Monday, January 30, 2023
7:57 a.m. Room 4, Tengkong Kost
(SPOT ON 91950 Guest House TekNong Syariah)
Bangkinan, Sumatra, Indonesia
I don’t have a lot to say about Indonesia or my life here this morning. I had some plans to go exploring yesterday, but I started editing a video, and much of the day was taken up with that. And then I just wasn’t in the mood to do anything else. That continues to be a problem with YouTube. I will shoot a kind of daily-activities vlog thinking, “Why not?” I’ll just go get lunch and I’ll bring my GoPro and record some of it. And I think that I’m going to easily edit and post that video in an hour. What I’m saying is that it wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. Yet, it ends up taking the entire day and night to edit and upload the video. It was supposed to be a fun little thing and then it turns into a major project requiring so much time and effort and energy. And when the dust settles, you have to recognize that the subject matter wasn’t worth all that work. All I did was have lunch, and then I chatted with a couple of people on the street, as always happens. And that, as an experience, isn’t worth the amount of work that went into editing and uploading that video. And then another day will begin, like today, and now I’m reluctant to record any video. It will just end up being the same thing. I’ll go for a bit of a casual exploration, have some random encounters and experiences. And I will enjoy doing it. But then I’ll have to spend the next two days editing the video. And it won’t be worth it. To make the effort of creating a video worthwhile, you kind of have to do something extraordinary. The subject matter has to match the work involved. And simple daily vlogs don’t.
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
7:50 a.m. Room 4, Tengkong Kost
(SPOT ON 91950 Guest House TekNong Syariah)
Bangkinan, Sumatra, Indonesia
Today is an important day. I can no longer procrastinate. I have to decide today what I’m going to do, and then book a flight if necessary.
I can choose between three options:
1) return to Malaysia by ferry when my visa expires on February 14;
2) extend my time in Sumatra by doing a visa run out of Pekanbaru; and
3) extending my time in Sumatra by doing a visa run out of Padang.
My heart is leaning toward the Padang option. It’s not ideal, but it at least gets me out of this part of Sumatra and into a more scenic area. It would also get me on the road and cycling, which was the whole point of this trip. There aren’t a lot of days left on my visa, unfortunately, which means I wouldn’t be able to explore the region around Bukittinggi as I’d hoped to do. I would be able to spend two or even three nights there, but I wouldn’t have the time to go to the nearby lakes and things like that. If I wanted to visit those places, I would have to do that on my return.
The easiest option would be to ride to Dumai and hop on the ferry. But I’m reluctant to do that. I haven’t even gotten out of the gate with this trip, and to return to Malaysia right now would feel somewhat pointless. Plus, I honestly don’t know what I will do after Malaysia. I don’t have any plans for that. I need to settle this question of whether I can ride a bike or not before I go back to Malaysia. When I’m in Malaysia, I have to decide whether to keep this bicycle in my life or just let it go and switch over to a backpack life. And I’m not ready to decide that yet. I would also miss Sumatra. I like this place. And I’m not ready to let this life go, yet.
The other option is something of a happy compromise. Flying out of Pekanbaru would be relatively easy. I could relax and not feel any time pressure. And I would not be putting my knees under any strain. I’d only have to ride 60 or 70 kilometers on flat ground to get there. However, it isn’t a very exciting option.
I’m leaning toward the attempt to ride to Padang. It will involve a lot of climbing up and down and that will put a lot of stress on my knees, but I’m feeling optimistic about that. At least it will answer some questions about my overall situation. It would probably be better to fly out of Pekanbaru, because that would give my knees at least three more weeks to heal. But I don’t know if that is necessary. Perhaps the time I’ve taken in Pekanbaru and the time I’ve taken in Bangkinan is enough.
I also realized that I am running out of cash. I’ve been spending a lot more money than I anticipated on this trip, and the stash of Indonesian rupiah that I thought would carry me through the whole trip is just about gone. I don’t have enough left to get me to Padang or Pekanbaru. So, I have to change money today or withdraw some from an ATM. As always, the ATM option makes me nervous. I’m afraid my card will set off security alerts, and I will have THAT problem to deal with again. But I guess I will try to access an ATM first, and if that doesn’t work, then I will try to find a bank that can change foreign currency. I still have some Malaysian ringgit and a small amount of US dollars. I’d rather not exchange the US dollars, but if I have to, I have that option.
Padang is about 250 kilometers away. And assuming that I baby my knees and go as slow as possible, I could take as many as four days to ride just to Payumbukuh. I could rest there for a couple of days and then ride one more day to Bukittinggi. And then I could base myself in Bukittinggi for three days. And then I could complete the ride to Padang. And that ride could be as short as 100 kilometers, and it would be mainly downhill. However, there might be a more scenic route that goes around a lake. That would be nicer, I think, though a bit longer. In any event, it seems like even though time is short, there is still more than enough time to get to Padang by February 14 for a flight even if I go very slowly and take lots of rest days. It seems like I am making up my mind to take the Padang option.
I had quite an interesting day yesterday, I must say. My idea for the day was simply to head out on foot and walk to what I thought was a small suspension bridge across the nearby river. And since I would be walking, I assumed I would have opportunities to chat with people along the way. I set off with two GoPros. I had my main GoPro Hero 9 mounted on the GoPro 3-Way. And I had the second GoPro Hero 9 mounted on the GoPro Floatie grip. The idea was that if I had the chance, I would give the second GoPro on the Floatie grip to any children I encountered along the way and let them play around with it and film whatever they wanted. I got that idea from Kristian Hansen, and it struck me as a brilliant one.
Within a minute or two of reaching the main street of Bangkinan, some men at a Mitsubishi dealership called out to me, and I went over to say hello to them. The men there didn’t speak English, and it didn’t turn into a long exchange, but we chatted a bit and joked around a bit. And then when I turned to leave, I noticed that there were several large trucks on the lot. I wondered aloud if Mitsubishi also made trucks, and when I walked around to the front of them, I saw that they were Fuso trucks. I see Fuso trucks on the road all the time. And it turns out that Fuso is a branch or subsidiary of Mitsubishi. I didn’t know that, and that was interesting to learn.
Lots of people passing by on scooters and motorcycles said hello to me, and I greeted lots of people as I walked along. And then I met Joko. Joko was riding a somewhat fancier motorcycle than most and he was wearing quite a fancy helmet. He was even wearing a full protective suit. It’s the kind of suit that is designed to let you slide along the pavement unharmed in the case of a crash or having to lay down the motorcycle. It even had the kind of turtle shell on the back that I saw a lot of in Taiwan.
Joko passed by me, and then he turned around and did a loop to stop and say hello. We talked for quite a long time at the side of the road, and I shot some video of our conversation. And Joko also shot some video for his YouTube channel. I enjoyed that talk. It turned out that he kept his face hidden on all his videos, just like many motovloggers do. And while I was editing that portion of the video I shot, I blurred his face during the part when he removed his helmet. I wanted to honor his “mystery motovlogger” style.
I’ve since checked out his YouTube channel, and it isn’t a big or elaborate project for him. He started this channel in November of 2022, I think. And he’s posted about 30 videos. Most of them are short videos of him riding his motorcycle. He doesn’t generally speak on his videos. He’s developed a nifty technique that involves pushing his smartphone up inside his helmet so that the camera lens is pointing forward through the visor slit, and that’s how he films most of the time. And then he will occasionally prop his phone up at the side of the road and ride past it. He spoke English, and he told me that as a kid, he loved to watch movies, and this helped him learn English. And he went to school in Malaysia for four years, and I think his university program was all in English. He is currently a lecturer at a local university, and he teaches what he called Informatics Engineering. I looked that up yesterday, and that appears to be another way of saying Computer Science and Engineering.
During this walk to get to this bridge, I had to walk along the main road, and that wasn’t particularly pleasant. It was kind of ironic that I was NOT cycling, and yet I still ended up on the same road with the same stream of heavy trucks thundering past. To be honest, as I was walking, I had very strong thoughts that whether my knee is in good condition or not, I should quit cycling. It struck me as crazy if not extremely dangerous to be anywhere near this road on a bicycle. And I met another young man who gave me an idea about that. This man was also on a scooter – a Scoopy. And he said he worked as a salesman for a distributor of skincare products for men and women. He was based in Pekanbaru, and he drove all over Riau Province for his job. During our chat, he mentioned that he knew a place that rented scooters for 50,000 rupiah per day. At first, I was quite excited because I thought he was referring to a place in Bangkinan. But this shop was in Pekanbaru. I don’t know what the requirements would be for renting a scooter, but it’s nice to know that this is an option.
I finally reached the small road that I had chosen to get me to the bridge across the river. And I was surprised to find myself very quickly at the banks of a very wide river. On Google Maps Satellite View, there was no indication that such a large river would be sitting right there. And then I was able to walk along the bank of the river toward the bridge. I enjoyed that a lot. It was nice to be away from the highway and the busy roads of Sumatra for a brief while. However, I never made it to the bridge. I barely got close to it. I could see the bridge, and it was much larger and had much larger suspension towers than I expected. But I ran into another river that merged with the main river, and I wasn’t able to get across it without swimming. And even if I did swim across it, it wasn’t clear that I would be able to reach the bridge. There could likely be more barriers. I had chosen the wrong way to approach the bridge. When I look at Google Maps now, I can see that there was a better road to follow, and that would have gotten me to the bridge. I’m thinking that I might go back there today by bicycle just to complete the journey.
The best moment of the day, however, occurred when I turned around and started to walk away from the river. I passed a building where there was a loud engine running and a lot of other activity going on. There were large containers sitting on top of wood fires. There were vats of boiling liquid. And there were stacks of wooden trays. They were clearly making some kind of food product, but I didn’t know what it was, and I approached the place with my GoPro hoping to investigate. When I got close, I got the attention of a man there, and I pointed to the camera and then to the interior of the building and I used sign language to try to ask if it was okay that I look around and take a bit of video. He seemed to say it was okay and I wandered around a bit.
Had I been thinking clearly and NOT shooting video, I probably would have figured out instantly what was going on. They were processing soybeans and making soymilk, tofu, and tempeh. Honestly, I knew next to nothing about any of this. My brain appears to reject all information related to food and food products. I encounter these things over and over, but the information never sinks in. Just now, I did some reading on Wikipedia about tempeh. And the article describes it as a specifically Indonesian food similar to tofu. And it is made using a particular fungus to drive a fermentation process. The article says that tempeh is different from tofu in that it retains the whole bean and therefore has “a higher content of protein, dietary fiber, and vitamins.”
While I was shooting a minute or two of video and looking around, a woman came up to me with her smartphone in her hand, and she started asking me questions. She was curious why I was there. The engine was far too loud inside the processing area for us to talk, so we went outside a bit, and she got a chair for me, and we had a nice, long talk through Google Translate. We just passed our phones back and forth as we asked and answered questions and showed each other the translations. Anyone who watches my YouTube videos will be happy to see that. I get lots of comments telling me to use Google Translate. Of course, I use it all the time in this way and other ways. But it just hasn’t been in my videos. This time, people will be able to see it in action.
The woman asked me if I’d like to try some soymilk, and she brought me a glass of fresh, hot, sweetened soymilk. This would be one of the products that they sell. And she showed me some packages of finished tempeh. And while I was sitting there, I witnessed men coming up on motorcycles and scooters and riding away with buckets full of squares of tofu. If you did a deep dive into their business, you’d probably discover a vast network of connections all over this area selling all kinds of soy products to businesses and stores and individuals. I asked her if they grew their own soybeans, and she said that they didn’t do the farming themselves. They purchased the soybeans from a store, and then they processed them to make all these products.
While I was there, I noticed that the family had three or four children, and I took out my second GoPro and gave it to the oldest boy and indicated that, if he wanted to, he could take it and shoot some video for me. That little project was wildly successful – far more successful than I could have imagined. The boy was very happy to do this, and he ended up shooting two videos for me. Each one is just over 13 minutes long, and he captured all of the soybean processing activity and some video of various rooms and areas in the house and of me chatting with his mother. Watching the video is fascinating. It definitely conveys the high energy of a young boy as he raced around and pointed the camera in seemingly ten different directions all at once. He was like a bounding puppy, racing around and filming just one second of everything before switching to the next subject. It’s great to watch, and he captured all kinds of subjects and angles and reactions from people that I never would have gotten myself. I haven’t had the time to watch both videos in their entirety, but I did notice he couldn’t resist being a true young boy, and at one point, he turned the camera to himself and gave the camera the finger. I wonder if there are other naughty bits throughout the video.
One thing I noticed while sitting there was that the noise and exhaust from the engine driving the soybean grinder was somewhat overwhelming. It was loud and made just sitting there and trying to talk difficult. This place was both their business and their home, and I wondered what it was like to live there with that constant noise. I reflected that in their shoes, the first thing I would do is build some kind of brick and cement and wood enclosure for the engine and deaden the noise that way. Perhaps there are challenges to doing this that I’m not aware of, but it seems like it would be relatively easy and inexpensive to do. And, from my point of view, it would improve the quality of their lives immensely. I suppose I’d also try to find a way to extend the exhaust pipe of that motor to have the exhaust fumes drift away from the house.
Before I left, the woman gave me a present of a 1.5-liter bottle of fresh soymilk. It was very hot coming right out of the cooking vat. I’m a bit nervous about drinking that much soy milk quickly. I feel like such a sudden onslaught of soymilk would lead to stomach problems, but I drank half of it last night. And I will probably polish off the rest of it today. I don’t have a way to keep it cool, so it might spoil if I keep it longer than that.
On my way back into town (still walking and getting very, very hot and sweaty), I stopped at the streetside stall where the woman I met the previous day was selling coconut juice. It was excellent and very welcome considering how hot and thirsty I was. And while I was sitting there, three women approached me, and after a complicated series of exchanges using Google Translate, I was finally able to figure out that they wanted me to visit their nearby shop. I promised that I would do so after I finished my coconut drink.
The shop was called Oleh-Oleh Kampar, and they sold all kinds of dried snacks, such as banana chips, peanuts, and chips made from various vegetables and fruits. Apparently, my visit to this shop was not a random thing. They had a very clear idea of what this visit was about, and a man took video of me with his smartphone as the three women had me sample almost everything they sold. They had open packages of each product that were labelled “TESTER”, and these were for customers to try a snack before buying them. And I don’t know if they have a website or anything like that, but it’s possible this video of me sampling their products will end up in their marketing material in some fashion. I liked the snacks so much that I ended up purchasing three items: a container of banana chips, a container of coated peanuts, and a box of pineapple chips. I didn’t actually want all those snacks, but somehow, in the heat of the moment, I went a bit crazy and bought a bunch. It felt like I should after all the effort they went to give me the tour and let me sample everything. They even gave me a complimentary bottle of pineapple juice fresh from the fridge.
And I ended my day with a walk down to the mie ayam bakso stall. And I was happy to see that it was open. I had had nothing to eat all day except for the sample snacks, and I knew I should eat something. I wasn’t actually feeling hungry. And I was so hot and sweaty and tired from my walk and all my encounters with people that I knew eating was not going to be easy or comfortable. But I wanted to have something in my stomach before I went back to my guest house room. Otherwise, I’d probably end up eating nothing but banana chips and peanuts and soymilk when my appetite kicked in. And that would lead to stomach problems without a doubt.
I had kept the GoPro running the entire time on my walk and throughout all these random encounters. And I ended the video shooting session with my mie ayam bakso. As always, when you put all this video together, it is going to be far too long. I know I should post shorter videos, but a video of one of my normal days always ends up with this much content. A lot happens in a normal day, especially a walkabout day like this one had been. We’ll see what I end up doing with it.
I have tons more thoughts in my head, but I have to stop here and get on with my day. I have two big things to do today, as I said. I have to book that flight, which I plan to do right now. And then I have to get money. I’m not looking forward to either task. I know that in this modern world, booking a simple flight is not a big deal. But it is always stressful for me. I’m worried that everything will go wrong. I’m worried in particular that my credit card will be rejected when it comes to payment, and then I will have to call my bank in Canada and go through that long hassle. My stomach is tied up in knots just thinking about all the potential problems. So much stress. Anyway, I’m going to take a careful look at the dates and distances and costs and think about the implications, and then I will decide what to do: Ferry to Malaysia? Flight from Pekanbaru? Flight from Padang? Easy? Sort of easy? Or challenging? I’m still leaning toward the Padang option. But we’ll see how much the flight is and whether there are any seats available. I definitely want to do it today. I don’t want to wait any longer.
10:47 a.m.
I did it. My heart is pounding and my fingers are sweaty, but I booked a flight. It’s crazy how nervous I get doing these things. I almost become superstitious, as, when I finally click on the “PURCHASE” button, I close my eyes and summon all the goodwill of the universe to flow through me and allow the payment to go to my credit card. And to my delight, the universe came through for me and the payment was accepted. There is no need for me to spend the rest of today and probably tomorrow making phone calls and trying to unfreeze all my accounts. I’m so relieved.
I have to say, though, that my efforts did not get off to a great start. I wanted to book a flight on AirAsia using the AirAsia app, but when I clicked on that app, I was presented with an Update button. The button was just suggesting that I update to the newest version of the app. And my instinct was to say no. Who knows what is going on with the new app? I know the old version works. So why take a risk and update to the latest version right before booking a flight? I figured it was better to book the flight first. I could get that done and THEN I can update to the new version of the app if I wish. However, the system wouldn’t let me launch the app without updating. I had no choice but to update to the latest version first. So I did that, and then, of course, the app wouldn’t work. I was able to load the app and select a date for my flight and the departure city and arrival city. But then it would just not do anything. It would not present me with any flight options. And my heart sank, because I figured that I would not be able to use the AirAsia app. And I started to anticipate all kinds of problems and issues.
But before I started to panic, I started troubleshooting, and I did the first thing that everyone does: I closed the app and reopened it and tried again. But the app still wouldn’t work. And then I took the next obvious step and restarted my phone and cleared all the memory and caches. Finally, after I did that, the app appeared to work, and I was able to look at all the available flights and begin making choices.
I thought about all my options, and I decided to go with my heart and book a flight out of Padang. I’m taking a risk that my knee and my bicycle will be able to get me to Padang. But I have two weeks to get there. And I should be able to figure something out even if my knee still gives me trouble. And I won’t have as much time as I had hoped to hang out in the Bukittinggi area as I pass through. But the plan is to fly back, of course, and then I will have another 30-days on my new visa-on-arrival, and I could ride back up to Bukittinggi if I wished. The base fare was reasonable at $60 US for a one-way flight. And after all the fees, etc, it came to a total of $73 US or about $100 Canadian. You can’t argue with that.
I had a choice between two direct flights. Each flight was one hour and ten minutes long and cost the same. The first flight left at eight in the morning. And I instinctively started booking that flight. I always like to go everywhere as early as possible. But then I caught myself. The other flight was at 4:45 in the afternoon. It arrives in Kuala Lumpur in the evening, and I dislike that. But to get that flight at eight in the morning, I’d have to arrive at the airport at around six. And that would mean waking up at around four in the morning. And I will have to figure out a way to store my bicycle in Padang while I’m gone. And thinking about that, I went against my instincts, and I started booking the 4:45 flight. Taking that flight will give me time on that final day to make arrangements for my bike and other luggage. It will be nice to have that extra time and not have a sleepless night before the flight.
To my amazement, the booking process went well. I kept expecting a problem to crop up. There is almost always a problem. But I moved methodically from page to page in the system and carefully read everything and made sure that I filled in everything completely and accurately. I was doubly careful when it came to filling in my credit card information and contact numbers. I made sure that everything was accurate and consistent. Everything I wrote down had to match everything else perfectly. Then I summoned the good luck of the vast universe, took a calming deep breath, and pushed on the PURCHASE button. And I was so happy to hear all my devices start beeping as they received confirmation emails about payment and the flight. If there was a problem, then none of that would happen. I would just get an error message on the app telling me that my bank had declined to accept the charges. But I heard a whole bunch of happy beeping. And I knew that the payment had gone through.
Then I carefully looked at the confirmation emails to make sure that I hadn’t made a mistake. These days, it wouldn’t surprise me if I went through this long process and ended up booking a flight for the year 2024 instead of 2023 or booked it for March instead of February or selected the wrong departure city. I contemplate so many options when I do these things that when I finally do the thing, I sometimes end up clicking on the wrong option by accident. But I had done everything correctly and I will be flying from Padang to Kuala Lumpur on February 14, which is the very last day of my visa.
Now I need to sail out into Bangkinan and see if I can get some money from a friendly ATM. I’m not looking forward to this experience either.