Rawdah was one of my most disappointing parts of my journey. It was not a garden of paradise in reality and I felt it could have been better managed not only by myself but by the authorities themselves.
It was so chaotic and it didn’t feel very peaceful if I’m being honest. Again though, you have to look at it in context. 50,000 to 100.0000 muslims in the prophet’s mosque at any one time, with a number of these people wanting to visit a small area whilst there. That’s an incredibly difficult task to manage as an authority.
So in the context of it, they’re doing the best they can. And it’s really up to the permit holder to do their part to manage the visit as best they can for themselves. Learning some conversational Arabic I think is really key and something I really should have dedicated more time to in the preparation of this journey. I will be aiming to do this the next time I go.
I think this is another lesson I learnt. Stop putting the blame on other people and situations. You have to adapt to what’s happening on the outside. I think a lot of people blame governments or others for why this isn’t working in their lives, which I completely understand. But I think at some point we have to take a bit of ownership and responsibility of just working with what you have to make the best of it.
If you suffer from dry skin, prepare for this in the KSA due to the climate. I did have to visit a pharmacy towards the end of the trip to buy a cream but the one provided was more for a type of fungal infection rather than the normal cream I use at home. It still worked and provided some relief but the medicine/treatments can get a bit pricey.
So if you suffer from dry skin, prepare beforehand and take whatever you need with you. For most UK airports now (there are some exceptions so please check) you are now allowed 2L of liquids so there’s no issue with shampoo bottles, creams, drinks etc so don’t worry about this.
Both cities are more active at night than in the mornings and afternoons. They’re cities that never sleep so be prepared for this. Whilst Uber was very cheap and common in the KSA, Google Maps on the other hand was quite useless to be honest. I use Google Maps quite a lot when traveling within Europe but for the KSA it was frequently unusable. The directions and ETA’s were not accurate so be prepared if you use Google Maps and either ask for directions or just use a taxi/local transport which accepts contactless.
Leave a Reply