In Bandar Seri Begawan, we are lucky to live in an area where there are pockets of forests around us.

A highway right in front of our house is completely hidden by trees and shrubs and beyond the roofs of our backyard neighbours lie hills free of houses and full of trees – very much like our family home in Lumut.

Once, the view that I have from my living room in Lumut was of the thickly forested Lumut Hill – where moon sightings are performed and from which also starts a relatively undisturbed and uninhabited forest that stretched all the way to Kuala Balai (some 10 km or so).

However, for a long while now, this green hill has become an unsightly orange hill – with an ongoing highway project.

I cannot say that I do not welcome this highway which will make travelling between Telisai and Lumut faster – currently connected by a single lane and often plagued by slow jams at certain times of the day.

But I will say that for as long as the hill is bare of trees and greenery, it is no longer a view I look for whenever I look outside my window when I am back in Lumut.