Travelog Umrah Day 3

Last night was our first night sleeping at the hotel, because the night before we had straight away went for our Umrah. Early morning my father woke up for Subuh and I looked at my watch and agreed with him that's it's time to get moving. He decided to walk to the mosque and we will follow suit. Once downstairs I looked at my world clock on my phone and realised we had the wrong time. My father's body was still functioning at M'sian time and he had woke up according to M'sia time which is way too early for Subuh considering the 5 hours time difference. We went back to our rooms and 20 minutes later my father came back to the room realising his mistakes. I immediately change my watch to Saudi time and took another 3 hours sleep before we head to Masjidil Haram for Subuh.

By now we had already discovered another less congested route to exit and enter the Masjidil Haram. The first day we had used the main Babul Umrah and the Malik Abdul Aziz gate. But the main gate for Babul Umrah was later closed. So for the next few days we chose the Babul Malik Fahd gate and made our way in to pray closes to the ladies section facing the Ka'abah, near the Babul Umrah area. The ladies section of Babul Umrah has the best view of Ka'abah considering that a major section of the mosque is closed for renovation near the Saie area and the top level Tawaf area. Once we exit the mosque, we took a route nearer to the side construction of the mosque, where less number of people knew off and the route had cut back a considerable amount of time for our trip back to the hotel. Here, now especially with the constructions and the closing of a majority of the gates, timing and route will decide whether you'll be stuck in less or more people, taking more or less time.

The view from the women's section - Babul Umrah

After Subuh we had the opportunity to see how the maintenance team of cleaners cleaned parts of the praying area. I mean they really care for the mosque and taking into consideration the numbers of people visiting Ka'abah, they did an excellent job :-) After Dhuha, we head back to the hotel to catch up on some sleep and got back to Masjidil Haram for Zuhr. We rushed back to the hotel afterwards because my father and sister wanted to do another round of umrah, my father 'badal umrah' especially for my late grandmother. They were off to Tana'im by 3 pm.

Saw they did this only once - other times they also washed the marble tiles

I opted not to, because the Saie rituals is killing my back. I thought I seriously need to give my back a break. But I joined my sister for my Tawaf sunat later after Asr. Oh my, it was so congested, it felt like the Hajj season. One hour later we finished and headed for Saie. While waiting for her to finish, I spent time praying at the Safa hill. In between her rituals we had to break for Maghrib and experienced performing the Solat near Safa hill. Interestingly, just like in the case of Tawaf, everybody stopped their Saie and prayed all along the two lanes. My sister finished her Saie, we prayed Isya near Marwa Hill and head back to the hotel. Tomorrow, ziarah to the compulsory Hajj place is planned, including another chance to say our intention for Umrah at Jaranah.

Solah on a hill can be slightly tricky hehe