Safely Home.

SELAMAT HARI RAYA to everybody. The plane touched down at KLIA on the eve of Hari Raya from Bahrain at 0945 hours right on schedule and on hand to greet me was my wife, daughter and little Shasha. I would blog on my journey of the 28 days stay at the Holy Land later. I had decided to stay put in my house this Hari Raya and not moving anywhere.

It was a successful Ramadan umrah, the food was satisfactory and the Hotel well located. The crowd was not that big compared to last year maybe due to H1N1 and the absence of the Iranians. The only setback was the Saudi embarkation immigration formalities at Jeddah and Gulf Air flight delay both at Bahrain and Jeddah Airports.

Weather was good in Medina and for two days, Medina shed its tears like I did, it rained and accompanied by lightning just like back home. In Mecca the temperature went up as high as 45 degree centigrade but in the room it was freezing cold. I term Room 810 as a Cold Storage with a defective thermostat.

I could only managed to perform eighteen (18) umrah, unable to supersede the last year record of twenty one (21) due to time constraint and Friday was a non performance day. My special umrah was for my beloved late father and late Uncle Hj Khusari Ghazali who departed to meet the Creator a day before I departed for the Holy Land.

Fasting and performing the umrah is equivalent of one Haj and the blessing is just like performing the umrah with the Holy Prophet (pbuh). The blessings of a single prayer at Masjidil Haram in Mecca is like praying 100,000 times and at Masjid Nabawi in Medina is 1000 times compared to praying anywhere else. This is one particular month that I do not want to miss.

Insyaalah, I am looking forward for 2010 Ramadan. I seek for the Almighty blessing that I have the strength and allow my heart keep beating to the day.