“Wow. We have just practiced Sa’i,” 34-year-old Eka Murtiani mockingly yelled as she and 47 other pilgrims in her group were told to go back and forth between two different spots to find their bus at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang in one afternoon. She was referring to one ritual of the umrah (minor haj), in which pilgrims go back and forth between the Safa and Marwah hills.

Most of the pilgrims looked hungry. Yet no one complained although they only finally managed to have lunch at 5 p.m.

Members of the pilgrim group, mostly from Lampung, were on their umrah, considered the most important Muslim spiritual trip to Mecca after the haj. They had never thought that catching the bus would become the beginning of a series of dramatic occurrences during their trip, managed by Bogor-based travel agency Amani Madinah. Instead of checking in at the airport to fly to Turkey on the evening as scheduled, they were checked in at a budget hotel in Mangga Dua, Central Jakarta, late that afternoon.

“The umrah lounge [at the airport] is limited, while we can use the hotel’s meeting room freely. Also you can have a rest first in the hotel rooms,” said Amani director Silvia Eka Putri, who also joined the umrah trip. Silvia later announced that the group, whose trip had been re-scheduled once, would not take Turkish Airlines as earlier mentioned, but the national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia.

The announcement did not seem to bother the pilgrims, who apart from a few young couples were mostly elderly citizens. “C’mon, c’mon […] Let’s have dinner,” said some of the elders, walking away from the meeting room while the young ones were still busy complaining.

It turned out that the ticket and visa provider had just secured the tickets for all the pilgrims a few hours before the flight, while the trip to Istanbul, the main attraction of the umrah package, was already out of the question as the company had no time to apply for Turkish visas. The company, however, promised to give the pilgrims better services in exchange.

Amani Madinah, which does not have an official permit to operate umrah tours, cooperated with the registered PT Anugerah Citra Mulia to provide the visas and tickets. It was found out later, however, that the registered travel agencies are prohibited to cooperate with those without a license to offer umrah services.

In the plane to Jeddah the next day, the drama continued. Pilgrims were forced to change seats after they boarded the Airbus A330. “The front rows need to be empty to balance the plane,” said a flight attendant, explaining the moves to the confused and upset passengers. The flight crew members even forgot to give passengers the obligatory pre-flight safety demonstration, despite the fact that there were no TV monitors in front of the passengers’ seats.

However, the pilgrims were also responsible for more headaches during the flight. During their return flight, for example, the toilet turned into a battlefield for flight attendants as some pilgrims did not flush the toilet. The crew then wrote a notice on a piece of paper to solve the problem. “Press This Button to Flush,” it read in Indonesian. In another instance, a flight attendant yelled at a male passenger as he was peeing without closing the door. Meanwhile, a female pilgrim insisted on sitting next to her husband although her original seat number was different. Another funny sight was a strip of tissue paper tucked above a reading lamp during the whole flight.

In response to complaints about the service it provided to the pilgrims, Garuda Indonesia service director Nicodemus P. Lampe denied that his company provided a different level of service for those on umrah tours.

“We have the same operational standard,” he said, while insisting that the pre-flight safety demonstration was a must and that the flight attendants were also trained to serve first-time flyers carrying out the umrah.

The pilgrims eventually arrived at King Abdul Azis International Airport in Jeddah after almost 48 hours of travel, including a nine-hour flight. However, they still needed to go through a slow immigration process before they could catch a bus to Mecca to carry out the umrah. It took almost one hour for a person to get his or her passport stamped although there were only 10 people queuing in each line.

After passing the immigration gate at the airport, pilgrims bathed in a facility with around 10 showers and toilet rooms as they needed to be clean before entering the holy city of Mecca.

The Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Indonesia, Osama bin Mohammed Abdullah Al Shuaibi, said his government was currently developing a new and modern airport in Jeddah.

“Regarding the immigration process, please excuse us as we need to double check so as to ensure the visa is not fake,” he said. Moreover, he added, Saudi Arabia needed to be extra cautious with visitors as they could be members of black-listed organizations like the Islamic State (IS) movement or illegal immigrants.

During their stay in Saudi Arabia, the promise of better services from the agency were not realized. The visits to a number of historical places only allowed them to get a quick glance. Yet, despite the poor services, most of the pilgrims looked satisfied and happy with their trip. Some passengers, however, managed to get compensation after complaining to the travel company about the unmet promises.

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