Something unexpected happened on our way to Kuantan. I'm still puzzled.
Hubby and I have traveled to Kuantan numerous times. I, myself, have driven there alone at least a couple of times. Usually, it takes about 3.5 hours from Bangi to Kuantan town. Kalau drive biasa-biasa, no rush, stop for breaks at R&R, maybe 4 hours. Here's what happened.
After being stuck at traffic jam from Puchong to Bandar Utama for almost 1.5 hours, the road finally cleared. We stopped at Lancang for toilet break and then Temerloh for breakfast. That's the routine with Hubby selalunya. I estimated we would reach Kuantan latest 11.30am.
Bila drive dengan Linda di sebelah, mestilah borak-borak kan. But then, we never missed any signboards. I remember clearly the last landmark I saw before that "incident" was Hentian Kuantan, then that place yang timbang lori tu. Lepas tu I remembered just driving, not very long, and then saw the signboard "Pelabuhan Kuantan / Cherating". Masa tu dah tak sedap hati. I didn't take that exit sebab dalam kepala ingat ni mesti new exit. Tapi kat flyover dah tak ada "Kuantan" anymore. Instead, the next one was "Chereh". Ya Allah... Time was 11.15am. Perut terus kecut. Jumpa one new R&R yang sedang dalam construction. Lepas pusing-pusing a few times, Linda went out to ask a lady yang ada kat situ. She said it's better to drive to Chereh exit and go to Kuantan via jalan dalam than doing a U-turn.
Masa tu one part of me dah give up. Rasa macam nak abandon saja effort submit sebutharga. But another part of me said - no way I'm going to give up without even trying. Terus buka Waze. Kuantan was about 38km away. ETA 12.10pm. So the race against time started. I drove like crazy, all the while apologizing to our little car, and to Aliyah at the back seat. Linda didn't dare look at the meters. She focused on my phone at Waze.
After taking Chereh exit, we turned back to Kuantan via Balok. The road was single lane. Every few meters were lorries and tankers. Masa tu mulut dok baca "Laailahailla anta...". Doa Nabi Yunus. Asal boleh, overtake semua lori dan tankers. My small battered Viva ran 120km/h through the not-so-well-maintained road. Terpaksa berhenti kejap isi minyak. Alhamdulillah yang pump attendant isi, bukan sendiri isi.
Akhirnya sampai Kuantan town. Tapi banyak construction dan jalan sesak sikit sebab Friday afternoon. Alhamdulillah dipermudahkan, we reached the steps of Kompleks Teruntum at 12.05pm. Linda ran up while I parked the car. Linda kata dia submit, tengok jam, it was 12.07pm. Deadline was 12 noon. Masih boleh submit, tapi officer stamped the envelope and wrote a note of the time we submitted.
I just couldn't shake it off my head. How did I missed the exit? At that time, the only explanation was Kuantan exit has been renamed as Pelabuhan Kuantan. But still, I couldn't accept it because the authority cannot simply rename such important highway exit. I vowed to go back via Kuantan exit.
The next day, right after we went down into the LPT highway at Kuantan Toll Plaza, I asked Linda to look back and see the signboard. I want to know whether the name really was changed. We both saw the signboard that read "Kuantan / Bandar Indera Mahkota / Teluk Cempedak". That's the signboard and exit that we missed! 500 meters away, there was another signboard. And another 1km away. All read the same thing!
How on earth did we miss 3 huge signboards? If we were too busy talking, how could we not even notice even one? And there were the 2 of us! How could 2 people miss the signboards and exit? Both of us compared experience and we both agree that the last landmark we remember was the tempat timbang lori, right after Hentian Kuantan, and the next one we remember was the signboard Pelabuhan Kuantan / Cherating. Same story.
Both of us spent the whole journey back discussing. We have 3 possible explanations:
1) Allah prevented us from taking that exit. That morning before I backed out the car, I saw Hubby berdoa kat depan porch. I recited doa mulakan perjalanan. Linda said she recited ayat Kursi.
2) Ada "orang" main-mainkan we all at the highway. The LPT is quite infamous for supernatural stuff. When I conducted training to SUK Pahang a few years ago, they shared stories about the highway. Perhaps we were "blinded" for a while.
3) Someone wanted to prevent us from submitting the sebutharga on time. This is very far fetched, but not impossible.
Memang rasa sangat kecewa sebab submit lewat, albeit just 7 minutes. Tapi hati redha. If it's not our rezeki, insyaallah dapat di tempat lain. Mungkin ada hikmahnya. Tapi, kalau rezeki di sana adalah ours, insyaallah akan dapat juga. Either way, Allah yang memberi rezeki, kita hanya boleh berdoa. Tapi, it was such an eye-opener. But still mind-boggling!
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