There are many Brunei residents who work in the Belait district but chose to live in Bandar Seri Begawan (and vice versa).

When you consider the one way distance from Bandar Seri Begawan to the towns in Belait, which ranges from 80 km (Lumut) or 100km (Seria) and 120km (Kuala Belait)  – it may not seem that far.

On normal days, it takes about an hour and a half of regular speed to travel from Bandar Seri Begawan to Kuala Belait. Pleasant drive for the driver and passengers, when it’s not too hot and the road is dry.

But when rainy day and road mainenance work happened at the short single lane road between Telisai-Sg.Liang-Lumut, what a nightmare that can be!

And I sympathized with the commuters of cars I passed by on my way down to Lumut earlier this week, from a closed-off lane at Sg. Liang that stretched all the way to Lumut (a few kilometres away) looking set to be stuck for an hour or so – when they have at least another 70km to go.

In the rain – when nighttime was descending.

Just one of those days when driving becomes an occasional stress factor in our relatively stress-free driving country.