February 2012
5 posts
New country: Oman
Notes on first impressions:
Great variety of landscapes compared to Qatar’s flat desert plains. Muscat is surrounded by mountains and there are plenty of green trees within the city.
The overall feel is that of a relaxed beach resort town, where people seem less focused on consumerism than most of their GCC neighbours.
Omanis have ‘normal’ jobs, e.g. as taxi drivers (in fact,...
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New report finds people in Qatar have a lot of... →
Ya don’t say
dohanews:
In perhaps not surprising news for some, a report from Doha Bank finds that Qatar has a lot of money.
Specifically though, it says 8.9% of households in the country have $1 million or more in assets, Gulf Times reports. The newspaper adds that this would put Qatar in third place for highest density of millionaires in the world, after Singapore and Switzerland.
...
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January 2012
17 posts
The office is empty today because my boss and one colleague are on a business trip to Muscat, Oman. I was meant to have accompanied them, but couldn’t because my passport is stuck in immigration awaiting the change of sponsor and visa renewal. So here in Doha I stay.
I took the opportunity to have a working breakfast at Coffee Bean, to clear my head and gather my thoughts properly for the...
“They say that the human smile is in fact one of those primordial things — that...”
– http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/christopher-walken-0609?hootPostID=a53c34fe39cc86637f5843bed833bf28 (via edwardsanders)
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“Well I don’t care what people say
Life is too short to hang around
So I...”
“The challenge of breaking up is to close the relationship definitively and...”
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Fast fwd five months and here we are...
I was just rereading my last post about arriving back in Doha from last summer’s trip to China.
http://sjmanniex.tumblr.com/post/9734503495/doha-stuck-in-the-sands-both-literally
It’s strange to read about how I felt back then, because things now have changed quite dramatically. Life suddenly picked up the pace, shortly after I wrote that last post in September 2011. I haven’t...
September 2011
5 posts
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Doha: Stuck in the sands (both literally &...
I landed back in Doha as Eid al-Fitr was beginning to mark the end of the month-long fast.
At 6am the airport was almost deserted, just as the Hong Kong one had been when I had departed at 2am the day before. The only travellers around were a few gaggles of Bangladeshi migrant workers, freshly arrived in Doha for a long stint of slavery on the city’s many construction sites.
Sigh.
I...
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August 2011
29 posts
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Rickshaw Rage: Beijing
It was just any old night out in Sanlitun.
My friend and I had been having a quiet drink and catching up on the day’s events.
When we were ready to leave, there was the usual annoyance of bargaining with the cluster of taxis and rickshaws that hung about on the street corner. Many of them were asking for ridiculous prices that some unwitting tourists no doubt would pay.
But not us.
We...
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August 7-8, Shenzhen to Beijing (via Tianjin and a...
I left Shenzhen by train on Sunday night. Despite the immense shortage of sleeper tickets for trains to the north, I was able to buy a hard sleeper to Tianjin. Fortunately Tianjin is only about an hour and a half from Beijing by road. It’s by far the best option when transport directly to the capital is fully booked.
The train journey was long, uneventful and uncomfortable. I had a hard bed...
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August 6 - 7, 'stuck' in Shenzhen
The next two days were pleasant if uneventful.
I stayed in a cheap but clean hotel in a random street of Luohu District, Shenzhen. The hotel was only 130 yuan (£13 approx) per night, but it had a powerful hot shower, good a/c and functioning internet connection. I don’t really need more than that.
I spent my time in Shenzhen wandering around speaking Chinese, eating, and exploring the...
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August 5, by train to Guangzhou & Shenzhen
I left Quarry Bay early this morning to catch the Kowloon-Canton Express to Guangzhou, in mainland China. A typically convenient Hong Kong bus took me from Chung Wah’s front door directly to Hung Hom station. Once there, I bought a ticket for the next train and settled down to wait for it with coffee and bacon roll (oh bacon, I’ve missed you so much in Doha!). The train was clean and...
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August 4, Lamma Island
My last full day in Hong Kong dawned bright and sunny. This would be a fine chance to escape from the city and do some hiking in the outlying islands. I chose car-free Lamma Island; easy to reach by fast ferry and with a clearly defined hiking trail that I could cover in a couple of hours. Bonus: a beautiful beach halfway along the route.
I arrived on Lamma with a whole ferry load of tourists....
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August 3, Tsim Sha Tsui & Causeway Bay
Up early this morning. Chung Wah was passed out on the living room tatami. My first mission: CTS (China Travel Services), to apply for my visa to China. There was a delay on the MTR, so I took a taxi. Hong Kong taxis are strange and somehow don’t fit with the modern cosmopolitan style of the city. The drivers are usually from the older generation of Hong Kongers and rarely speak anything...
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August 2, Doha to Hong Kong
Ugh, flying. :(
I popped a diazepam for the takeoff and the rest of the flight was fine, the only problem was my seat mate, a middle aged Western man who just could not keep still. He wriggled and shifted around in his seat for most of the flight, constantly invading my personal space with his feet and elbows. Not fun. But a melatonin pill combined with my industrial strength earplugs helped me...
