Before the trip, I went to Penang with hubby. On Saturday, I went to SIL's house. There's an informal gathering. On Sunday, there's a family event on my side of the family. Then we have a small kenduri which despite being small still have so many things that needs to be done. I'm really thankful my MIL helped a lot. After the kenduri, SILs helped with the dishes and cleaning up which I really appreciate too. Otherwise I'd be swarmed with cleaning up and packing the next day, just a day before our departure. Despite that, I still stayed up until 1:30 a.m. ironing clothes while hubby has reached the dream land. We woke up at about 5 a.m. and the airport limo driver called us at 6:30 a.m. I asked the driver to wait as we're about to perform our Subuh prayer and we did say 6:45 a.m. when we made the bookings earlier. In the rush to carry things and making sure we have everything covered since we're about to leave the house for 2 weeks, hubby's jacket hit a glass vase. It broke into thousand pieces but we have no time to deal with that right now so hubby just swept it to one place beside the cabinet. The last time I checked, it's still there hehehe...
09 April 2009 - Thursday
Reached KLIA at about 7:30 a.m. We went to look for ATM to withdraw some RM just in case we need more. I've changed some money the day before at quite a good rate. Looking at the exchange rate at KLIA, we better keep our RM. Our flight is at 11:30 a.m but we were told to gather near counter K by 8 a.m. By 8:30 a.m. we're still waiting for people from hubby's group. Alhamdulillah everything went well and we reached Bahrain at about 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. Bahrain time). That's 8 hours flight and I remember having to go to the washroom quite often. I can't remember what movie we watched in the flight. I dozed off in between meals and the movies.
In Bahrain, we performed Jamak Takdim for our Zohor and Asr prayer. The surau was very packed but I managed to find a space and pray. Just ignore the people walking over your shoulder or pass by or stand in front of you while you were praying. We're supposed to board the flight at 4:30 p.m. Bahrain time but we're still at the airport at 5:30 p.m. Hubby started feeling unwell. He felt cold every now and then. His forehead felt very hot to me. We walked around looking for a pharmacy. A 0.47 BD Panadol is equivalent to 5 SR. We look for a place quite far from our group for hubby to lie down. I was quite worried looking at hubby. I'm the 'selamba' type. Hubby's not. For him to lie down on the benches in a public place, he must be feeling very very unwell.
Hubby lying down at Bahrain airport.
Finally our flight arrived around 11 p.m. Malaysian time. We've been traveling for about 16 hours by now. It's so packed and people did not sit at the designated place. We were among the last to get in and there were the two front seat vacant as if reserved for us. We were very hungry by now. The meals were served, hubby took the Panadol, slept and felt better after that. The Gulf Air stewardess were not very friendly. They took a long time to clear our meals so we have to sit with the mess in front of us. I stacked our plates neatly so we only have 1 mess. If anyone of us has to go to the washroom then only hold one tray. Later the stewardess told us in a not so friendly tone that she can't clear our tray if stacked like that. Well, if you don't want people to mess with your tray you should have clear them earlier. Right! I didn't say it out loud of course. I hear similar comments from our group about how much better MAS is in terms of customer service. They deserve the award they received.
Beautiful view as we're landing at Jeddah airport.
Bahrain to Jeddah is about one and a half hour of flight journey. At Jeddah immigration counter, the Turkish were very rough. They don't bother with the queue. We were queuing when a group queue up next to us and pretend as if theirs is the proper queue. They rush to the counter and the very very slow officer who has been observing them while he took his own sweet time processing a guy's passport while the officer in the next counter has already finished with 6-7 people, told them to go and fill in the entry form. The whole group were sent away. I was secretly happy because of their attitude which also means faster processing for us. But I felt sorry for them too because there's a lady with a baby in that group. If only they were not so overbearing. So we managed to finish fast. My identity is my hubby's. The officer just glanced slightly towards me and ask for my Muhram so our passport were processed together. They took hubby's photo and fingerprints.
Everyone were asked to handover their passport after we leave the immigration area so we were wondering if that's the right procedure. Our travel agent representative met us and say it's OK they'll handle everything. We reached our bus at about 3 a.m. Malaysian time. We have another 8 hour journey by bus to reach Madinah. We stopped on the way to perform our Jamak Maghrib and Isya' prayer. The landmark is Lulu supermarket. Our coordinator prepared a packed meal so everyone just sit or stand to eat around the supermarket area. I took a packet thinking of sharing it with hubby but hubby said he's full. I don't feel like eating anyway so I put it back and just take a bottle of mineral water. We continue our journey after that and most of us fell asleep in the bus.
Lulu supermarket.
10 April 09 - Friday
Our hotel room.
We reached hotel at about 4 a.m. Madinah time. We gather at the hotel for taklimat and handling of keys while the hotel staff handles our luggage. Our room no is 305. We rest for a while, clean up and head to the mosque for prayer. Masjid Nabawi is only a short walking distance from our hotel. I felt awed and humbled to able to pray in the mosque even if its at the walkway near the zam-zam water container. We have nasi lemak for breakfast and gather at the hotel lobby by 7 a.m. for ziarah around the masjid area. It's a very short ziarah. The ladies were advice to try to get to Raudhah after that since it's opening time for ladies.
Once inside the mosque, we were segregated based on country. The lady guards would roughly know where you're from and would call "Ibu, Ibu, sini..." to Malaysians and Indonesians. The lady guards looked intimidating in their black abaya but if you look closer, they are very slim and young. Probably one of the criteria to be accepted to work there is they must have a loud voice. The Turks and Iranians were not the least bit intimidated by them. They would try to get around the guards but to no avail.
Masjid Nabawi entrance from our hotel.
We were the second last group to be allowed to enter the Raudhah. I'm very thankful and managed to perform solat sunat and do'a while in there. I have no idea what happen to the male in our group so I walked back to the hotel and called our room. Hubby's reached our room already. It's already past 11 a.m. when I reached our hotel.
We were told how lucky we were to be able to perform Friday prayer at 2 Masjidil Haram in our trip. So for Zohor, we went to the mosque as usual but the crowd was unbelievable. I tried to enter the mosque but the female guard did not allow saying it is very packed inside the mosque already. I should have gone out earlier but I didn't expect this. This morning for Subuh, I managed to get in despite being quite late. So I sit right outside the door with many other ladies who can't get in. There were a few ladies who tried and managed to get in. I was told by a young Pakistani lady who has been there for her Umrah trip the fourth time that they were Iranians of a certain mazhab who did not want to pray together with us. They wanted to pray in the mosque and then leave even before the khutbah. So I sit right outside the door doing Zikir while the female guards shouted in her loud voices trying to stop people from getting in while some Iranian and Turkish ladies still managed to go in and then we have to keep ourselves from getting trampled as they were leaving the mosque. I totally feel unsafe there. I can't really focus on the Khutbah with all the shouting and shuffling. During prayer, the Pakistani lady pulled me in so I managed to pray inside.
Hundreds of people after the Friday prayer.
I waited for hubby at the wrong place. I was getting worried as I see more and more people getting out from the mosque but no sign of hubby. For some reason, I can't call hubby but thank God I can SMS. Hubby came looking for me after that. We walked around for a while looking at shops before returning to hotel for lunch. Hubby started feeling feverish again after lunch. His body felt hot and he's shivering. So he took the panadol and rest. I put wet towel on his forehead and have to keep on washing the towel as it will not feel so cool after putting it on hubby's body. I went to the mosque alone for Asar prayer. This time I can get inside the mosque. The lady guards still stood outside every entrance door checking our bags for camera and camera phones. I didn't bring my camera. She couldn't find my handphone. I quickly return with a bottle of zam-zam water for hubby. After praying in the room, hubby lie down again. I continue putting wet towel on hubby's forehead and after a while, I make the mistake of lying down beside him. We feel asleep right up to Maghrib. Astaghfirullah. We performed our Maghrib prayer together in the room. Hubby felt better after the long rest. His body is cool to touch. Alhamdulillah.
View of the mosque at night.
We went to the mosque for Isya'. I managed to get inside, iktikaf before prayer. This time I could find hubby without any problem, we return to hotel for dinner and went out again to walk around and do some shopping. Other than the shops, there's also open market so we were spoilt for choices. In one of the shop, the shopkeeper said Malaysia... Turkey... while pointing to hubby and me. I smile and said," La! Malizia" In other shops, they would say Malaysia... Arab... while pointing to hubby and me :) I said the same thing. MasyaAllah they would say to hubby hehehe... My Arabic vocabulary is very limited. How I wish I paid more attention while I studied Arabic last time. Interestingly, some of the words I know, came to me one by one from memory. And as I was walking around, I can understand some of the road signs.
The open market.
We return to hotel at about 11 p.m. and fell asleep around 11:45 p.m. Hubby started feeling feverish again. He feels a little bit hot to me but not like in the afternoon. I jokingly told him maybe he's allergic to shopping. In the afternoon he felt feverish after shopping, now he felt the same way. Hubby's fine when we woke up for Subuh the next day. Thank God for that.
The original Masjid Nabi.
Here's the original mosque with the green dome enclosed within the grand new mosque building. From our hotel, we couldn't see this dome. We have to walk to the front of the mosque to see it. We can enter the mosque through so many entrance and there are entrance at all sides of the mosque. We were told last time the mosque were closed from midnite to 3 a.m. but now it's open for 24 hours. We can see people in and around the mosque all the time either praying, reading the Qur'an or just hanging around with their family members inside the mosque compound spending their time together, even having their meals there.
...to be continued.
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