The third day brought us to many different places, which took a couple of hours to get there. In a place called Fayyum, as I was watching the green scenery outside from the moving van which I was in, I was completely surprised to see a huge pool of water, all of a sudden appearing in front of my eyes without a clue. It was just like a sea, with the currents; and the water was found to be salty too, as told by Ustaz Mujahid. It was so amazing that such a lake can be found there, I mean it was a vast salty oasis surrounded by trees and plants. A few kilometers have passed but I could still see the Qarun Lake from afar. To be logical, normally plants won’t survive with salty water isn’t it? Frankly I didn’t expect the lake to be like that, it was like appearing out of nowhere, didn’t even expect a lake with such special attributes would exist there. Subhanallah. Qarun Lake is believed to be the place where Qarun’s properties was ditenggelamkan, so it’s like how big the lake is represents how much wealth Qarun had had before. He had become so rich until he treasure his properties more than anything and refused to pay zakat. (correct me if i'm wrong)

On our way to get to our first destination of the day, we were stopped at a checkpoint by Egypt’s tourist’s polices who later escorted us to wherever we wanted to go. How nice was that? To be optimist, the feeling was like a group of VIPs being protected by unpaid bodyguards from any harm. Huhu.

We then went directly to the location where the ruins of Qarun Temple were found. There were these 2 really wide diametered broken pillars just in front of the temple’s entrance. There ruins that we saw weren’t that many but the huge pillars proved that during Qarun’s prosperous period the place would’ve been very grand and impressive. But to think twice, what Qarun has got were just worldly properties. Undoubtedly it was his wealth and luxury life that had blinded him from the fact that the life of the hereafter is actually perpetual.

"Allah doth enlarge, or grant by (strict) measure, the sustenance (which He giveth) to whomso He pleaseth. (The wordly) rejoice in the life of this world: But the life of this world is but little comfort in the Hereafter."

[“Allah meluaskan rezeki bagi sesiapa yang dikehendaki-Nya dan Dia juga yang menyempitkannya. Mereka (yang ingkar) bergembira dengan kehidupan dunia. Sedangkan kehidupan dunia itu tidak lain, hanyalah kesenangan yang kecil dan tidak kekal berbanding dengan kesenangan hari akhirat.”]

(Ar-Ra’d 13:26)

After that on our way to a mango plantation site, we stopped by the roadside to take some pictures with the grapes’ trees in a grape plantation site and with its workers as well. The best part was we got the chance to taste the grapes for free; they were so good; sweet and seedless. Imagine such a high quality fruit can grow very well in a desert like that, just with His willing.

[“Dan Kami jadikan di bumi itu kebun-kebun tamar dan anggur, dan kami pancarkan padanya beberapa mata air, Supaya mereka makan daripada buah-buahannya dan daripada apa yang dikerjakan oleh tangan mereka. Maka mengapakah mereka tidak bersyukur?”]

(Yasin, 36:34-35)

We experienced a wonderful time dealing with the workers; we couldn’t take much of their time bcos they’re working. The workers at this one site refused to give in, so we just snapped the pictures when they were arguing with themselves and went off. Huhu.

In a mango plantation site called Ain Silin, it was pretty frustrating that I didn’t get to buy mangos. Not many of them were sold there, maybe bcos it wasn’t the right time yet for the mangos to become ripe. Anyway we grabbed the chance to have our lunch there, sort of a picnic in a place where we can find a fountain that brought out water which was believed to have specialty in terms of its goodness for health.

After filling our stomachs, we went straight to a place where we can find classic kincir air. However an unforeseen incident happened on our way there where we were involved in a minor accident when the van that we’re in inadvertently hit the left side mirror of a taxi. The driver wasn’t really the one to be blamed as he was trying to avoid a red car that suddenly horned and wanted our van to give a way for it on our left. So the red car smoothly went off and we were left with problems with the taxi driver to fix. Both of the vehicles’ drivers were yelling at each other and I was thinking, can’t they just be patient and discuss like gentlemen? Luckily as we were escorted by the tourist’s polices, one of them professionally tried to cool everybody down and alhamdulillah everything was settled down although I’m not aware of how it ended. Whatever. There was nothing really special about the kincir air but there were four of them in a row, still spinning. After that we got nowhere else to go other than home, I mean back to the hostel. Everybody was tired and we spent that night to rest ourselves to prepare for tomorrow- shopping day!

Oh yeah it was shopping day. We were accompanied by 2 new ustazs to aid our shopping. It started with Asfur, a place selling crystals being made into bracelets, chandeliers, tasbih, rings, and many more. To be honest I’m not that good in choosing bracelets (I wanted to buy bracelets), especially when we can’t hold it with our hands, just look at the things in the glass cupboard from outside and write an order. We have to request if we want to hold them. I don’t really favour this style of business. Anyway at last I just bought one bracelet with others from those who bought nothing at all to those who bought quite a lot of crystals. After that we went to a completely busy place; Suk Hussein aka Hussein Market, seeking for jubbahs, postcards, perfumes, t-shirts, souvenirs and stuff. We really needed a person who can converse well in Arabic now, to do the asking and bargaining with the Arabians. Pity Hanna and Kak Pani who were struggling to fulfill each of us’ desire, the 12 of us. Thank you very much. =)

That’s the last thing we did before getting ourselves ready for our journey that night. We’re leaving Egypt and now looking forward to step our feet in Jordan. Jordan, here we come!

(To be cont’d)

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