The Holy Journey (09): Dead Sea, Jordan

The interesting story of this place is that the Dead Sea was once a city where Prophet Lot SAW was sent to guide the people known for their perverse sexual preference. It is said that the word “sodomy” comes from the name of the city, Sodom (in Bible). By divine intervention, the whole city was rained with fire and sulphur and turned upside down.

Note, reference:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy

Dead Sea indeed... It was freaking hot and humid there... as expected when you visit a salt - water area on a freaking hot day.

It's not exactly a sea, more like a lake with too high salt content.

It was so hot that there were very few visitors. Some men from our group still jumped in though.


Later we were ushered into the souvenir shops where every price when multiplied by 5 deterred me from buying.

Pictures are free, so here goes, some of my favourite items.

Daggers, made of silver and special hard wood. Super expensive.

Pendants. Aren't they just lovely?

That ends my Jordan tour.

And our journey home was - thank God - peaceful and without any flight delay.

My only grudge is that we have to pay for other people's overload charges since they put it as "we travel as a group, so we will share all luggage cost." Bull, mine did not go over the limit, but minority lose. No more Andalusia for me, next time it's Tabung Haji (for the record, such thing has never occurred with Tabung Haji. Everyone pays their own overload charges).

The Holy Journey (08): Jordan re-route; Cave of 7-Sleepers (Al-Kahf)

One of the popular attractions in Amman, Jordan is the Cave of 7-Sleepers, a religious site uniquely mentioned in both Quran (18. Surah Al - Kahfi) and Christianity ('The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus').

Note reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sleepers

While our blundering tour guide told it off as something like fairy tale (he’s a Jordanian, for God sake), I wandered around snapping pics. No point re – telling, might as well you all read the reference I put up there.

When discovered and excavated later, it was found that a church has been built over the area, along with burial sites. Some artifacts are preserved and displayed at the site itself; such an authentic and rustic touch, much to my delight.


A view from within...

A mosque erected nearby the site.

Gorgeous roses found within the garden surrounding the area.

Too bad I did not take too many good shots.

The Holy Journey (07): Mecca

Mecca has not changed much since my last visit in 2002. It’s the same city where construction works are forever going on; the dry, hot wind full of dust; the Habsyi selling on the streets; beggars; pilgrims; great bargain; great Pakistani food at Pakistani Gulistan Hotel on the way to the mosque where you can get this juicy roast chicken, amazing beryani and crispy naan fresh from the tandoor. (Sorry no pics on this; by the time I got hold of the camera, most of the poor fowl was already eaten up).

The Holy Journey (06): Jabal Uhud, Medina

One of the important historical sites in Medina is Jabal Uhud @ Bukit Uhud (Jabal = hill). This is the site of the second war in Muslim history, where the Muslim warriors lost due to disobeying the orders from the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and many of the Prophet's valued right hand men and his beloved uncle were lost.


The Mosque of Saidina Hamzah ra, in remembrance of the great warrior and the Prophet's (PBUH) own uncle. Behind is the Jabal Uhud.


The war memorial site, built to remember the lost of many brave warriors, most of them the Prophet’s (PBUH) closest companions. Here visitors stand outside while reciting prayers for the dead.


Within the area is a bazaar selling the usual stuffs; dates, long robes (jubbah), tasbih (prayer beads), custom jewelry, toys, dried food, drinks and others.


It was too freaking hot so after reciting my prayers and snapping photo I made a go for the bus straightaway. I wonder how those Arab women can stand wearing black jubbah with layers of garments underneath.

The Holy Journey (05): Dates

Still about Medina, but this time a little bit on shopping.

Whenever you go to Mecca and Medina, one of the souvenirs that people will enquire to you is date. Dates are also the easiest form of souvenir to be distributed; just pack up a bunch in Tupperware per person and voila! There are many kinds; most of the kinds are pretty cheap (SR 15 per kg) be it the normal unpreserved or unprocessed ones or the candied ones. The only quirk is that they can weigh you down and easily end up as the extra kg that you have to fork out SR 60 per kg.

Anyway, these are from my tour to a date plantation in Medina, situated just next to the Quba mosque. The small shop at the plantation sold at least 30 kinds of dates, dried and fresh, and candied dates. Pricing, after comparing to Mecca dates bazaar, do not differ much so might as well get your dates in Mecca dates bazaar if Mecca is your last stop. You can still haggle; language is not a problem as most Arabs can speak Malay / Indonesian (thanks to the fact that they received thousands of pilgrims from these two countries). The trick is to reduce 1/3 of the price and to stare them down, two things that I left to my mom to do since she did most of the shopping. My job most of the time was to watch out for beggars as they really pestered you to your wits end.

Too many dates, can’t remember most of their names. According to our tour guide, there is a kind of date that can be eaten by men alone and vice versa. Something to do with virility =p There are other Middle East food products too like olive oil, dried fruits and nuts sold here.

Candied dates and chocolate dates.



Take a break with Arab tea. Sweet!!!


How the plantation looks like. To me, the date palms resemble oil palm.


A bunch of dates up on the tree.



A little note on beggars: in Medina you won’t see too many beggars on the street, but in Mecca they have conquered the roads to the mosque. They even deploy their children – many with limbs disfigurements – to beg. Some children are bold enough to come up to you singing and hugging, or cling to you as you walk around.

My advice, ironically, is to not give in. Once you give in to one, the others will clamor around you and mark you as a target. They go around absurdly saying "fisabilillah" while holding out their palms. At the end of the day, you can see a long line of them at any food outlet, with at least 5 children hanging around.

They are wary of policemen though; I suspect the policemen hit on them pretty rough because I once saw a beggar kid simply tore off at the sight of a policeman few yards away.

The Holy Journey (04): The mosques of Medina

The main mosque that we attended for daily prayers throughout the stay in Medina was of course, the mosque of our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi. There were some upgrading works during my visit at that time.


The mosque female entrances are guarded by female mosque guards clad in burqa; they search your bags and also do body search for cameras as cameras are prohibited in the mosque. Most mosques in Medina and Mecca have these guards, and male guards guard the men entrance of course.

The view from entrance Door 29 (Women entrance)

The other side, entrance to the Prophet's (PBUH) grave. But the mosque authority has prohibited the entrance since few years ago, thanks to some visitors creating such a scene crying, screaming and hugging the pillars there.

My most memorable experience was when visiting Raudah, an area within the mosque where it is said that all prayers there would be granted by God. The area opens at certain hour for women, I attended the one at night arranged by the tour, led by Indonesian ustazah. Upon entering the mosque, you will follow the make - shift path made by canvas to walk through the male areas. Then you will wait for your country turn to enter, lucky us Malaysia, Indonesia and SIngapore enter together as the 3rd group. They segregated us under the plaque "Penerangan Agama" which I found to be absurd since the female guard just sat there saying nothing.

Then they further devided our large South East group to two, the first half made such a mad dash into the area that I was left speechless, especially when I watched a few people from the second half disobeyed the order to wait and made a run for the place whenever the guards turned their backs.

When the second half's turn arrived, I was jostled in by the group. Managing to pray a 2 rakaat prayer was a miracle; you couldn't do the sujud without someone walking over your head or worst, kicking and tripping over it. It's that freaking crowded in that small space. The guards screams too made things even worse since they were forever screaming "Cepat ibu (they call everybody ibu)! Cepat ibu! Iran mau masuk! Bahaya! Bahaya!" (Hurry up maam! The Iranians are coming! Danger! Danger!). It sounded to me like the Iranians are coming to bomb us or something LOL. And once you raised up your hands for prayer, they would start pushing you out to make space for other people so it's better to have a long last sujud to cry and say all your long- winded prayers.

Note: The Iranian women are triple or more to our size (if we're talking about an Asian woman with BMI of 18 - 24), if you're wondering why the guards are saying those lines. Their BMI is way beyond 35. Them coming in on us would be like the mass stampede in Lion King and Australia (the movie) and we'll be crushed. Mark my words.


2 other famous mosques in every travel agent itenary: the Quba mosque and the Qiblatain mosque.

Quba mosque, the first mosque to be built upon the Prophet's arrival in Medina. I couldn't get a good shot of it since I was in a hurry and so scared at this Arab guy yelling "Haram! Haram!" behind me. I thought he was admonishing me for taking a picture of the mosque, turned out he was promoting some trinkets of Masjidil Haram. Oh well...

Outside the Quba mosque was a small bazaar selling souvenirs.

The Qiblatain mosque, where the Prophet (PBUH) recieved God words on the change of the Muslim's qiblat from Masjidil Aqsa to Kaaba'.

A small mosque in the city of Medina. Just snapped the photo because I thought it looked cute.

The Holy Journey (03): Jordan trinkets

Golden Tulip got its own travel agent offices and souvenir shops. My advice is, get your souvenirs here as they sold them in Saudi Riyal (SR 1 = 90 something cents Malaysia ) currency instead of Jordan Dinar (JD 1 = RM5).










Fridge magnets.

I wonder why the ladies are not looking too happy. Where are the gents? Maybe that's why...

Camels for your fridge.

Pictures of Petra.

But they don't necessarily sell stuffs made in Jordan. This long robe is Egyptian-made; the hand - stitched pattern made the price very expensive.

The Holy Journey (02): Jordan transit and surprises

We transit in Jordan for one day after landing at Queen Alia airport. It was quite a pleasant flight, the food was good but I was too groggy to remember to snap a picture while sleep – eating.

I was anticipating fresh cool breeze as I made my way out from the plane as the last time I checked on the net, the temperature in Amman is 21 degree C. Instead, I was hit by a blast of heat. Maybe that weather site forgot to add that that particular temperature only applies to NIGHT time only.



And so, after our visas were issued (USD 40 per person), we headed to the Queen Alia airport hotel, Golden Tulip where there was not a tulip in sight.


There were roses though.





Lunch was served buffet style. I started with a plate of colourful vege and assorted salads. I’ve to warn you though, to those not accustomed to Middle East and Arabic food, the taste is of natural flavors combined by olive oil, salt and herbs, which most people find rather bland or unappetizing.



The main courses were more palatable since the flavors resemble that of Indian and Pakistani food. Beryani, bread and accompanying meat and vegetable dishes were served as main course. Desserts were so sickly sweet that I thought all my teeth would fall out; luckily we shared it, a strawberry jam mousse look – alike.




An interesting item we found in the hotel lawn, a smoking thing but I don't exactly know what or how they use it.

The Holy Journey (01): The Start...

...but not with a good one.

Recently I had took off to Saudi Arabia under travel agent Andalusia (Malaysia) for my umrah (a smaller, shorter and simpler form of Haj, if I may say so). The package we took would take us to Jordan first before flying to Jeddah, from where the travel to Medina resumed by bus. After a few days (usually 2 - 3 days), the group would then embarked to Mecca by bus, stopping at Bir Ali prior entering Mecca. After the completion of umrah, the group flew back to Jordan for some spiritual Islamic tour before finally returning to Malaysia.

And so, the journey kick - started from KLIA where we took MAS to Bangkok, our transit before boarding on Royal Jordan airline.

Sky view, MAS. I was lucky to get window seat throughout the whole travelling time.

Bangkok airport was quite pleasant during the day but as night approached, it got really, freaking COLD. Our Jordan plane was due in 3 hours so I wandered around first to explore the place.

Ethnic art deco.

Some shrine - like deco. Nothing much, just a nice - looking light bulb under that roof.

Turned out that my exploration came in handy because later there was an annoucement of flight delay. Royal Jordan decided to take its own sweet time and would only land in Bangkok tomorrow morning. A 10 hours delay was a common occurance with Royal Jordan, no big surprise, according to those experienced flyers.

At least there are many cafes for you to spend the flight - delay compensation vouchers that the airport authority issued out, Burger King one of them. It was difficult to find a place to eat though since most cafes serve pork in their menu but there is one eatery on level 2 and 3 that claimed to serve halal food. Mostly we bought drinks, chocolates and plant products.

As mentioned, it was freaking cold at night so a sweater is a good idea if you are going to be stuck in Bangkok airport at night. I was more than glad to leave Bangkok airport by then.

Masak - masak Melayu ~ Ikan tenggiri masak sambal (Fried Mackerel in Chili Paste)

Ok... I admit, this recipe is a bit oily as the fish require deep - frying first and later the ingredients are stir-fried with some oil. But the result is a spicy - sour fish in chili paste, my favourite accompaniment with steamed rice.

Bad fish day...

This is a picture of the fish that I fried yesterday, a fish called ikan tauhu (tofu fish? I dunno...). Generously slathered up in tumeric powder, a dash of chili powder and salt, and left to dry and for marinating for half hour for some effect.

The effects being, supposedly, a drier and tastier fish.