Friday, February 3, 2023
6:35 a.m. Room 4, Tengkong Kost
(SPOT ON 91950 Guest House TekNong Syariah)
Bangkinan, Sumatra, Indonesia
These are strange times on Planet Doug. I have a flight from Padang to Kuala Lumpur booked for February 14. Padang is two hundred and fifty kilometers away. Yet, I’ve just been hanging out in Bangkinan and letting the days go past. It’s now the third of February. And assuming I leave tomorrow, I will have nine days to get to Padang. That will leave me just one day in Padang to pack and store my bike. And then my flight is on the following day. For a normal person, nine days is a vast amount of time to travel two hundred and fifty kilometers. It could be done in less than six hours by bus, even from Bangkinan. I could do it today and be in Padang this afternoon. But with my slow pace on a bicycle and a potentially bum knee, it could be a problem.
Originally, I had mapped out quite a few more days for this trip. I hoped to spend a few days in different areas exploring before moving on to the next area. But with my self-imposed time restriction, I’ll have almost no time to hang out and relax in each city. But I’m telling myself that that is okay because assuming that my visa run to Malaysia is successful, I will be flying back to Padang. And then I could ride back up to Bukittinggi and spend time in that area once I start my new thirty-day visa-on-arrival.
Speaking of visas, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but I discovered recently that Taiwan now offers Canadians ninety-day visa-free entry. And this can be extended for an additional ninety days without leaving the country. I think this is new. I don’t remember it being this easy to visit Taiwan in the past. I’m pretty sure I had to go to a Taiwanese consulate overseas and apply for a visa. And the visa was for a very short time. I remember this because Taiwan’s consulates and embassies couldn’t even be called consulates and embassies. China has forced countries around the world to pretend that Taiwan isn’t a separate country and therefore can’t have an embassy. These countries still treat Taiwan as a country, but to placate the Chinese, they call the Taiwanese embassies something else. They call them Taipei Economic and Cultural Offices.
I have Taiwan on my mind because in my actual life, I’m quickly running out of money. And I’ve been thinking that it might not be such a bad idea to visit Taiwan next just to give myself the chance of more easily getting a job should the need arise. And it is starting to feel like that need will arise sooner rather than later. I could arrange a flight to Taiwan with the idea that I will cycle or scooter around the country as part of my Planet Doug adventures. But then I might have the safety net of more easily finding paid work there than in other countries. I suppose it would be better for my life in general to attempt to find work in a new country. I’ve spent a lot of time in Taiwan already. Logic dictates that returning there would not be the best option. It would be better to go somewhere new and at least have new experiences. But I do like the idea of that 90-day entry stamp.
To get back to present plans rather than future plans, I ended up extending my stay in Bangkinan for a variety of reasons. The weather has been uncooperative. There were some nice days when I was in Bangkinan. But the moment I decided to leave, it started to rain again. That has caused me to delay my departure a couple of times. I’ve also needed time to edit YouTube videos. And while I’ve been waiting for the rain to end and editing videos, I keep going out and having new experiences, which I capture on video. And then I need more time to edit and upload THAT new video. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. There was one morning when I was absolutely determined to leave. The previous afternoon and evening, I had done everything I could think of to prepare for a departure. But then that night, I was unable to sleep. I got no sleep, and I ended up exhausted. I was also sick to my stomach. And even though my bike and gear was ready to be rolled out the door, my body and mind were wrecks, and I decided to stay for another day.
There has been a positive side to these delays. I’ve had some interesting experiences in Bangkinan. And that was thanks in part to meeting David, the Swedish cyclist. With his interest in languages, he reminded me of just how important it is to learn a bit of the local language. And with his example to inspire me, I found the energy to dive back into the task of learning some Indonesian. And I rediscovered the fact that learning a language has a knock-on effect. It not only helps you experience life in a new country, it gives you a task to accomplish when you go out exploring. What I mean is that it can provide motivation for going out in search of new experiences. It helps you experience life in a new country, but it also gives you a reason to go out and do so (if that makes any sense). For example, I might normally go out somewhere to get a meal. And the motivation for that is simply to get food because I’m hungry. And I’ll sometimes not bother. Just getting food is not a big motivator for me. But going to a new restaurant also provides an opportunity for learning more of the language. And if you adopt learning the language as a goal, then going to restaurants can be a tool to help you accomplish that goal. What I mean is that knowing some of the language can make it easier to do many things, such as eat in a new restaurant, but eating in a new restaurant is also a means to the end of learning that language.
I suppose it’s a bit like photography in my previous life. I enjoyed photography as a hobby. I liked to take pictures. And I enjoyed having those pictures later on. And I liked sharing those pictures. However, photography also gave me a reason to go out exploring. Without that hobby, I might not wake up early and get on my bike and ride to a fish market. I do find fish markets interesting, but perhaps not always interesting enough to get me out of bed before dawn and going to a market. But if I have a goal to accomplish related to a hobby, that gives me extra motivation. And I would end up visiting the fish market with the goal of taking interesting pictures. And the same process takes place with language, I’ve found. Knowing some of the language helps you go out and interact with the people around you, but it also gives you a specific reason for seeking out that interaction. The interaction is an end in itself, but now it is also the means to an end (the end of learning the language).
That is a very complicated way of saying that for the last few days, I’ve spent time listening to a podcast for learning Indonesian. And I’ve been using that language when I go out into Bangkinan. But when I’m out in Bangkinan, I’m also using that time to learn more of the language. As I said, it provides a certain motivation.
Yesterday, for example, I decided to go out for breakfast and coffee. My idea was to walk down to the Mandiri bank and withdraw more money from the ATM. And on the way, I was going to stop somewhere for breakfast and somewhere else for coffee. I brought my cameras with me, and the whole experience worked out very well. I thought I would get the money first and then I would pop next door for a cup of coffee. The plan was to go back to the coffee shop where I’d met the men the other day. But as I was walking along the street, I spotted a small restaurant where a couple of people seemed to be inside having breakfast. With my new goal of learning language, I went inside and I approached one of the tables and asked the man for the name of the dish he was eating. And this led to me sitting down and having breakfast there myself. And I learned some new words and shot some video for YouTube and had a very good meal.
I chatted as best I could with the people running the restaurant, and they were very pleased that I was having breakfast there. In fact, they spent as much time filming me as I did filming them. And when breakfast was over, they asked me to record a video testimonial about the place. And they would not accept any money from me for the meal. It was free. The main dish was a curry lontong with chicken sate. That was delicious. And they put a plate of snacks on the table called something like makwan. These were fried dough with egg and veggies. I had three of those plus the lontong with sate ayam.
I was also successful in getting more money from the ATM. I was still limited to withdrawing the equivalent of $83 US, but it did work. And I was happy about that. Unfortunately, when I went next door for coffee, the people running the place weren’t there. Another customer told me that they’d gone to the market. Instead of having coffee, I walked down a nearby street and ended up ordering a banana crepe from a small stall. This stall happened to be outside a school, and when I sat down to eat the crepe on a nearby bench, I was soon surrounded by as many as fifty schoolchildren. It was quite an intense scene. I captured quite a bit of it on video. A local man even helped me by picking up my GoPro and acting as my cameraman for a few minutes. And another man took a couple of pictures with my smartphone. The children shouted simple questions at me in English. And then they teased me by asking nonsense questions. It got pretty crazy after a while, and I was eventually rescued by the school bell going off and the teachers coming to corral all the kids.
I continued walking down that street for quite a while. I was on the lookout for an interesting place to have a cup of coffee, but I never came across one. I tried to get some cobblers to cut my sandals down to a smaller size, but they didn’t understand what I wanted them to do. I took some video on the second bridge over the river. And on my way back to my homestay, I stopped by an ice cream parlor, and I had a matcha latte with ice cream. That was the drink I ended up getting to go along with my breakfast. It wasn’t quite traditional, but it was tasty.
I spent the rest of the day editing videos, and I discovered something interesting and helpful along the way. I learned that I could purchase mobile data much more cheaply if it was restricted to the hours from midnight to seven in the morning. I needed fifteen gigabytes of data to upload a video. And that would cost a lot of money with normal data packages. But I realized that I could get the same amount of data for a third of the price if it was time restricted. I wish I had known about that earlier.
I guess that was a success in the realm of technology. But I also experienced a great failure. In the last couple of days, my Rode Wireless Go microphone has been disconnecting from my GoPro whenever I change the battery. And I didn’t realize this was happening, so I ended up with tons of video that has no audio. Late last night, I suddenly realized that my microphones might have recorded a backup audio track. I can’t remember what settings I have on the Rode right now, but it’s possible some kind of usable backup track was recorded. I’m going to check that this morning.
It looks like I am going to stay in Bangkinan again today. And this will have to be my final day unless I do something crazy and change my plans such that I go to Padang by bus or book a new flight out of Pekanbaru. I really should try to ride my bike to Padang, but we’ll see how that turns out. If I were rich, I’d probably just book a new flight out of Pekanbaru. This would give me more time and would let me rest my knees even longer. With this day, I’m going to try to finish editing two more videos.
Now it’s time for coffee and time to see if by pure accident I ended up with a usable backup audio track for my recent videos. I doubt very much this happened, but it would be interesting if it did.
10:37
It’s only just after ten thirty in the morning, but it feels like the day is practically over. It feels like I’ve spent an entire day trying to figure out how to access and export the audio files from the Rode. I find it quite confusing. The good news (though limited good news) is that there ARE some usable audio tracks on the Rode. I don’t know how they are numbered or stored, but they are there, and they cover the last couple of days.
I’ve done some experimenting, and I figured out how to export them at what I think is an appropriate audio level. There are two problems with that. The first problem is that the backup audio tracks don’t match the video clips. The Rode transmitters essentially record non-stop all day long while they are turned on. There are two settings: Backup and Always. If you set the Rode transmitter to Backup, it begins to record and save audio from the instant it connects to the receiver. And it will keep recording and saving audio (in one GIANT file) until you turn it off or turn the receiver off. If you set the Rode transmitter to Always, it records and saves audio from the instant you turn it on until the instant you turn it off. Whether it is connected to the receiver is irrelevant. This is useful for using it as a standalone recorder. There is no stop/start recording button, unfortunately. To start and stop recording, you have to turn the transmitter on and off. The power button works as a start/stop recording button.
I guess these settings are suitable for most people in the real world. But they aren’t very convenient for me because of my vlogging style. I don’t turn the Rode on and off throughout the day. I usually turn it on when I go out with my cameras. And then I turn it off at the end of the day. The result is that I get giant audio files covering all of the hours of the day whether I was recording video or not. For example, if I’m out with my GoPros for eight hours, I will end up with perhaps one hour of video (divided into thirty clips) but eight hours of backup audio in one big file. And then it becomes quite difficult to find the portions of audio you need in the case of an emergency. The Rode recorded audio not only while I was recording video but in all the time in between. There are essentially seven hours of dead air in the audio recording, and I have to sift through all of that to find the short sections that match the video clips.
The other problem is that I don’t understand the export settings. The audio files are not ready to go and just sitting on the Rode to be copy and pasted. They have to exported first and converted into either WAV files or MP3 files. And you can also set the bit rate. However, if I just export them, the audio levels are extremely low. The levels are far lower than the normal audio that my GoPro records using the same microphone. I was expecting to be able to adjust the Gain, as I would normally do on microphones or cameras. I could increase or decrease the Gain (decibels or dB) to make the audio louder or quieter. However, for reasons I don’t understand, the export settings for the backup audio is controlled by a different scale called LuFs. LuFs stands for Loudness Unit Full Scale. The settings range from -12 LuFs to -25 LuFs. There is nothing else. And unlike Gain, LuFs gets quieter with the negative numbers. Yet, the first setting, -12 LuFs is far louder than the default, which I assume is 0. With my audio tracks, -12 LuFs is so loud that it blows out the speakers and is distorted. I did some experimenting and it seems like a range from -22 LuFs to -25 LuFs provides me with audio levels that match what I usually get from the Rode combined with a GoPro. I don’t understand any of this, and I wish I did, but I guess I made some progress.
And now when I edit the video from the last couple of days, and I encounter the video clips where the Rode failed to record anything, I will have to somehow find the matching sections in the hours-long backup files and cut and paste it into the video and sync. It will take a long time to do this.
I will spend the rest of today editing videos and getting ready for a departure in the morning. At this point, I have no choice but to leave. I can’t delay by another day without risking some serious problems. In any event, I think it is the better choice to leave and attempt the ride to Padang. I think I will feel better over the next ten days if I’m actually riding and seeing new places. And I will feel better during my time in Malaysia, since I will actually have made it to Bukittinggi in some fashion. I won’t have spent much time in the town or the region, but at least I will have passed through it. Another option, I realize now, is to follow through on my very first plan, which is to leave my bicycle in Bukittinggi and take a bus down to Padang to catch my flight. I like that plan because it will give me more time in Bukittinggi. And it will give me more time to arrange a place to temporarily store my bicycle. And when I return, I will be forced to take a bus back to Bukittinggi to reuinite with my bicycle. And then I will perfectly established to ride around the nearby lakes as I originally planned to do. Yes, I like this plan.
I feel much better about my situation since I started to focus more on the Indonesian language. It provides some focus for my days. And I think it will help provide some focus for any videos I might shoot while cycling. Instead of recording the actual activity of cycling, I can switch gears and put my efforts towards those times when I stop for meals or to check places out along the way and talk to people. And having a goal of learning some of the language will provide me with some motivation for doing these things.
I’m thinking that a day of cycling can be structured more like one of my regular days. The other day, for example, I set off on foot, and I met Joko, the motovlogger. Then I met Iksan, the skincare products salesman. After that, I walked to the river and tried to reach the bridge. On my return walk, I stopped for an hour and a half at the soybean processing center. And then I wound up the day with a drink of coconut juice, sampling snacks from Oleh-Oleh Kampar, and having a meal of mie ayam bakso. All those events made up the events of the video. And I could do the same with a day of cycling. I can more or less ignore the cycling and put my video efforts into recording any interactions I have with the people and places of Indonesia. And I might be encouraged to seek out these interactions because it would help me learn more of the language. It would be like a self-reinforcing loop.