The first thing which comes to my mind about Qatar are the roundabouts. What is a roundabout? A roundabout is the name for a road junction in which the traffic moves in one direction around a central island. The traffic entering the roundabout must always yield to the traffic already in the roundabout. That means the vehicles already in the roundabout have a higher priority than the vehicles waiting to enter it. What i have noticed is that the roundabout is very useful in low traffic times. The vehicles need not wait for the traffic signals. But during high traffic times there is a huge wait to enter the roundabout and problems in leaving the roundabout to any direction.
This was my first visit to any of the Gulf countries. I was planning for a desert ride to the sand dunes. I was expecting nice sand all over. But I didn't see sand anywhere in Qatar. All the places are desert only, but instead of sand i could see a type of mud which has major percentage of limestone. You can also see many types of limestone formations in many parts of Qatar. I understood that Qatar doesn't have sand dunes except in Umm-Said. Moreover its very sad that i didn't see even a single camel in Qatar in whole of my ride from Doha in the Eastern coast to Dukhan in the Western coast.
The Qatari economy was based on pearl trading and fishing till the abundance of oil and natural gas was discovered in her soil. Now Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world. Qatar Petroleum is the national organisation which controls the oil wells. It has off-shore as well as on-shore oil wells. The most famous on-shore oil wells being in Dukhan. The first on-shore oil well in Dukhan was dug in 1930s. Petroleum products is one of the cheapest stuff available in Qatar. You can get petrol for as cheap as 0.85 dirhams (INR 12 dated Dec 2011).
There are not much places to visit in Qatar. But there are lot of malls, shopping places and souqs where you can spend time. But they are not so cheap compared to other countries. Bachelors are not allowed in some malls on Fridays as its the time when Arab families visit the malls. Taxi and house rent are costly affairs. House rent will be a minimum of 5000QR for a well furnished apartment in Doha. Almost all people in Qatar own a car. I think its because of the low fuel charges and its actually cheaper to own a car than using public transport. Buses are available but not to all routes. Food is cheap when compared to the income you get working in Qatar. You can easily find cheap restaurants where you can get any cuisine food at reasonable price.
There are not much places to visit in Qatar. But there are lot of malls, shopping places and souqs where you can spend time. But they are not so cheap compared to other countries. Bachelors are not allowed in some malls on Fridays as its the time when Arab families visit the malls. Taxi and house rent are costly affairs. House rent will be a minimum of 5000QR for a well furnished apartment in Doha. Almost all people in Qatar own a car. I think its because of the low fuel charges and its actually cheaper to own a car than using public transport. Buses are available but not to all routes. Food is cheap when compared to the income you get working in Qatar. You can easily find cheap restaurants where you can get any cuisine food at reasonable price.
The telecom providers available in Qatar now are Q-Tel and Vodafone. Q-Tel dominates the telecom grid and has network all over the country. But the call rates of Q-Tel is little high compared to Vodafone. ISD rates are lesser compared to the rates in India. Calls to India are cheap as 0.65QR/min. But the paradox lies in the fact that local calls cost 0.55QR/min in place of 1p/sec in India. Vodafone offers better call rates compared to Q-Tel, but with a trade off of bad network. But its reasonable to use Vodafone if you are not gonna leave Doha to any other place in Qatar.
People who are visiting Qatar. Feel Qatarish and have a nice time in Qatar.
