2nd entry. the truth behind my jetlag excuse.

Forgive me for my ignorance. Everybody else turns up in jubah or baju melayu. But me, hah. My brother told me up that i was dressed up to go to club rather than going to mecca

Dear mdm maryam, yes, you. Im sorry i submitted this assignment later than the deadline. I was not lying about me having a jetlag. Really. This is my story. I went to Saudi last raya holidays. So u ask me (actually all of us) to write anything and send it to you. Well, i don’t like to share my life stories unlike some people but here it goes. This is the second time we are going. We left for Jeddah on the 7^th. It was an afternoon flight. 8 hours. I was there at the airport early. 24 hours early. My family came from Kelantan on the morning flight. I waited for them to come. I slept at the airport. Yes.

Oh. I love Malaysia.

So, i’ll just skip the boring part which involves a beautiful stewardess, inflight entertainment and crappy airplane food. We arrived in Jeddah around 11pm local time. We went straight for madinah because we could not stay in mecca as it was still ramadhan and mecca is flooded with people. Too many that we did not manage to get ourselves a hotel room. Madinah was beautiful. The first time i saw masjid nabawi, i was speechless. It was extraordinary, not the thing u see everyday. I’m not that good at describing stuff either. So bear with me here.

Just look at it. Its a magnificent edifice. Beats the klcc anytime.

One thing that i learn about arab people that they can actually eat anywhere they want. Like seriously. They can just sit in circle in the middle of the traffic and eat dinner. Arab food was okay. I love the chicken sherwama. Simple, cheap and tasty.

See. Told yah. I wonder if this is possible in Malaysia.

My daily routine changed drastically while i was there. I spend most of my time going to the mosque. Reciting the quran, solat sunat and fardhu. Back at the hotel room, I will sleep. We all do. The temperature was hot. Around 44 degrees during the day and around 36 degrees at night.

I’ve never seen this much people for buka puasa my whole life. The Saudi government and many other independent organizations sponsor food. Kfc, nasi beriani. Just name it. It’s there.

We celebrated hari raya in madinah. For the very time in my life, i stayed at the mosque from subuh until the raya prayers =) it was well, A bedlam actually. People waited for the prayers on the sidewalk and even on the streets. I manage to secure a place inside the mosque compound(lucky me). In Saudi Arabia, everyone sleeps after subuh. They stayed up all night. The mall and shops closes around subuh. So, there’s pretty much no hari raya nuance there. I had bee hoon goreng for hari raya breakfast. Blergh.

Yea yea. Duit raya time.

The next day, we went to mecca. The journey took about 5 to 6 hours. I spend most of the time sleeping as we were all in our ihram. Mecca is one big city. The masjidil haram is the center of mecca. There’s construction all over the place. In front of the main gate of the mosque, stands the all new(still under construction) zam zam tower, the newest addition to mecca’s landmarks.  6 of its lower floor is a high class mall and on top, the for towers are luxury 5 stars hotels.

If you pray, let say zohor at home. You will get one reward. And if you pray at the mosque, jemaah, you will get 27. And me, praying at masjidil haram, i will get 2.7 million rewards.

And there’s the zam zam tower.

 

We stayed in mecca for a week.  I didn’t do much sightseeing. i spend most of my time at the mosque. I shall end this post with more pictures. Bye.

Oh yes, there were camels.