Umrah | Arriving in Mecca

In 2023,  I was blessed to be able to do the lesser pilgrimage (umrah) with some of my family, including my niece! It was my first time and it was an incredible, beautiful experience. Here are the photos from our week long trip!

We then met up with our group at the Jeddah airport, changed some money, got some water, and goggled at the beautiful pillar-shaped aquarium.

We got very yummy pho and fried chicken at the Dubai airport, were we also changed into our pilgramage clothes (matching rosey-pink abayas and white hijabs for us women).

We took a bus to Mecca, driving in with the rising of the sun.

Our hotel was so pretty. And within a few minutes' walking distance from the Ka'bah! We got our rooms, dropped off our luggage, and headed straight out to do our first umrah.

Seeing the Ka'bah in person was...I don't really have the words for it, but I'll do my best.

It was mind-blowing to be there and recall all the miraculous, magnificent history of it that I had always believed and known to be real and true, but had also been accessible to me as narration only...and then come face to face with it. To be a part of it all!

It felt like a moment that should have shaken me to my core...and yet it was so ordinary too. I walked there in my sandals, the heat pressing down on me with the blazing of the sun. We passed under some arches. My niece was in her stroller. My sister-in-law was just ahead of me with my brother.

And then I looked up...and there was the great monument to God, of the Prophets Adam and Abraham and Ishmael and the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ)...and it was dwarfed, almost, by all these other totally inconsequential buildings (like that horrid clock tower the architects should have been ashamed of designing). It was so unassuming.

And yet it was one of the greatest creations I would ever be near. It was just so bizarre to be following in the literal footsteps of some of the greatest people ever. To be within arms' reach of the House of God. To know that not only was I and thousands of others circumabulating the Ka'bah, but so were angels.

The hill of Safa

Though tiled and cool, walking between Safa and Marwa, the two hills our Blessed Lady Hagar traversed searching for water for Prophet Ishmael was hard. My feet have never hurt like that before, and I don't even know why I was in pain, as I've walked for longer, on rougher terrain, before. I'm very grateful for the experience; to get a glimpse of some of the hardship she went through while surrounded by luxury.

The haram, and crowd, at night.

A display within our hotel

Hotel views...

We tried to take advantage of every moment we were there. I can only recall like...two meals total, and sleeping very deeply but not for very long. I didn't really feel tired or hungry the whole time I was there, which was a mini miracle. My soul was full, and it appeared that that was all I needed.