Makkah, 7-8 August 2007

View from 2nd floor of Masjidil Haram,after Fajr prayer.

Alhamdulilah we all sefamily dapat buat umrah sekali lagi last weekend. This time we all convoy dengan family mus/dina and Meor/zura. There were 11 kids altogether so the kids had lots of fun this time :-)

Malaysians kat sini normally travel to Makkah on weekends. We will start our journey on Wednesday nite about 9pm. Makkah is about 800km from Riyadh and the journey will take about 8 hrs if you are driving abt 140km per hr. 140 speed kat sini kira dah slow...most cars on the highway pecut like 180, maklum la kereta power semuanya! Usually By fajr we will arrive at Taif and after our fajr prayers we will drive to Miqat-Sail Al Khabir untuk niat umrah. Then we proceed to Makkah (which is about 40 mins away), check in our hotel (which is usualy about 15mins walk to Masjidil haram) and proceed to do our umrah.

Highway into Makkah




Makkah town




We normally aim to start our umrah in the morning,the earlier the better as it is not that hot. This time we started at about 9am. However masa summer ni, pukul 8 pagi pun panas terik, so we just have to braced ourselves in the sun and quietly concentrate on the tawaf, instead of focusing on the heat. Syukur kali ni, masa buat tawaf, it was not that crowded therefore we completed our tawaf in about half and hour.

For Saie, we did it on the second floor this time. As masjidil haram is still on renovation, the ground floor is very crowded and filled with dust. This is the first time we did saie on the second floor, and to our surprise, it is very peaceful and cooling. Alhamdulilah we completed our saie nicely and the kids had the best time running between Marwah and safa and none of the kids complained they are tired!

Saie on the ground floor-the crowd reminds me of Hajj time


After we completed our tahlul, we treat the children (adult too, cant resist the temptation!)ice cream! Nothing beats the sweet cool sensation of having ice cream on a hot day!




The men posing with their oman kopiah - sempat shopping at night after isyak prayers.


Friday afternoon, we headed back to Riyadh. Along the highway Riyadh-Makkah-Riyadh and amist the desert there are a lot of petrol stations cum resting places. But before you go ahhh...do know that these so call rest areas are not like our R&R in Msia...kalau tak biasa, u cant even stand in front of the toilet! Sad to say hygine is not in their dictionary here..our motto, act as tho u smell nothing, see nothing!! Horror I tell you..kalau tak emergency memang tak pegi toilet. Tempat makan, are normally for singles only and they only serves drinks and nasi kabsa. There are only a few restaurants with family seating areas. But at night, tak ramai orang, so we ladies boleh la jugak lepak kat luar kedai, bersantai dengan angin dari padang pasir...

A typical petrol station/rest area. Petrol station kat sini tak canggih macam kat msia


Lepak kat luar kedai makan ala ala berpiknik gitu




Insyallah hope to go again for umrah during Ramadan or in the near future. One thing about Makkah, once you have been there, you want to go again and again... :-)