Bring a sweatshirt and jeans for the wintertime, but otherwise you will be fine in light summer clothes. Qatar has a relaxed dress code, but you should still cover up shoulders and not wear skirts or trousers that are too short or transparent. In your compound, on the beach or by the pool, swimming costumes, shorts and even bikinis are quite okay. This dress code goes for both, men and women. Children can get away with virtually anything. (Don’t they always.)

Talking about compounds – compounds were built for workers to provide them with housing coupled with facilities like swimming pools, tennis and squash courts, and gyms and play areas. A few years back, those facilities very simply not available outside compounds. Nowadays all the sports facilities are available in the clubs dotted throughout Doha and thus there is a choice of either living on a compound or in single villas. For families like ours, compound life is great, as on most compounds you can send the kids outside to play safely and there are always some friends around. Compound sizes range from small (e.g. 5 villas plus one pool) to very large with even their own supermarket inside, some even have regular school buses commuting to all the major schools.

Schools in Doha are about as ubiquitous as the camels are just outside the town. There is at least one school catering for each nationality available. Most popular are probably DESS (Doha English Speaking School), which follows the British curriculum and only employs British trained teachers, Doha College, which is the follow-on, and the American School, the American equivalent to DESS. All schools charge quite substantial fees, so see if you can get the fees paid for in your work contact.

Getting around Doha is very easy if you are lucky enough to have been provided with a driver or flag down the ever-present orange and white taxis. Driving your self is quite a challenging undertaking and I have met a few people that point blank refuse to drive here, but once you taken the first step, it can be adrenaline-arousing fun. Once you arrive in Qatar you can drive on your British license for the first seven days, after that you need to get a local license. This usually just involves some paperwork and a simple eye test, but sometimes, luckily only very seldom, it involves a driving test. This test, quite notoriously, has you reversing most of the way around a set course and specialises in parallel parking. A number of expats have previously been reduced to tears by this test, especially considering that nobody on the road seems to care about rules and regulations and certainly not about any parking etiquette. Currently there is a government ‘drive’ highlighting the importance of seatbelts and speed limits, but it has not noticeably changed anything but the number of police cars on the road. This, on the other hand is of an advantage when (not if) you are involved in an accident, because anywhere in the Gulf you are required to leave the cars involved in an accident exactly were the are (even in the middle of a roundabout), until the police turns up and surveys the scene. If you move either car, the insurance will not pay up.

The cost of living is comparable to Britain, however, your salary being paid to you tax free, does generally soften the blow considerably. You can get virtually everything in Doha, and lots more than you might be used to, because the supermarkets do not only stock British brands but also American, Asian and other European brands, so the variety is great. Fruit and veg are cheaper if bought in bulk at the market and items like material for clothes are cheaper in the souqs, but otherwise western shops are good for everything. There even is a Marks & Spencer’s, Debenhams, BHS, Next and lots more. When in one of the substantial shopping malls, you could easily forget where you are, were it not for the Arabic families in traditional dishdash (men’s long white robe) and abayas (ladies’ black gown with matching headscarf and facemask).Your free time is well catered for with all possible sport available, if not on your compound then in a club. For the children there are fun malls and Palmtree Island, an island in the middle of Doha bay, offering anything from camel and pony rides to beaches. We joined one of the many clubs, which work on a membership only basis and offer places to socialise, partake in sports, restaurants and libraries and much more. For the weekends there are groups that regularly drive outside Doha to visit beaches, sand dunes, local forts and the Inland Sea. The Inland Sea is an inlet in the south of Qatar, which offers spectacular sand dunes, great spots for scuba diving and even flamingoes. The other weekend we went out with the National History Group to the salt flats and dug for ‘desert roses’, a very beautiful crystal like formation, made up of gypsum and salt.

Healthwise, everything is available in Doha. For just 100 Riyals (approximately $15.00) you can obtain a health card from your local health center, that covers you for all doctors and hospital emergencies with only a small excess to be paid by yourself. If you know what you are looking for, you can actually buy most major medicines, even antibiotics, over the counter of the pharmacies, no questions asked. I have yet to make up my mind, whether that is a good or a bad idea.

There is a distinctive advantage to Doha being a relatively small city; say compared with Dubai, as there is a real family atmosphere around the place. It is rare that I go out to the supermarket or a mall without bumping into one or two familiar faces. Qatar is currently trying to drum up tourist business, but apart from a lot of very plush hotels being built, tourism is very much in its infancy, if it has got that far yet. Live here is good, absolutely marvelous for children, and you really could get a lot worse appointments. So, if it is Qatar you are heading off to next, look forward to it!

For further information on Qatar, try the following web sites:

• www.waiviata.com.au
• www.geocities.com/shabah_88/qatarp.html
• www.qatar-info.com
• www.dess.org
• www.dohacollege.com

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