After completing Umrah, we had several days before Hajj to spend some time in Mecca. We used most of the times for Ibadah. We tried our best to spend in Haram as much as we can. There is a Sahih Hadith where Prophet (PBUH) said, ".....one prayer in al-Masjid al-Haraam is better than one hundred thousand prayers elsewhere". This is a long Hadith I am just quoting the last part. Who would not want this blessing in their basket?
To pray one rakat in Masjid Al haram is somewhat challenging during Hajj season. If you really want to find a proper place inside Haram Compound with nice air conditioning you much have to be there at least 1 hour before the actual prayer time. Some people used to go at noon and comeback after Asr. You may ask, well how about toilet, hunger, food? These were really least of our priorities during these times. Few dates and one glass of Zamzam water is enough to keep away the hunger from noon to dawn. There are wudu places inside.
Only people wearing Ihram clothes were being permitted through the main gates to enter Qaba. It was understandable as millions of people were doing Umrah. Letting everyone in will make the Qaba Compound overcrowded and will cause accidents. We used gate 88, 89, 90 most of the times to enter Masjid Al haram for daily prayers. If we wanted to see Qaba it was easily visible from the upper floors. There are shedded areas in these floors for Tawaf ( these areas are signposted). People can do both obligatory or nafal tawaf here. You do not need to be in Ihram to do Nafal Tawaf, because these are voluntary. However tawaf takes longer to complete as the circles are more wider on these floors, but less crowded.
Toilets: I never used toilet inside haram as these were always very crowded and often had long queue.
Food and shopping: Few good places are available inside clock tower and Al Safwa tower. They accept Visa/Master card etc but you will be charged a fee to use these, so better to use cash.
We had most of our meals in the Asian (bengali, pakistani) restaurants. There were loads around our hotel. I loved camel meats and Parathas.
ATM machine: You can withdraw cash from an ATM machine of Al- Rajhi Bank, again situated close to the bottom of the clock tower. I did not use this machine as I had enough cash with me.
Sim card: We bought two prepaid sim card (STC) with data included. They had few deals like 7 days , 2 weeks, 1 month etc. You can choose whichever is suitable for you. Hotel had wifi so we mainly needed the data during Hajj.
Money to sacrifice the animal: This should be done before hajj starts. We went to Al Rajhi bank and paid our fees to sacrifice animal on the 10th of Dhul I-Hijjah. We were given time 10am in the morning. That means on the 10th of Dhu i-Hijjah, after 10am we can shave our head to come out of ihram. We do not need to there to slaughter , they will do it for us with the payment we made.
Now for the used Ihram clothes, it is prohibited to use scented soap to wash these so I used the unscented soap I bought from the UK. These are available in H&B. We used our hotel roof to dry the Ihrams and other clothes. Everyone used them as they had facilities to hang clothes.
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