Friday, April 29, 2022
5:30 a.m. Room 1102, Phannu House
Mae Sot, Thailand
Another day in Mae Sot begins. I don’t have big plans for today itself. It is a fasting day, so I won’t be out snacking or trying new restaurants. I also have two videos scheduled as Premieres for tonight. I want to record a trailer for those videos this morning. I also have to finish editing the last video in the second Mae Hong Son Loop series. That video is about going into Zone 2 of the Chiang Dao cave system. I’ve had that particular video on the go for a very long time. I just haven’t been able to get around to finishing it.
And I guess I will do some pondering of future plans. I might work on Patreon for a little while. Lately, I’ve been trying to picture how I might be able to incorporate cycling back into my life. It’s tricky when YouTube is involved. I love the idea of cycling for two reasons. The main reason is that I enjoy bike touring, and it provides a sense of doing something special. Riding a bicycle in a new country is an adventure. It takes me to new and interesting places. I get a little bit bored when I think about simply arriving in a place like Pakistan and then doing the ordinary thing of taking a taxi from the airport to your Airbnb and then constantly finding transportation to the next place. I like the novelty of landing at the airport, assembling the bicycle, and then riding somewhere and having my own personal experience rather than having the exact same experience as everyone else.
The second reason is that having a bicycle offers freedom and independence. I just don’t enjoy the hassles of moving around with public transportation. Once I arrive in a new city, how then do I explore that city when I’m on foot? It would be nice to have my own bicycle for getting around day-to-day and even for exploring the country as a whole.
Unfortunately, bike touring is not an easy thing to do from any perspective. It makes taking flights more complicated and more expensive. You’ve always got a lot of work to do, and it can be stressful. It’s more difficult to move in and out of hotel rooms. It takes more time. And, finally, it isn’t as simple as just bringing along a bike. For example, I was thinking that perhaps just having a bicycle as luggage would be a nice compromise. Instead of bringing a bicycle as transportation for bike touring, I could just bring along a bicycle to have with me when I arrive. If you had tons of cash, you could even buy a small folding Brompton. However, that isn’t so easy. The moment you consider having a bicycle, you have to consider how to carry your own luggage. Suddenly, you can’t have just a simple backpack. You have to switch to pannier bags and/or a bicycle trailer. You also need tools and spare parts for the bike. And then there is the question of camping equipment. Having a bicycle with you automatically means you must have a bunch of other things that are necessary for using and maintaining the bicycle.
On top of all that, there is the issue of combining shooting video with cycling and then editing video while cycling. Is that even possible? And would the resulting videos even be interesting? Itchy Boots does it with a motorcycle, but traveling by motorcycle is an entirely different beast. Motorcycles are considered romantic and exciting by most people. Plus, with a motorcycle, she covers more distance, and that means she can include a wide variety of places in a short amount of time. Cycling is very slow, and you don’t pass through a series of new cities quickly, let alone countries. It takes weeks and even months to get anywhere.
Yet, cycling still seems to suit me. I was thinking that I might be able to attempt a kind of experiment or compromise. Perhaps I can avoid my usual all-or-nothing approach and just test the waters without fully committing to anything. The idea is to get my bicycle into shape in Malaysia and ride around Malaysia. Perhaps even go for a bike ride in a familiar country like the Philippines. And by doing so, I could test the waters. I could find out how difficult it is to combine bike touring with YouTube and whether that kind of travel is interesting to other people. If it doesn’t work, I could go back to using just a backpack. That’s probably the best approach. I’ve learned that it’s best to make incremental changes to anything. Don’t go crazy and make big changes all at once.