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Qrossing to Qatar

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I am intrigued by borders, boundaries, particularly those of states or nations. What does the border crossing tell of a country's character. or its attitude toward its neighbor? At the key Saudi-Qatari road crossing, the Saudi border post appears to be about 30 years old, with little maintenance. The guard perfunctorily stamped our passport and waved us through. At the true boundary, the highway suddenly became a 4-lane new blacktop perfectly surfaced roadway. The customs building is bright and new, with bilingual directional signs. Another pleasant surprise: the passport clerk was female! After inspecting passports, driver's license, registration, she diverted us to the office where we had to pay visa-fees of QAR100 ($27.50) each. Again, pristine, modern surroundings. Later, another fee: QAR100 for a week of car insurance -- curiously, he first quoted a price of QAR160, then said "oh, just 100" without explanation. Border lesson: Qatar is new, modern, and more expensive. Driving on another hour of new smooth swift 4-lane highway, past a long line of sewage tanker trucks returning from a landfill near the border. We saw the same long queue when driving out of Qatar a few days later, so it is a major effort that makes one wonder about their waste-handling capabilities in the future. My earlier google-maps investigation of the location of our hotel, the Retaj Residence Al-Sadd assured me of simple directions -- just follow the main road from the Saudi border into town. Big construction works detoured us onto a service road, then rush-hour traffic, then a mysterious 15-minute stoppage, then I attempted a detour into more construction and one-way streets and road-closings... one hour later we finally drove past the google-map-indicated point: nothing there. Phone number from my Expedia reservation? not in service! Coleman called his classmate now living in Doha, who claimed to know our hotel and gave us directions. Coleman also compared various numbers, deduced that Doha recently added an extra number 4 to all phones, and retried with success...the desk clerk pointed us in a different direction, finally arriving exhausted at 6:30. Lesson1: Doha is under construction; Lesson2: you will get lost--few streets are straight for long, streetnames change, and signs typically point to neighborhoods, not streetnames; Lesson3: always call ahead to the hotel to confirm location.
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Location: Hamad Medical City, Doha, Qatar

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