Latest News From the Desert

I am still in a state of terminal shock at how this place is so different to my expectations. Today it was raining, not much admittedly, just sprinkling and just for about 5 minutes but i never expected to see cloudy miserable skies and cool windy conditions and this has been going on like this for the last 3 week. The terrible state of the driving is something i don't like, the indian drivers here are totally oblivious to anyone else on the road and really do some incredibly stupid stunts. They should all be made to stay in the camps down by the plant and not allowed to drive from Doha, that may sound pretty radical but it isn't a surprise to see the wrecked cars on the streets of Doha in a morning. The funniest thing i saw on my day of last friday was as i was walking passed a wrecked large engined nissan with the front end all stoved in and the rear end pounded and a wheel hanging off was the owner and the brother who had probably wrecked it pulling up and the owner looking at the state of his nice car, he was mortified and with what was a total write off. I wanted to laugh out loud, but he may have shot me or something equally horrible, i didnt want to tempt fate as i was going to the corniche which is the beach front road. As i was walking to the corniche i saw my colleague driving along and he picked me up and we went to a nice indian restaurant for lunch together. we had a nice spicy indian chicken thing and with a mountain of rice and no beer. The lunch was great and i then went on to the corniche, again another thing i am shocked about is you never see any local qataris, only indians and a few philipinos, the indians are all here alone and without a woman so they stare in a very ugly manner and are very irritating even for me to watch them, but they do everything here in Qatar. they really do everything as the qatari's do nothing as far as i can see. The government spread the money about to all the locals and screw the indian labourers with really poor salaries. I am drifting into a sad state of affairs with my working routine, i have to get up now at 5.15am and and get back from site at 7pm, i am feeling worn out with al the sitting about doing nothing and driving to and from work. so when i get back to the hotel i am just crashing out and eating an apple and then showering and sliding into bed for a 9.30pm lights out, this is the only way i am surviving the long day, plus if i was eating another meal at night i would be plonking the weight on, i am gaining weight with only 2 meals a day. The food in the restaurant on site is pretty good with a buffet you can choose anything from for only 18 Rials, which is about 4 Euros.
Life in the plant has just come to a grinding halt. they have some very serious issues with the gas lines coming from the new offshore platform and the lines are freezing up. this has shut the half tyhe plant down and we havent run very much for the entire trip of mine. this must be costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Which really doesnt bother me as it doesnt affect my incoime at all and to be honest i am not sure if i could work in this lifeless dusty hole full time as i had been talking about, it is just too lifeless and a real dusty desert hole.

we will see what comes along in the next couple of weeks while i am here and it also looks like i will be coming back for as second trip. but it is all money in the bank