit on the road"

 

There is no summons, notification, letter in the mail.  No flashing lights, jangling keys or holstered guns.  Nobody knocks on your door.  Errant behavior is recorded on the website and stays there until the fee is paid.  Whether you're a bad driver, in the wrong place at the wrong time or somewhere else altogether, it's possible to rack up violations and fees while living in blissful ignorance - working, shopping, taking the kids to school.

 

As long as you don't try to leave the country.

 

registered vehicle owners with unpaid violations

are stopped at the gate

 

Since the infraction is assigned to the car, it's the registered owner's responsibility to review the website for violations and pay fines.  This is a benefit to expats who lease a vehicle as the rental agency's name is attached to the car, not the driver's.  A service agent regularly checks the traffic website and emails request for payment.

 

"Kindly settle the attached traffic ticket..."

-email to Bob from Doha based car rental company, three weeks later

 

Suppose, like one of Bob's coworkers, you receive notification about a violation that ostensibly occurred on a day, place, time in which you and your car weren't present.  Nobody else drives your car.  You never speed.  There's too much traffic on that road at the stated time for anyone (except the young men in dish-dasha driving white Suburbans) to "exceed the posted limit."

 

It's Christmas and you have plans to travel.

 

You could request more information:

 

This is you, right?

Traffic Department's proof of Bob's car's violation (edited)

 

Hire a lawyer:

 

expensive and time consuming; still can't leave the country

 

Or just pay the toll - and go home (for the holidays).

 

Bob in Paris, 2013

good sport, good friend, good lookin'

Hillary Clinton Signed My Marriage License

Bob is driving when a passenger van cuts us off.

 

Bob: Where you going, Dude?

 

Me:  Do you talk to the road even when you're alone in the car?

 

Bob:  Of course.

 

So many cars.  So many people.  And it's all my fault.

 

I am the expat spouse.

 

Our marriage license required validation by our county, state and federal governments

plus Hillary Clinton's signature before I could join Bob in Doha

 

There are more hard hats than thobes, jeans than abayas in Qatar.  And for each hardworking foreign resident, there are one to five errand-running, school-attending, road-clogging family members.

 

expat families come in all nationalities, colors, shapes and sizes

this is not an expat family, courtesy Microsoft ClipArt

 

We're the shoppers, home administrators.  We chase kids' activities, coordinate household staff, arrange for car repairs, pick up laundry and dry cleaning, order take out ("take away"), find (the right) light bulbs (no small task).  If we need the car, we shuffle him/her (in Doha, usually a "him") to work and pick him up in the evening - although it's true that we often have our own car…and a driver too.

 

If we're not in the car, there's someone on the road for us: teachers, personal trainers, doctors, nurses, mall staff, Carrefour sackers, spa attendants, cleaning crews, water trucks.

 

From September to May, things are pretty crazy in Doha, what with all of the running, doing, hurrying about.  Then comes summer, when we pack up the little ones and head to cooler temperatures…sometimes straight from the last day of school.

 

Even though it means more traffic, congestion, lines at the mall…Qatar loves (Fall)* when the families come back.

 

We're housed in villas and resorts beside blue water pools.  There are schools, spousal support groups, clubs, gyms, children's events, sporting activities, all created just for us.

 

Restaurants feature family sections where diners must be accompanied by a woman.  Single men are not allowed in some malls on family day.  And then, of course, there's Family Friday, when related groups gather at the park, food court, mosque.

 

It's nice to have families around.  Especially when (one is) missing grown kids and grandbabies.  (Pause for sniffle.)  Enduring six-day work weeks full of paper, meetings, job site visits, paper, meetings, job site visits…  Or waiting 40 minutes for an appointment that doesn't happen, unanswered phone calls and emails, and postponed, cancelled, difficult to obtain meetings.  When marathons are advertised one day in advance, Tom-Jones-was-here-yesterday and three frustrating attempts to ride the DohaBus.  Strange food, tv shows, Doha time.  Which brings us back to the crazy making traffic:

 

A four door car straddles the line in front of us.  A trucker guns his engine, honks his horn, creates a lane between us and the barrier.

 

trucks in a row

 

Bob speaks with an edge but no expression. (Gestures perceived as rude are punishable violations.)

Bob:  Don't you see the red light?  Turning or going straight?  What's your rush?  Merge. Merge. Merge-merge-merge-merge!

 

When a sedan with black windows cuts us off at a stacked roundabout, we come to a stop.  Bob sighs, reaches over the console and wraps his warm fingers around my hand.

 

"Awww," I say.  "Aren't you sweet."

 

He shakes his head at the semi inching its way into a 6-inch space.

 

"No," he says.  "I'm afraid."

 

Funny guy.

 

We're living a dream:  an interesting job, opportunity to learn about a language, culture, way of life different from our own - plus a lifetime's worth of exotic honeymoons.

 

But the best part?  Being together.

 

 

*The word "Fall" is used euphemistically to outline a general time of year from the perspective of our family in Missouri, USA: the period beginning approximately early September to December, when trees transform from lush multi-hued green to a brilliant cascading display of reds, yellows, pinks, purples.  Temperatures drop.  One day it's shorts and tee shirts, the next it's sleeves and running pants.  Then sweaters, scarves, hats and jackets until Winter brings crisp air, snowsuits, sleds, and Barnes and Noble Cafe's peppermint hot chocolate.

 

Of course there is no "Fall" as such here in Doha which will one day soon switch from muggy, humidity fogged Summer to flowers, blue skies and beach sun Winter.

 

up soon: Winter in Doha

 

All of which is lovely in its own way.

 

On Missing Eyebrows (and other Doha realities)

Missing Eyebrows

 

The well put together local woman sports perfectly shaped, beautifully manicured, smooth, dark, thick, salon tended designer eyebrows.  She covers her skin with abaya and sheyla, and stays indoors when it's hot.

 

Expats wog, wander and hang at the beach where the only thing warmer than the water is the scalding white sand.  The respectful foreign guest covers from shoulders to knees, minimum, and protects remaining exposed areas with sunscreen 45.  But in a place where temperatures regularly exceed 120 muggy "real feel" degrees, roasted skin and sun bleached hair, including eyebrows, happens.

 

I paint the missing color in.

 

 

But I don't pluck:

 

With regard to dyeing the eyebrows or a part of them with a blonde colour or a colour similar to that of the skin, there is nothing wrong with this, as was stated in a fatwa issued by our Shaykh 'Abd al-'Azeez ibn 'Abd-Allaah ibn Baaz (may Allaah have mercy on him and raise his status). He also stated in a fatwa that it is permissible to remove hair growing between the eyebrows because this is not part of them, but he stated that it is not permissible to trim the eyebrows if they are not troublesome or causing harm.

islam-qa

 

Bananas go from green to yellow overnight

 

grass green yesterday

 

In Doha, hard, green, just bought bananas are soft and yellow by morning, banana bread ready in three short days.  If anyone you know likes a banana a day to replenish minerals lost after climbing 12 flights to the sky on a sunny, muggy, hot-air-pummeled Doha jobsite…buy a bunch!  But just 3- 4 at a time.

 

You say: "Shukran" she says: "You're Welcome"

 

There is no bookstore at Qatar University.  No game day tee shirts in Arabic, school pens, mugs, water bottles.  Looking for an Arabic language tee shirt to take home to the fam?  Good luck - because it's all English in Doha.

 

Cashiers, sackers, managers and stockers, service and salespeople at Carrefour, H&M and Zara, Asian cleaning crews, strangers on the street, hawkers at the souq, the covered lady in the bread aisle (she's not necessarily Arab):  there are three times more expats than locals in Doha and they all wake up expecting to spend the day in English.  There are a few phrases every nationality seems to understand and an Arab busy thinking in English appreciates: "shukran" (thank you), "ma'a salama" (good bye) and "wayn al hammam?" (where's the bathroom).  But - expect the response to be in English, no matter where the queried person is from.

 

Afternoon Siesta

 

There is morning, where office clerks file, take calls, fill orders…shops are open and it's possible to get business done.  Then there is Doha afternoon:

 

Katie and Kimber attempt to shop the souq one afternoon

(if there were crickets, they'd be chirping)

 

At 1pm, an unsuspecting reader (me) is asked to leave the Qatar National Library.  A mall bookstore closes and the clerk waits for shoppers (also me) to notice.  All over the city, workers rush home to eat, sleep, pray, sip tea, pet the falcon.  This is family time, when non-worker night-living people are (finally) out of bed and worker bee types break.

 

Hey, it's doggone hot in the afternoon (see above).

 

Some (Middle Eastern flexible) time around 4pm, shops unlock, libraries and bookstores reopen.  Locals parade through souq shops and Arabic is heard on the street.  Fast moving Suburbans flash lights in rearview mirrors, teenage boys chase one another through traffic in Porsches and Camaros, traffic snarls around fender benders...and worse.

 

We tend to stay home at night, wrapped in fuzzy blankets, watching Conan (O'Brien).  We don't hear a lot of Arabic this way (see above), but it does keep us alive.

 

Shoes

 

Sports Day, abaya, children, sand

silver shoes, henna

purty shoes a must

 

There is Drinking in Doha (but not at The Pearl)

 

Once upon a time there was alcohol at The Pearl.  Every night a live band played to sellout crowds at the restaurant below our balcony and it was standing room only at the billiards and sports bar beside the terrace pool.

 

Then "something happened": an "incident" involving an expat, too much drink and an outdoor space.

 

*Snap* no more likker at The Pearl.

 

Today in the evenings, a scattering of tourists and locals wander the first curve of the Pearl's boardwalk where lonely salesmen and women (check facebook, send email, play games on phones and ipads) inside gleaming upscale shops selling $1,000 dresses and $700 shoes.

 

The rest of the resort is quiet.  Security guards wander empty boardwalks under tarp covered, unfinished towers that circle the bay.  Nights, Bob and I wog in the darkness beside docked yachts as Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" pours from speakers tucked in the palm trees.

 

Margaritas are available at international hotels in West Bay or the airport and mix (and other stuff) may be purchased with a license at the country's likker establishment.  But there is no more drinking (shoppers, diners, buyers) at The Pearl.

 

Threshold Pools

 

Inside Doha is cold:  freezer-chill Suburbans drop moms wearing ski pants at the mall where babies in snowsuits enjoy ice cream cones at indoor amusement parks.  Expats in sweats and double socks huddle in fuzzy blankets and sip hot cocoa while warming hands over steamy dinners.  Water transforms to ice on kitchen counters.

 

I might be exaggerating - a little - about the ice cubes...but it's true that if you spend much time indoors in Doha it's easy to forget just how hot it is "out there."  Where pudding air shimmers over a charcoal and barbecue pavement.  Heat melts the soles of tennis shoes, burns up generators, fries car batteries, sears nose hair, bleaches eyebrows.

 

And moisture fogs glass, transforms into liquid that rolls down the sides of buildings, collects in moat-worthy puddles at thresholds.  (Wear shoes, step wide…)

 

fogged glasses, fogged camera

Oh the Hawtness

Patience Please Doha Driver

The sign says:

REMEMBER!!

Your family is waiting for you.

 

 

Rite of Passage: Car Accident in Doha

Smashed in Doha

 

You are braked in traffic gridlock on Doha's heavily travelled, construction absorbed Corniche.  Your car jolts forward.  At the same moment, you hear sounds like foil wrapped potato chips crunched into a microphone.

 

You are not hurt.

 

You put the car in park.  Say a few choice words.  Grab your phone.  Open the door.

 

everywhere lines of red and white barriers

 

Gravel rattles to the ground, poured from a six-wheel dump truck behind the red and white construction barrier inches away.  The air is thick with humidity, exhaust, smoke.  Horns bleat, people shout, lights flash.  Cars, trucks and vans circle around your parked car to drive on the shoulder of the road. You smile and wave (might as well).

 

A lady in hijab and abaya sits at the wheel of the sedan stopped behind you.  She and her male passenger face forward, unmoving.  Her car's front end is crushed.  Your SUV's bumper is scraped silver and white.

 

You knock on the sedan's driver's side window.  After a pause the window slides down.  Her eyes: brown.

 

"Would you like fries with that?"  No, you don't say it.  That would be silly.  Instead:

 

Are you okay?  Do you know what to do now?

 

and:

We agree that this was your fault, right?

 

She nods.  Her passenger grabs a backpack, climbs a construction barrier and walks away.

 

"He goes to airport,"  she says.  "I think he will be late."

 

She's from Somalia and has a lovely Arabic name.  But, "I do not speak Arabic," she says.  She calls your phone so you have one another's numbers.

 

What you know: 

• you must wait for the police or go together to the traffic department
• you must do this immediately
• you must obtain paperwork from the traffic department
• if you wait long enough the police will come

It's not an unavoidable, necessary lifetime rite of passage like puberty, gray hair or wrinkles.  Being in a car accident in Doha is an event more like appendicitis, gall stones or divorce - something that can happen (or not, if you're lucky).  It's the car that swerves into your lane and stops, the SUV riding your bumper, little Toyota truck in front of you loaded with unsecured rebar and 2x4s.  It's a degree earned in spite; merit achieved contrary to your efforts.

 

little truck, loaded with stuff

 

You call Bob, talk to Ben (who has a Master's degree in Doha Car Accidents), dial the rental car place, check your facebook.  (Just kidding about that last one.)

 

Standing beside you, Somalia smiles, listens, nods.

 

Two white-shirt wearing police officers arrive in a blue and white cruiser.  Policeman #1 motions to the traffic and construction.  "You must move.  Go to police station."  He rattles instructions to Somalia in Arabic.  "You follow her," he says.  He points to Somalia.

 

I hesitate - she doesn't speak Arabic - but Somalia is already in her car and White Shirt motions frantically for you to go too.

 

You dip into a gravel gap so Somalia can take the lead.  You pull into traffic behind her.  Cars part like Moses and the Red Sea as she passes you slowly, driving in the middle of the road.  She rotates toward the red and white fence, misses it, jerks the wheel and arcs across the street.  Speeding up, she takes a roundabout in a wide three-lane circle, swerves around a corner, jumps a curb.  Something bright falls off her car.

 

You follow at a safe distance as Somalia sweeps wildly through traffic for three heart stopping minutes. She reaches a red light, three full lanes braked 10 cars back.  She slams into a taxi, causing it to hurtle into a third car.  Her airbag deploys.  There is smoke.

 

You park in the street, rush to Somalia's car.  Her seat is pressed back and she is near laying down, both hands over her face.  She's crying, but physically seems okay.  A big, burly man in a long white gallabea-like robe and yellow construction vest speaks reassuring words to her in Arabic.  He's from Sudan.

 

"She doesn't speak Arabic," you say.

 

"You know her?"

 

"Five minutes ago, she hit me too."

 

He laughs.

 

Yes, of course - it's not funny.  But no one in any of the cars is hurt.  So, it's okay: he laughs, you laugh.

 

Three green ambulances arrive.  Somalia is lifted onto a gurney and carried away. You do not see her again.

 

Official red suburbans and blue and white vans create a no-pass zone around the accident site.  Two dark uniformed policemen tap noses in the traditional greeting.  A white-shirt wearing officer writes driver's license, plate and phone numbers on a plain sheet of paper.  You give your numbers in Arabic.

 

White shirt pauses over the page, as if matching cars to information.  He turns to you, says, "Why are you here?"

 

Sudan intervenes to explain your presence in Arabic in a jolly, storytelling manner.  White shirt presses his hat back, rolls his eyes, shakes his head.

 

The next day you incorrectly visit the Immigration Office, Passport Bureau and Traffic Headquarters before landing at the correct location:  a small, single story building behind the Main Traffic Department.  Here, there is plenty of parking and a line of friendly officials available to help you.  To facilitate the process, at Ben's suggestion, you've written "My Side of the Story" in Arabic.  You give the handwritten essay to an agent who reads it without comment.

 

"What happened" in Arabic

(Please ignore errors, just like you did here.)

 

The official types on his computer.  Presses a button.  Gives you a crisp, unbound two page Police Report:  your graduation papers.

 

Mabrook!  Congratulations!  You pass.

Where Cranes Fly (So Much Construction!)

Cranes Fly Over Doha

All of Doha is under construction.

 

Roads queue through colorful barrier tunnels.  Highway lanes end without warning.  Streets run out and walls rise up.  Drivers marooned by dead end highways cruise through empty lots and back up over curbs.

 

colorful construction barrier

 

The always busy Corniche is a one-lane forever blocked thoroughfare - on both sides of the street.  Roundabouts are mountains of gravel, dug out to make way for 21st century stop lights.  A literal maze of fences circles Zig-Zag Tower, the Pearl and Lagoona Mall under signs announcing Doha's (one day soon-ish) first railway system.

 

Trucks rumble back to back, bumper to bumper, dwarfing the constant stream of vans, buses, sedans and road-clogging rainbow of SUVs.

 

Scaffolding marches across the horizon.  Stairs rise to nowhere.  A shortcut is never shorter than sticking with the snarl of traffic because everywhere everywhere

 

everywhere

 

there is construction.

 

roadwork

 

Rumbling, rattling, clanking, clattering, rasping, beeping, whining, grating, grinding.

 

Above, below, beneath, beside…mounds of rock, cranes, backhoes, dump trucks, men in boots, masks, helmets, khaki pants and safety vests wave flags, wield rope, shovels, hosing, drills.  Yellow sparkles dance from open walled high rises as laborers weld pipe, mold steel, place metal.  Street workers sweep dust off new grass, fill buckets, scrape rock into high sandy piles and rain water over everything.

 

watch out for truck coming up very soon...

 

A noisome bouquet of engine fumes, exhaust and bitter gasoline fills my nose, coats my tongue, stings my eyes, makes me sneeze.

 

Heat shimmers over mounds of brick, dry dirt, hot asphalt and moist, newly poured, green-making earth.  Hot air has a smell:  it's sweat, smoke, burning rubber, an over cooked old food lunch.

 

I wash my face and the towel stains brown.  A scabby heat and dirt fueled rash stings the back of my neck.  My bare feet leave charcoal prints in the shower.

 

A construction wall surrounds massive, busy, populated Education City.  Now just two narrow, single-lane entrances are open to students, faculty, staff, employees and guests to Georgetown University, Weil Cornell Medical Center, Virginia Commonwealth, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Qatar Foundation and many other offices. The first hour and a half on a new project is spent discussing how to access facilities when a coworker is stranded…because interim transit system buses don't - ever - arrive.

 

construction

 

Life (work, school, getting-from-here-to-there and other forms of necessary busy-ness) in speeding-to-modern Doha is, ironically, slow-going.  But not as slow as it will be very, very soon…when the summer/Ramadan exodus of locals and expats return from…otherfound places where people walk on sidewalks, traffic moves steadily along the highway and buses appear as scheduled.  Where crickets chirp in the quiet evenings, trees whisper under the silent moon, lovers walk hand in hand -

 

And cranes are birds.

 

early construction moon rise over Beverly Hills subdivision

Making Music in the Desert

There are only 40 known singing sand dunes in the entire world and one is right here in Doha.

 

Katie scales the dunes, January 2013

 

Soul-replenishing, mind-refreshing, a wonder of the natural world.

 

But not necessarily pretty.  The way to the dunes is a vehicle locked highway that funnels into an under-construction, single lane road teeming with concrete and steel laden 6, 9 and18 wheelers.  Every day, all day, these trucks caravan purposefully into the nothing-out-there…and back again.  Electrical towers, wires and pipe march across the sand and rock as far as the eye can see.   Disintegrating (not-ancient-since-Bedouins-lived-in-tents) mud like structures dot the landscape along with facility compounds and an ocean sized field of totaled cars.

 

whatever did you think they did with all those crashed-out vehicles anyway?

 

And the dunes themselves?

 

dear foreigner - clean up after yourself!

 

I avoid the traffic heavy highway by diverting through Al Wakra with its beautiful new hospital, strip malls and oyster sculpture:

 

Oysters, pearl divers, the sea - cornerstones of Qatar's history

 

I drive through Al Wakeer, with its salt-resistant eucalyptus trees, mosques, and grocery after grocery named Al Wakeer Grocery.

 

 

 

English spelling varies but it's the same name in Arabic

 

At the last roundabout, I tuck my SUV between a rumbling concrete truck and a flatbed and stay there.  (Passing is dangerous!) The exit to the dunes is unmarked and hidden behind heavy red and yellow barriers.  There's no buffer between the thundering highway's "here" and the quiet behind the fence "there."

 

But with the turn, as long as I ignore the traffic behind me, look past the discarded tires, band of power lines and horizon-to-horizon stretch of pipe…

 

I am alone.

 

 

The dunes look out of place in the rocky desert…like the sky rained a giant cat box in an area without cats to scatter it.  Still, there's something special about the composition of these particular mountains of crescent shaped, golden, curving, rolling, circling, soft, silky grains.

 

Under the right conditions, the sand sings.

 

at the crest - listening

 

Climbing the dunes is strenuous.  Wind whips the sand into a frenzy around me, pricks my skin, burns my eyes.  Sand is in my hair, teeth, ears, nose, underwear.  Grit chafes my middle. Flies buzz my head.   I try to remember not to lick my lips (ick).

 

A stray Cheetos bag tumble-flips across the dune's face.  A Coca-Cola bottle and scattered charcoal give away the landmark's popularity.  Mounds of rock and wind-swept pockets of deep untouched sand seem to indicate no one's camped out here for a while.   A helicopter circles twice and I wonder if there's a reason for that.

 

Just below the crest, I sink into the warm grains to hide from the punishing wind.  Granules patter over the dune's lip and collect at its foot in a frothy, tan-hued foam.  I dig my fingers deep to where the sand is cold.  It smells wet.

 

With the wind's help, the dune is constantly in motion - moving slowly across the desert one grain at a time.   When conditions are right, the skittering flecks hum, like an airplane preparing for takeoff. The sand can be manipulated into song too.

 

I dig my heels into the warm and pull my body forward.  The mountain moans.  I scoot across the face of the dune, faster and faster.  Sand pours over my hips, rushes across my legs.

 

Slow and low, a cello's swelling D-note…the sand sings. Thrumming, humming, moaning, roaring, groaning, growling, engine soaring.

 

Magic.

 

 

I Have a Dream...

through the rear window of the car in front of me - where's the light?

 

…where I die while parked at a red light.  Cars stream past in long lines, honking horns, flashing brights, cutting in, out and around my stalled vehicle for years and years until the SUV disintegrates into a rusted heap, mixes with my dry bones and rides a sandstorm to far, far away.

 

Traffic is ever worse in Doha. (Click here to see what driving in Doha looks like.)

 

"Cindi, you must ask your husband, WHEN will Mshiereb project finish?" say the Ladies at Fanar, only half joking.

 

An important stretch of road sealed for the project means increased traffic around the Cultural Center, tie-ups on the Corniche, waiting through three (or more) green-back-to-red lights.  Long, slow rides to work, students late for class, fender-benders -- and worse.

 

Mshiereb at dusk - cranes over giant hole

 

While it's true this one massive project slows movement around town…it's not the only monster on the block.

 

All over the city, there is construction.  Streets dotted with cones, lined with concrete dividers, interrupted by big-bodied cranes, loaders, lifters, scrapers, shovelers. Trucks brimming with concrete and steel rumble alongside buses full of workers.  Slow moving Toyotas stuffed with impossibly-awkward, intently worrisome trundles of "rebar" and heavy flatbeds crammed with pyramids of brick and stone compete for road space with moms in minivans, businessmen in BMWs and Suburbans full of bouncing children (seatbelts not required), while ladies in niqab (ie, only eyes visible) wearing sunglasses drive Explorers and McDonalds deliverymen dart about on motorcycles.

 

In Doha, traffic surges just one way with a green light. This means only one quadrant of an intersection moves at a time.  A light may remain green up to 5-10 minutes - a lifetime if you drank a bottle of water half an hour ago but nowhere near long enough if you're 200 cars from the front of a blocked intersection.

 

Entering and exiting a roundabout is like dancing into a game of double dutch - maneuvering into the space between two moving ropes without breaking rhythm and crashing (a street game when I was a kid, now a bonafide sport):

 

 

There are no shortcuts either - traffic blocks alleyways and back roads just as it clogs the city's major arteries.  Most of the time you're better off putting the car into park, chain-chewin'-you-some-gum and waiting for the dance to begin:

 

Jump Rope Rhyme for a Doha Roundabout

 

Roundabout Roundabout let me in

Goin' to The Pearl to drink some gin

If I should die before the light:

passing is prohibited on the right.

 

Got a frustrated-in-traffic rhyme? Share, please.

 

Four Days, One Mistake

I messed up.  But not until the last day.

 

Bob got four days, 96 hours OFF:  No traffic. No yellow vests or steel-toed boots. No stacks of "packages" with the ever-cheerful "Must Be Reviewed Yesterday" stickers.  No no-work-talk-allowed-by-unspoken-agreement lunches, "tea boys" bearing coffee or surprise visits from plan-wielding contractors.  Go, they said.  Play. Rest. Relax.

 

With a little pressure from The Wife, Bob decided to do what few others did: stay in town.  No planes to catch, money to exchange, rising early to make the short lines.  Instead, we'd sleep, watch movies, drink, eat. Drive into the country.  See stuff Bob couldn't normally see because everything's closed on Friday - his only day off.

 

But…Relax?  This is a language Bob speaks only sporadically.
 

Searching for Relax

'

We started out slow by sleeping in:

 

Inland Sea camping the weekend before :)

 

And moved on to exploring, discovering, beach-finding:

 

men wear swimsuits, but women who cover dress in abayas, even at the beach

 

We saw weird stuff:

 

kit-copter?

 

Checked out heritage sites:

 

follow the signs

 

Toured Zubarah Fort

 

undergoing restoration: among the few full forts remaining here

 

and Film City, a (mostly) historically accurate walled town created for a television show (JOE BRING A PROJECT TO DOHA) built in an isolated area at the heart of the peninsula, surrounded by sand, rock and a natural oasis (difficult to find unless it's in your gps):

 

Film City: SERIOUSLY COOL

 

Wandered this wide expanse of empty-appearing desert:

 

think about it: where you gonna pee?

 

Met camels (we're told there are wild camels in the desert, although we haven't seen any...yet):

 

Saliva drenched kiss, yum

 

And watched nighttime crowds promenade from our balcony.

 

The Pearl: a great place to walk, sight-see, meet & greet

 

And on the last day, a holiday highlight: Missouri's own Adorable Super Couple, Curtis and Mary Gentile joined us at the Pearl's little beach for sun, fun, friendship, good conversation.

 

Are they beautiful or what??

 

Sun shone.  Water glittered.  West Bay's tall, twisted, uniquely shaped towers watched from the horizon.  Bob left his shady place under the umbrella, picked up a floaty…and entered the water.

 

He paddled.  He floated.  He slept. He…relaxed.

 

There are no pictures because I didn't bring my camera; OOPS and DARNIT!!  But I'm not sorry; I'm not! Because I relaxed too.

 

Awwww