Why I Hate Going To Kuantan?

Do you know what I hate about going to Kuantan? It's the drive there. First, it's the winding road. Then, it's the never ending road maintenance work. When did you ever drive to Kuantan on LPT and there's no road maintenance work somewhere? That must be a miraculous day for you.

The road maintenance work is really annoying. You got to wonder how did the project get approved in the first place, who's the soil engineer, and who gets all the road maintenance project now?

Yesterday hubby called at about 5:45pm and informed me instead of afternoon meeting, he has to be in Kuantan early morning today. He left early for a whole day meeting at Tg. Malim yesterday before another meeting at Subang Jaya at 6pm. He'd be very tired to drive to Kuantan alone last night. So as the appointed PA and driver, I make some phone calls for accommodation, packed our luggage, have dinner together and make our journey east.

Hubby reached our place at about 8pm and has to wait for about 10 minutes before I came down. He wondered why it took me so long to pack. Sigh! I think men will just pack and leave. Besides packing, I throw all our rubbish away especially the kitchen waste, collect drying clothes and hang them to dry inside the house, water our plants, turn off switches or unplug some electrical equipment and make sure all doors and windows are closed before leaving.

I also have to decide what to do with my time when he works. Whether I should do my work in the hotel room, survey some place or meet people for future training, or laze around and consider I'm taking a short holiday. All that determines what clothes and things I should bring along. Men probably don't appreciate the art of all these little decisions. He probably sums it up as indecision. Double sigh!

Anyway, back to the driving part... hubby's allergic to the steering wheel even if he's not tired. The moment he gets behind one, most of the time he'll get sleepy. I can't sit comfortably next to him as he yawned, shake head to keep himself awake, rub or slap neck, sigh, double sighs and triple sighs, listen to Tamil songs, rocking back and forth on his seat and many other gestures. Sometimes I tried my best to massage his neck, shoulder and back with one hand while seating beside him but it only works for a short while. The few times I just let him be was either when I was too tired myself and my suggestion for both of us to rest for a while fall on deaf ears or when I offered to drive and he stubbornly continued driving.

Many times I have replaced him as the driver and the moment he sat beside the driver's place, he's wide awake. That's what happened last night. He's wide awake almost the whole way and started commenting and asking me to slow down whenever there's that annoying orange cone. I didn't respond to any of his comments. We're both tired. It's best to say nothing than say something I might regret later. However, putting things in perspective, sometimes I did feel like making comments while hubby's driving too. Maybe I even did. I have to ask him whether I have ever annoyed him with comments while he's driving. Last night, I let hubby took the wheels after Gambang exit.

What matters most, we reached the hotel room safely few minutes before midnight.

In the evening, we have to go through the same road work maintenance again to reach KL. Hubby looked drained and tired the moment he reached hotel from his client's place. I took the wheel the whole way till we reached home. This time he only commented once :) After a quick reviving massage for hubby once we reached home, hubby has to leave again for like another 2 hours journey to be with his other family. So all the above sums up why I hate going to Kuantan in a long-winded way, just like the winding Karak stretch.