Years ago when I was working in Singapore for a major US chemical company, we supply maintenance chemical products to the oil patch industry. I took one associtate with me to explore the opportunity at the oil rich Brunei(an independent country in northern Borneo). We stayed at a small town, Kula Belait, near the Brunei Shell headquarters. After exploring business with many deparments in Shell, we decided to head west to Miri, Malaysia to explore business with the Shell oil company in Malaysia. The drive to Miri is only about 30-40 miles. There were two choices of driving to Miri: one is to take the sandy road and the other is to drive along the sandy beach at low tide. Since we were not sure about the timing of the low tide, we did not want to chance it------the result could be disastrous/deadly if we got caught in the high tide!! But this is where the excitement and fun began! Because we planned to cross the country border to Malaysia, we felt it would be best to check with the rental car company about driving to Miri.

After telling the rental company, the reply was an emphatic NO, and under no circumstances should we drive to Miri. We did not take it too seriously. We set off for Miri after a heavy rain the night before. After a couple of miles on a sandy road, the road became progressively worse. There were pot holes after pot holes everywhere These holes were fill with the rain water from the night before. There were no vehicles in front of us, only some lorries(trucks) coming from the other direction, no passenger cars at all!!! Very tall jungle trees filled with monkeys on both sides of the very narrow road. We wer doing only about 5mph negotiating our way around the craters filled with water. Some of the craters were more than a foot deep! We saw some abandoned vehicles that got stuck in the sand. I was getting rather impatient with our rate of progress. I told my colleague to strap down tight of the seatbelt, and I point the steering wheel straight in the middle of the road and floored it, part 2 continues.

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Flash Gordon

2003 E500 BlackOpal/Charcoal

2004 Infiniti G35X

Flash Gordon, originally being from Brunei, and having taken that same sandy road to Miri, I wait with anticipation the second part of your story................

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Vince

'94 E500 2 piece SL rims, chip, K&N Filter, HR Springs. Mesa Valve "Y" Pipe, ASR Defeat, BW NOS, S600 Grille, SL600 300mm rear brakes

Interesting story fer sure however,

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Here is part 2. I floored the pedal and the car took off instantly, however each time it hit the water filled crater, the engine would roar as if it was in neutral because there was no traction in the puddle. For the remainder of the trip to Miri, the car was bouncing up and down that sandy road and the engine would roar every few seconds, and we were bouncing like rag dolls in the car After getting the business done in Miri, we drove back cautiously to Kuala Belait because we were aftraid to break any suspension parts on the way back. When we got back, our white car has changed to yellow. So we took the car to a local car wash(there were no automatic car wash, only done by hands). After taking one look at our car, the guy refused to wash our car!!! Yes, it was that bad Since we have our chemical samples in the car, we began to wash the car with diluted degreasers! The engine bay was covered with sand also. It took over 1 and1/2 to get the car reasonablely clean.

The car rental agent at the Bandar airport never suspected our advanturous trip It has been 20 years since and I still remember that trip very vividly. It's too bad later that sandy road was modernized into an asphalt road, which I never travelled on.

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Flash Gordon

2003 E500 BlackOpal/Charcoal

2004 Infiniti G35X

Vince, I like your country, Brunei, very much. It has it's own character in the country side unlike the modern city of Singapore. The country provided a lot of benefits to the citizens. A friend of mine was only paying one dollar a month for the electricity. His a/c were running all day After several trips to Brunei, we got a rep to station there and I did not go as frequently.

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Flash Gordon

2003 E500 BlackOpal/Charcoal

2004 Infiniti G35X