Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

.. is exciting indeed! I was lucky to have plenty of time in Saudi Arabia end of last year so I got to buy many postcards, write some and send them from Makkah post office. Though I couldn’t send as lot as I wanted just because its postage makes me want to shoot myself. Saudi Riyal is slightly similar value to Malaysian Ringgit so I could easily register in my mind which price is acceptable and which is ridiculously unbelievable.

1 postcard in Malaysia = RM0.70 to RM1.20
1 postcard in KSA = SR1 (acceptable)

postage to send a postcard overseas from Malaysia = RM0.50
postage to send a postcard overseas from KSA = SR3 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

So there, judge yourself if you want to send postcards from Saudi Post or bring the cards back and send from Malaysia. Plus their stamps are not that appealing! Anyways. I sent a dozen somehow from there, to mostly fellow Malaysian Postcrossers, and two to myself :) which arrived a few days after we returned home.. so it’s like 2 to 3 weeks. Not bad for a postal service that belongs to a country having very few numbers of Postcrossers. Hmm. No wonder the Makkah post office was always empty you don’t even need to queue.

Masjid Haram in Makkah from imajica :) hehe. This place can’t be described perfectly by this postcard or words – it’s simply the greatest place on earth. This huge mosque is where the Kaabah is located. Kaabah is seen as “the home of God” (though He doesn’t technically live inside there obviously) where Muslims all over the world are facing to when they make their prayers. So only in this mosque you will see people are facing Kaabah from all around 360 degree. The Kaabah was built by Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) with his son Ishmael. While the mosque was constructed since year 600AD with only wooden column back then.

Masjid Nabawi (Prophet Mosque) in Medinah. I didn’t find post office in Medinah and even postcards were so hard to find so it was a relief that I had bought and mailed cards earlier in Makkah. Too late to regret now. Okay this is the mosque belongs to Prophet Muhammad. He built this mosque after his journey to Medinah in 622AD. But the enlargement of the mosque began after his death, and under the green dome is actually where he was buried.

Actually, these cards were not the ones I bought. These were the cards my classmate Reema had bought me earlier when she went back to her hometown Medinah during a semester vacation. Yep – I brought plain postcards all the way to KSA just to mail them home :P Coz they would look alot nicer with stamps and postmark, no? :)

Maybe I will als0 put the pictures of the postcards I bought, which are nicer actually.