Thursday, 23 January 2025
Today is our last day in Makkah. After breakfast, we performed the tawaf wada (farewell).
The crowds weren’t as heavy as in the evening and we completed the tawaf relatively fast. We were also able to move near the Footprints of Ibrahim to have a good look.
As we were exiting Al-Haram, I saw a bunch of students studying and reading the quran at the ground floor.
We checked out around noon and headed to the Makkah Haramain High Speed Train station.
Since we had business class tickets, we were able to access the lounge. The station was huge and impressive, however the business class lounge seems like an afterthought.
Our train departed at 5PM and the journey took about 2 hours.
Along the way, we had a view of the Arabian dessert. It made me wonder how people in the past travelled throughout the vast dessert with very little food and water.
The high speed train cruised steadily around 300 kmph throughout the journey. They served us a tasty meal and there was a cafe onboard for light snacks too.
We arrived in Madinah around 7PM. The station was spacious and modern.
I spotted an Al Baik store at Madinah Station and suggested we had early dinner there. The Al Baik these days are quite different from how I remember it 20 years ago. It seems the chicken fillet is the popular meal now, as compared to the actual fried chicken back then.
We checked in at Intercontinental Dar Al Iman Hotel, which was situated at the rear end of Masjid Nabawi. The hotel location was very convenient as there are many shops and restaurants in the area.
The weather was noticeably cooler than Makkah. This is mainly due to Madinah being to the north of Makkah and deeper inland.
Imran Jaafar 