KUALA LUMPUR, After travelling 18,000 kilometres (km) for 108 days, riding a Yamaha FZ150 motorcycle, Zulkepli Mo'minin's dream to set foot in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, has finally come true, and being able to perform the umrah pilgrimage.
Zulkepli, 55, a tasbih trader, safely arrived in the Holy Land on Oct 23, after starting a solo journey on July 8 from Gombak, Selangor, travelling across 11 countries, including Thailand, Laos, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Sharing the experience, Zulkepli said that one of the unforgettable events was that he had to stay in Iran for more than a month, compared with the original plan of 11 days, due to documentation problems to enter Iraq, especially at Shalamche, at the Iran-Iraq border.
He said that Iraq was the third-last destination along his route, before arriving in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
He did not expect that such a bad situation could occur, as it would only take a distance of 100 km to transit Iraq, from Shalamche to Safwan, at the Iraq-Kuwait border.
“Before starting this expedition, according to the little information I got from travellers who have entered Iraq, if one has a transit visa with no overnight stay in the country, there should not be a problem, that you can just enter the country.
“However, the opposite occurred at the Iran-Iraq border, at Shalamche, as the Iraqi officials did not allow me to enter, so I had to turn back to the city of Khorramshahr, which is only 20km from Shalamche, to spend the night and think about the next course of action,” he said when contacted by Bernama.
Zulkepli said that to solve the problem, he had to temporarily leave his motorcycle and take a flight from the city of Ahvaz to Tehran which is 900 km away to apply for a visa physically from the Iraqi Embassy.
“To cut a long story short, the Iraqi Embassy finally approved my visa application after 15 days in Tehran... although at one point I was at a loss thinking about the bureaucracy of Iraqi officials, and just wanted to take a flight from Tehran to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,” he said.
According to the father of five, he also faced another challenge, which was having to go through a rocky path in one of the mountains in Kyrgyzstan, for 450 km.
“Even though I had to go through various tests and hardships throughout this expedition, I just accepted it because it was all Allah's will, and the test was, in fact, a blessing for me,” he said.
Zulkepli said that he will be in Makkah and Madinah for a few more days before taking a flight back home, and his motorcycle will be sent home via sea cargo.
Source: BERNAMA News Agency