When we arrived back at the hotel I said Assalamu-alaikum to the driver and spinned around to greet my guide. The driver informed me that he was already outside to which I stepped out after saying Assalamu-alaikum again to the driver. Once I stepped out the umrah guide and I first off, handshaked. Following this the guide gave me some last advice as it was approaching the really early hours in the morning around 5AM I think.
I was advised to not do anything else now before getting some proper rest. So don’t go back to the Grand Mosque, just pray in your room and try to get some sleep and also food. My umrah guide was very insistent that now is the time for proper rest. I said thank you and assalamu-alaikum a final time before a final handshake. He entered the front passenger seat before the car departed.
As I returned upstairs to my hotel room I did a bit of research as to why I was not able to make calls with WhatsApp as I had been trying to call my mum since I landed. I very quickly found out that WhatsApp calls are blocked in Makkah and Madinah. I’m not sure if this is the case for the rest of the KSA.
I think the reason being is that firstly they want to protect local telecom providers like Zain and Salam/STC which is reasonable I think. And also, and I know this from historical travelling experience, given the amount of pilgrims/tourists that would potentially be using the connectivity, this would place enormous demand across the networks and infrastructure. I’ve experienced this with other service providers within Europe, especially with the Three network.
You’d be lucky sometimes to ever get a signal depending on where you go. After realising that WhatsApp calls were not usable, I decided to send my mum the picture I had taken of my first sight of the Ka’baah as well as a voice note. It was very short and I just explained that I had completed Umrah and was now back at the hotel about to go down for breakfast. Also that if she would like anything just to let me know by leaving a voice note. By the way, you can still use WhatsApp to send messages, photos and videos. You just can’t call.
The alternatives are to use another app like Imo or Snapchat or my recommendation is to just buy a local sim which has international minutes included for most packages. These are very reliable with a strong signal and brilliant connectivity.
Leave a Reply