3:30 am and we were already on the way to catch a flight to Jeddah via Vienna. By 6:30 am the Austrian Airlines took us to the air. The security was heavy and with the electronic boarding pass and all shits of taking a flight nowadays I was getting annoyed early in the morning.
Fajr was at 5:12 am and we have to be at the gate by 5:30 am. And the gate was way at the end of the world. After being scrutinised at the security I have to run around the airport like a hungry chicken trying not to miss a feeding time. But it’s part of the journey I tried not to be left behind. For some reasons my family was always ahead of me and I was the one trailing at the back. You just don’t complain and again…. run like a chicken.
The flight to Vienna was nothing unusual; no food, ugly crews and smelly toilets. I have never experienced of how it feels to be among so many white people in an enclosed area such as in this plane. This is an Austrian airline so I should expect it. But never in my wildest imagination to be in this situation. Felt so strange. Never so close I could even smell them and they smell awful. Not being racist. Everyone smells like shit every now and then; especially in the morning. So don’t feel like God created you so damn complete that you look down to other people so badly. In Vienna Airport, the airbridge could not be connected because the expert person was not there…… yep, like we don’t know that you skipped the rental fees.What craps were you talking about?! We were going to miss our connecting flight. But luckily we didn’t.
To make the story short, we were finally on a Wizz Air flight to Jeddah. The journey took about five hours.
Touched down in Jeddah almost Maghrib time and another hurdle was waiting to test our vulnerability—- getting a taxi to Mekah. A well dressed gentleman approached us and offered three hundred rials to take us. Wow you wanna play tough eh!
La La ithnain miah rials—— I said in broken Arabic ( should be miatain rial) whatever! I am not giving in….. he followed us around like they usually do but strangely no other taxi drivers were around ,this guy must be good to be inside the terminal as the others were fussing about outside. So in the end he agreed to take us for two hundred rials as he got another couple to cover his short change.
We arrived after an hour’s drive through a mad mad Thursday night traffics.His driving was reckless; dangerously reckless. But never once hit another car. I feared for my life as well as my family’s. But we were safe alhamdulillah; safely reached the hotel. Where another episode of “ interaction with the Arabs” began. I was tired and hungry; and so was my wife and kids. At first they said no room available although a deposit was paid in advance and constant reminders were given as we might arrive tonight. Then later on there was one available on the 14th floor.we took it although that means a constant use of the lift. Lift!!
Before long I started a war-in-the-lift with makcik Indons……again!
