Honking the horn in Doha

During my now two weeks in Doha I've noticed quite a few small interesting things about the culture here. One thing is that people take their cars everywhere!

The concept of having a bike doesn't exist here, mostly because the gas is cheaper than water (!!!) and it's way too warm to bike. The combination of a crazy traffic situation and a large number of expatriates also result in many choosing to get a private driver, which isn't too expensive here. I've chosen to do so, before getting familiar with the streets and traffic here.

So, the streets in Doha are really overcrowded. People use the car horn for everything -- Move!, Want a ride?, What's up?, Five cups of tea, please.

What five cups of tea, you say!? Yeah, because the streets are overcrowded and there's no room to park, people and the shops on the streets got used to take in-car-orders everywhere. So, if you honk the horn outside a tea shop and gesture "two" to them, they'll come out with two cups of tea which you then pay for from the car. Cars that you block in the middle of the street simply have to wait, but they might honk the horn to you a couple of times ;)

So, coming to Doha you really need to learn speaking the honk-the-horn language here.