I'm BACK!!! XD

Dear Lord...I'm so happy to be back in Malaysia. Syukur Alhamdulillah....

The Umrah journey was..quite unexpecting. I mean...well, let's just say that I have mixed feelings for it. Don't get me wrong. I love visiting Masjidil Haram, the Kaabah, makam2 Rasulullah and his fellow friends etc. But staying in Makkah for 5 days and Madinah for 3 days...it just made me realized how grateful I should be that my country's weather is not as dry as Saudi Arab...IT WAS FREAKING DRY!!!!!

On the first day, we reached Jeddah at about 1 or 2 am (Arab local time..it's 5 hours earlier than Malaysia time) and went off to Makkah. There, we ate supper/breakfast and went straight to do umrah. It was really tiring and was certainly unexpected, especially with so many people doing the umrah as well. The next day (or should I say later that day), we went to Tana'im to start our next umrah, but on the way back, I started to have bleeding nose --_--|| Just my luck... So my parents told me to stay in the hotel.

On the third day, we went for the third umrah (or for me, it was the second). My dad was curious about me skipping the second umrah, even though I did the niat and all, so he asked the ustaz that was in charge of our group at dinner. Little did we know, I'm still in debt to do another umrah. Otherwise, we have to pay the dam RM350+ to slay a lamb....yes, imagine how HUGE it is if I didn't do another umrah. Thank goodness the next day we quickly did the umrah, which means it was the fourth for my family, but the third for me. But ustaz said it's already enough because we only have five days in Makkah.

My dad, who never thought of doing it in his previous visits here, was somewhat encouraged to touch Hajarul Aswad while doing tawaf sunat after knowing that one in our group had done it, so he tried about three times. Luckily, when it was Isyak time, he solat right in front of it. It was thanks to a couple of Arab men who called him to sit next to them. When he came back, the smell of Hajarul Aswad on his sleeve and right hand spread throughout the room. And boy, it smelled really nice. I couldn't remember the last time he was that excited on achieving something.

So the next day we went off to Madinah. It was about 480km from Makkah to Madinah, equivalent to 5 hours of journey on bus. It was damn long, so we stopped at this one small masjid. I was expecting more from Saudi Arab but...it seems that even our country, a third world country, is even better than that first or second world country (May Allah bless you, Tun Dr. Mahathir). The public toilets were even worse than ours!! I don't mean to exaggerate here, but keep that in mind if you are about to go Umrah or Haji.

Even in Madinah, we thought we were going to sleep in 5-star hotel. But according to ustaz, their 5-star hotels are like our 3 or 4-star hotels. And yes, he was right. And our room was considered a suite, but to us, it's just like a normal room. But at least it was better than the hotel in Makkah where we stayed. According to ustaz, it was said that the dusts in Madinah can heal any sickness. In fact, when we arrived there, the air smelled better (though I can't blame Makkah because it was under construction at that time). But when I got into the hotel, I was suddenly attacked by flu. Jeez....first the bleeding nose, now the flu... Thank God my mom brought many tissue pockets.

The food that was served in Makkah was better than in Madinah. But my mom said, "Would you rather have better food or better bed?", because we can always buy kebabs. Talking about kebabs, be it in Makkah or Madinah, they're not bad at all. They're not as oily as ours - in fact, there was a lot of herbs and veggies put into them (that explains why so many Arabians don't have blood pressure or cholesterol problems, no matter how fat they are). And the ice-creams....DANG!!! It's the kind where I would really call them ice-cream, because it's made out of fresh cream. In Makkah, we had mixed flavour, one cup for 2 Rial (RM2...and it's quite a lot for a RM2 ice-cream!) In Madinah I the vanilla/chocolate ice-cream once, hence the stupid flu.

Strangely though, there were a lot of import food in Arab, with most of them from Europe. I guess they're quite quality-control when it comes to food, hence since they're living in the desert.

But one thing that ticks me off there, are the people. Not the Arabians (they're quite nice if you ask me), but the foreigners, especially the Pakistan people. I thought our people are a bit rude, but boy, they're one of the most uncivilised people I'd ever seen! Okay, I know that not all Pakistanis are like that, but seriously - who would take their wudu' from the zam zam drinking water place?? Who would sleep in a masjid for so long like a sleeping buddha?? Who would shoo you away from them when there's a lot of space next to them?! And who the HELL would push you every time they walked past you or when we're supposed to queue to get the air zamzam?!?! I'm talking about those Pakistani old ladies, people!!! Grr...I'll stop here, even though there's more to it than you could ever imagine.

So there you have it, for now. I'm still having the stupid flu, and it really ticks me off since I haven't been sick for a long time. I enjoyed the ibadat, even though it was tiring, but I definitely didn't enjoy the weather and some of the foreign people there. Thank you God for giving our country the peace that we need, and thank you God for giving us the perfect weather. Amin...

PS: I forgot to mention that all of my sickness were mostly based on the pill I took. I was supposed to have, er, that time of month, so I took the 'family perancang' pill. I think the girls will understand what I'm saying ;)