Originally Posted by niggardly

For my own knowledge, why is everyone saying 20quid a beer? UAE is around 30 to 50 AED a beer, is Doha really 90QR a beer?
I literally just checked a well known bar, prices look the same as Dubai?

doha.intercontinental.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Menu-board-Belgian-eng-preview.pdf

Also i've heard people saying QR is more expensive, how true is this?

Originally Posted by DXBtoDOH

And Dubai faces the sunset, so I saw the amazing sunsets every night from my apartment balcony.

Originally Posted by DXBtoDOH

I'd had a pretty good social life in the UAE. Beaches, camping, Oman trekking trips, easy (and cheap) flights everywhere for minibreaks. The UAE, especially Dubai, offers a much higher quality of life and amenities. I'd had a blast going to cheap curry houses in Karama and then heading to the Marina for the bars, or exploring the dive bars of Deira. Dubai is a fascinating place of multiple communities. And Dubai faces the sunset, so I saw the amazing sunsets every night from my apartment balcony.

Moving to Qatar was taking a huge step back in quality of life. It's more of a hardship posting on many levels, although in my two years there things were slowly getting better in terms of supermarket and dining amenities. Doha is very small compared to Dubai, it's very limited, your whole social life will revolve around the same half dozen bars, there's virtually nothing outside the city, the only beaches are either a hour north of Doha or a rather rough beach on the Pearl that is for residents only. It's far dustier and far less green than Dubai. Qatar abuts the Empty Quarter so we had many more dust storms and perpetually dusty days than the UAE. Once you get out of the very thin veneer that is the corniche it's more Baghdad. Even the nicer parts like West Bay and Pearl are crap compared to the Marina or Downtown. The expat crowd is much smaller as well.

It's not inherently bad. I did well out of Qatar financially, in part because it was much easier to save money and live frugally in Doha. Even the top brunches were 20% or so cheaper. Apartments were cheaper. There's a lot of cheap furnished apartments and it's feasible to live in dull and boring Sadd in a cheap flat and only be 10 minutes from West Bay by taxi on weekends. I lived in a flatshare in a West Bay tower with other expats my age and it was fine (a surprising number of expats in their 30s-40s flatshare in Qatar because they're there to save and Qatar really isn't the place where it's worth living extravagantly). I never bothered owning a car and took taxi/ubers everywhere and because Doha is quite compact, they were cheap. And I met people and we had plenty of weekend bar trips to keep life ticking along.

If you have the mindset that Qatar is a 2-3 year posting, live/work in West Bay/Pearl, spend all your time between the two, accept having a simple quiet life, take lots of holidays, then the time will fly by quickly and you can leave with a big pile of cash. The embargo was a right pain in the neck because it ended the cheap 45m flights to Dubai and going through Oman is time consuming and expensive. You won't do it as often as you think.

Having said the above, Doha is not Dubai 10-15 years ago. I first came to Dubai in 2008 and Doha is still nothing like Dubai. It's largely because of the mindset. It's not the same. Qatar is much more conservative, you are clearly much more a temporary expat. There were a few upsides. I liked the souk area and there's a large new extension of it that's well done. The museums are quite decent and worth visiting periodically. And I liked the money in the savings account at the end of the day.

Originally Posted by niggardly

Best mate, you know me as IBCG - which towers or areas do you recommend? The employer has already said to go Pearl. I always have the opinion of getting a serviced hotel is better. Looks more expensive at first, but when you add dewa (Qatar version), internet, furniture, less risk of 12 month contract etc it cheaper in the longer ruin

Originally Posted by niggardly

Hey martrinbbk.

Could you explain your visa entrance? Did you already have a residence permit? or a piece of paper to start your visa? If the 1st, whats the rules on the entrance to qatar with only the visa paper (legit forgot what its called)