Tuesday, October 22, 2024
7:55 a.m. Room at the House
Port Dickson, Malaysia
(909 words)
I normally begin these journal entries by writing down the day, date, time, and place. And this morning, I couldn’t remember what day it was. So I asked Perplexity, the AI assistant that I often use. And it ended up being wrong. The AI told me that it was October 21 in Malaysia. That really surprised me. I asked it a second time with different words, and then it gave me the correct day and date. But the first time, it was wrong. That’s a good reminder that you have to double-check everything.
I’m typing this in my room at the house in Port Dickson. I thought about going to Paklang Kopitiam, but since it is a Tuesday, I don’t really have to go there first thing in the morning to get my perfect table. I can go later, and it won’t be so busy. My table might be available even then. And I’m also considering going to the dock to buy my ferry ticket for going to Sumatra. I contacted Indomal Fast Ferry Yesterday, and I reserved a seat. To do that, you just have to send them a WhatsApp message with your full name (the same as in your passport), your passport number, a copy of your passport, and the date you want to go. I told them I wanted a seat on the Saturday ferry on October 26th. And they sent me a reservation number. If I wanted to, I could just show up on the morning of the 26th two hours before the ferry leaves and pay for the ticket then. However, I prefer to get my tickets as much in advance as possible.
I noted that the communication from Indomal wasn’t very professional or complete. I asked them to reserve a seat for me, and they did that and they sent me the ID number for the reservation, but that’s all they told me. I guess there was no reason for them to do more than that, but as a customer, I then found myself wondering a few things. I wondered what time the ferry left exactly. They have an online schedule, but I don’t know if that schedule is still accurate. I need to have the time confirmed. I’d also like to know how long the ferry ride is and what time it arrives in Tanjung Balaji. I’d like to know how much the ticket costs. Their message didn’t even include the price. Of course, I didn’t ask them for the price and I didn’t ask them for ferry departure and arrival times. But I’m pretty sure that if I were working the desk at Indomal, my instinct would be to communicate all of that to the customer along with the ticket number. The ticket number is great. That is all I really needed. But I would have gone the extra mile and included more information. What about baggage? How much baggage can you bring and how much does it cost? What documents do I need? Anything special? Is there any food and drinks available on the boat or should I bring my own water? I can think of a lot of questions a customer might have, and I would anticipate those. I suppose I’m thinking like a western customer. And they don’t get many of those. The vast majority of their passengers are local people, mainly Indonesians who work in Malaysia, and they know the drill. They have likely done this before, and they don’t need any questions answered.
In terms of getting ready for the trip, I did a couple of other things yesterday. I withdrew some money from the bank. I’ll probably have to withdraw more. I need to pay for the ferry ticket in ringgit, but then I will change the rest to Indonesian rupiah. If possible, I’d like to get all the money I’ll need for the trip here in Malaysia where I know the ATM will work. Who knows what will happen when I get to Indonesia? ATMs in various countries sometimes work and sometimes don’t. I guess I’ll lose a bit of money on the exchange by getting Malaysian currency first and then changing it to Indonesian. But the loss will be compensated for by peace of mind and the avoidance of stress and hassle in Sumatra.
I also put in a few hours of packing and preparing back here in my room. The last times I went anywhere were to Vietnam and to Medan, and I went there with my backpack. And all my gear and packing habits are geared towards using a backpack. I’m now switching over to a bicycle, and that requires a lot of thought and preparation. To be honest, when I was working on this, I was a bit surprised at how hard it was. I’ve gone on bike trips in the past, and I have all the relevant gear already. But the addition of taking video changes a lot. It makes packing far more complicated. I have to be ready to go by Thursday, so I have two more days to pack and prepare. On Thursday, I’m scheduled to drop off my backpack at KY’s house. So I have to be ready by then to separate all my gear into two big piles: one pile to go with me to Sumatra and one pile to stay behind.