umra - umroh

mama and papa nina, and oom id began our journey on monday (05.19.08). it was a 24-hour trip from jakarta to madinah. the route was jakarta - abu dhabi - jeddah - madinah. kind of tiring but fun since we were in a group of 68 people, mostly sundanese.

we flew by etihad airways, owned by the UAE. it took about 8 hours to get to abu dhabi. luckily I had no problem in the airplane except my feet were swollen a little bit. we arrived at abu dhabi international airport at 8pm. it's a small crowded airport with an interesting design - like a giant mushroom I may say, not really clean. we transit for about 5 hours. luckily we got this middle-east style dinner (one of my favorite menu since I lived in l.a.).

at about midnight we were so ready for boarding. but I guess it's typical arab countries airports, it took a long-long time to get to the airplane. we had to ride the bus, instead of going inside boarding bridge. the airport employees screaming around to get the people to the buses. one bus would go to the plane to jeddah, the other to beirut, karachi... gosh! it feels like in a lebak bulus bus station in jakarta.

it seemed like a never ending journey. we arrived in jeddah about 4am. once again, we had to face these crazy customs (like customs in indonesia, they're so slow and speak no english off course). but, I tried to be patient. so many people, not only from indonesia, come that morning for umra. many people from the surrounding arab area had already wore their ihram clothes. meaning, the men had already wore their two pieces of fabrics (wrapped around their bodies) with no underwears! I imagine they must be feeling very uncomfortable.

we got in the bus to medina at around 7am. it took 4-5 hours to get there (about 400 kilometers from jeddah). we had our indonesian style breakfast on the way to medina. rice with yummy grilled chicken, salad, and chilli sauce. hmmm so yummy. I finished all the food as always :)

what happened to the rest of our journey?

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