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Alhamdulillah I was able to perform Hajj in 2025. The decision was taken in one hour on the last day of application submission deadline. I was traveling with a friend who was going for Hajj and was coordinating with his family about completing the documents. He offered me to join and I accepted in one hour. His family submitted my application as well, at Soneri Bank. I wanted to opt for short hajj (22 days) government package. I had heard from many that the government camps are closer to everything and are well maintained. So I opted for Government scheme. But the short hajj slots were full, so we submitted the application in Long Hajj category (42 days). Later on, it was a long struggle with the Hajj ministry to change it to short hajj. At last it was changed.
Next was the struggle to predict what would be needed and get all of the stuff. The shopping list got bigger and bigger until the bags were completely full.
There was also the tension of learning the hajj completely. Since I registered very late, I missed the first training by the hajj ministry. This training from previous years was available on youtube, but consisted of more than 2 hours, very hard to watch. It should be split into smaller sections with descriptive labels so that we can dare to watch. Anyways, there were numerous other small videos which were very helpful.
