A Travel Tale from the Holy City of Makkah

For your reading pleasure: One of my travel stories from The Female Cell to usher the 2011 Hajj season . 'Shoe Bag' was inspired from my Hajj pilgrimage in Nov'06 to Jan'07.


"Kak Teh and I take off our rubber slippers and put them in two lime green shoe bags with our name tags and tighten the strings to secure it. Our travel agent has provided them to us when we checked into the hotel and advised us to take them to the mosque. It is common for pilgrims to lose footwear left outside.

At the entrance, a woman security guard in black looks into our bags. She mumbles something in Arabic as she returns them and gestures for us to proceed. I take my sister's hand as we enter we admire the floral motifs carved on the entrance arch, the walls are of white marble that have light grey strokes in them, the high ceiling is carved in arabesque and the white marble floor we walk on while pilgrims shuffle around us hurriedly.

We ignore the shoe racks around the pillars as we have our footwear in our bags. Yesterday, we had trouble finding our shoes at the racks. We have, also, carefully hidden our flat purses in the deep pockets of our robes as a precaution. We go up a flight of steps to another large area and down again to another. The joints in my knees wobble from fatigue and I see that Kak Teh is a little out of breath...."


Full story: Shoe Bag