Half an hour notice.

I was enjoying late breakfast of nasi lemak at one of my favorite warong when I received a call from Siti of Andalusia Travel. She required a photo copy of my passport and I had to fax to her by noon. Gosh it was already 1130 hrs and I had only 30 minutes to work on it.

I rushed home and scanned the passport at the Printer and proceeded immediately to my friend’s shop to fax the photocopy. Siti required the document for ticketing purposes at Gulf Airline. I managed to meet the dateline however Siti was very apologetic about the extreme short notice. I had booked with Andalusia Travel to spend Ramadan in the Holy Land via Gulf Air transit at Bahrain henceforth to Jeddah Saudi Arabia. Insyaalah, I would be leaving on 22 August 2009, on the first day of fasting and back on 19 September 2009 on the eve of Aidilfitri. This year I planned to celebrate the Aidilfitri with the family but available on the 27th and 28th Ramadan in Mekah. These two nights are the highlights of Ramadan in Mekah.

I had planned to drop by at Andalusia Travel to submit all documents and expenses related on 23 July 2009.

I am looking forward to this trip as the previous Ramadan and am glad Haji Bakir and wife would be joining me. I hope and pray to Allah, everything would go well and my pilgrimage would be blessed by the Almighty. Most of all, I seek Allah blessing that I would be in a company of sincere, tolerant, humble and non status conscience Pilgrims. I prefer to have a simple kampong guy as my roommate than a Division One Government Officer especially those from the Army. Though retired, pensioned or sacked they still think they still have bed man around to be their Coolie.

This Ramadan I choose Gulf Air as the costing is less cheap compared to Saudi Airline. Moreover I want to have the experience of flying Gulf Air and set foot at Bahrain even though it would be a couple of hours on transit.