Monday, October 28, 2024
8:02 a.m. Room 19, Hotel Malahayati
Tanjung Balai, Sumatra, Indonesia
(2,902 words)
Today is my second full day in Sumatra and in Tanjung Balai. Yesterday was largely a rest day, and I will talk about that in a minute. And today will be a combination rest day and getting organized day. My main goal for today is to get set up with a SIM card and a working smartphone. I’ve had endless trouble with that in the past ever since Indonesian customs introduced this new policy about needing to register the IMEI of your smartphone. And then this IMEI registration expires, and you can’t use that phone anymore. I still don’t understand the policy or the system, and I don’t think local people understand it either. Everyone applies it differently and understands it differently. When I came through the dock on Saturday, I saw a big sign about it. And this sign said that if you are going to stay in Indonesia for less than 90 days, you don’t have to register the IMEI of your phones. I think that was true all along. Yet when I went to Telkomsel to get a SIM card, they automatically registered the IMEI of my phone anyway. They said they must do it even if I was staying for only 30 days. And then suddenly my phone stopped working when the IMEI registration expired. I was told that I could never use that phone in Indonesia ever again. So I had to start using a second phone. And that phone’s IMEI registration expired. And then after that, when I ran out of phones, Telkomsel suddenly said that they could extend the IMEI registration. So they started extending it for a month or two at a time. It was all total chaos and no one knew what they were doing. I don’t know what the true situation is right now. And that hardly matters. What matters is what the local Telkomsel Grapari office THINKS is the situation. They will do what they think the current policy is. The reality is irrelevant. Every company and every government office just makes up their own version of things.
I found a Telkomsel Grapari office location here in Tanjung Balai. Oddly enough, it is located quite a distance outside of town. This hotel is already on the outskirts, and this Telkomsel office is 3 kilometers farther on. The plan is to go there this morning and see if I can sort out a SIM card and find out whether any of my phones can be used in the country. Indonesia is quite strict about protecting their economy. I saw an article yesterday saying that the new iPhone 16 is currently banned. I guess Apple was supposed to make some investments in the country in order to have access to the Indonesian market. And they were 14 million dollars short of this investment goal, so the government just banned Apple products. They recently banned the big online store Temu from China. I think they banned Tik-Tok’s commercial store. They banned PayPal and restricted a whole bunch of other companies, such as Shopee and Tokopeia. The Indonesian government has protective policies across the board whether it comes to economics, music, movies, TV shows, tourism, and much more.
But getting back to yesterday, I spent the bulk of the morning here in my room drinking coffee and writing down the story of my ferry ride from Malaysia. I enjoy doing that, though at this point, I still don’t know what to do with it. I started writing again with the idea that it will be included on Patreon. However, I’m still confused about Patreon and how or even if I want to set it up. I suppose that goes arm-in-arm with my current YouTube depression. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I recently posted videos about going out in Dalat in Vietnam. I posted a video about walking through Dalat and going to the big square to watch all the activities there. I thought it was an interesting video, but nobody watched it. Then I posted a video about going to the night market. I thought it was an interesting video with lots of engaging content. But nobody watched it. And because these videos were shot in 4K at 50FPS and were quite long and large, they took forever to edit, export, and upload. It was a nightmare of time and effort to post those videos. But it was just a waste of time from a viewership point of view. I guess they’re boring videos and nobody likes them. So my energy level for YouTube has diminished to the point of non-existence. I just have no inspiration at all at the moment. And if nobody likes my videos about my experiences, then what is the point of even having a Patreon? A Patreon makes sense if there is a base level of interest in what you are doing and what you are making. But in my case, there isn’t.
I still find that puzzling, but in a weird way. What I mean is that I totally understand why my videos are not enjoyable and nobody wants to watch them. If I look at them in a vacuum, I get it. They are long and they’re not funny or entertaining. It makes sense that my videos would not be popular. I get it. However, I see videos on YouTube that are FAR worse than mine. They are far worse than mine in all the ways that mine are bad. Yet, they are super popular. These popular videos have no content. The people don’t do anything or say anything of interest. I saw a video recently where an American went to Jakarta and he just wandered down some wide and empty streets and showed nothing and knew nothing and said nothing. He had the camera aimed at his face the entire time. And all he talked about was how he didn’t know anything about Indonesia and didn’t know anything about Jakarta and didn’t know anything about what he was seeing around him. It was clearly a holiday of some kind, but, as he said in the video, he didn’t know what holiday it was and apparently couldn’t be bothered to find out. It was a truly pointless video with no content. Yet, it got thousands and thousands and thousands of views and lots of comments. People found it engaging and fascinating, apparently. And I keep thinking that if a video like that can find an audience, then what is the problem with mine? I make guesses about what is wrong with my videos. But then I see those same things in other videos that are very popular. So it can’t be the problem. Then what is the problem?
Here in Sumatra again, my instincts are to continue with the same type of videos. I like to tell the story of my travels exactly as they happen. For example, I shot a lot of videos back in Port Dickson about putting my bicycle together and testing various camera mounting systems. I was documenting my life as I was preparing for this trip. But I decided to reserve those videos for Patreon. I’ve posted many videos in the past about preparing for trips – all the logistical challenges. And nobody likes those videos. So I thought I would shoot the videos anyway but keep them as behind-the-scenes (BTS) videos for Patreon. And my instinct is to continue to document the realities of this trip. Therefore, I want to shoot video as I go to the Telkomsel office and try to get a SIM card. I want to shoot video as I get drinking water, as I get food, as I repair the screen over the bathroom window to keep out mosquitos, as I rearrange the furniture in my room to get my bed farther away from the roar of traffic outside, as I do all the dozens of things that you need to do as you travel in a country like this. I’m not interested in shooting some kind of highly curated fantasy about how wonderful and amazing the whole trip has been. In fact, to this point, from an objective point of view, the trip has been unpleasant and uncomfortable. It has been exhausting. It has been stressful. It has been frustrating. But that’s okay. That’s what all these trips are like. But if you make realistic videos about this, no one will be interested. They want to see the Itchy Boots approach where the video begins with all the preparations already done. Her videos begin in the morning at the exact moment she starts the motorcycle engine and starts to ride. And then she quickly jumps ahead in time to show a beautiful drone shot of the countryside. She simply ignores everything else. And it’s a wise choice, I guess. There is far too much work going on in the background to document everything. You have to pick and choose, and YouTube audiences want to see a fantasy about how wonderful everything is. At least that is what YouTube audiences in Asia want to see. They live here, after all. Anything I show in my video is old hat to them. What they want to see is a beautiful 5-star resort. A low budget adventure with all the difficulties that entails is of no interest to them.
Right from the beginning of my life of documenting my travels, whether in writing, in pictures, or on video, I thought it would be of interest for people to see a low budget trip – a true, classic backpacking story – and not the modern luxury style of travel. Even young kids today seem to have tons of money and they fly around the world effortlessly and stay at fancy resorts and nice condos with infinity pools and have private cars to whisk them from the airport to their luxury accommodation. Then they pop outside to fancy restaurants and hire a GRAB car to take them everywhere. And they never have any problems. There is no language barrier because they stay in fancy resorts where everyone speaks English. They eat at fancy restaurants where the menu is in English. They have no problems with WiFi or anything else and they smooth out any problems with money. They do laundry in the machines that are inside their condo or they pay the hotel to do it for them.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are YouTube travellers like Backpacker Ben and Bald and Bankrupt who prey on the human desire for sensationalism. They don’t even try to tell a coherent story. They just show up in some random place around the world and walk around a neighborhood and claim that it is the most dangerous slum in that country and they could be killed, etc. Then they disappear and show up in some other country and claim that they rode on the most dangerous train or nearly got killed in an accident on that country’s roughest road. It’s all lies and clickbait, but no one cares. People love them and their videos. From their videos, you have no idea how they got to that country. They tell no story. There is no beginning or ending. It’s just random clickbait and wild sensationalism. But people love it.
And I’ve noticed a pattern of another type of YouTube traveller. These people are nicer and more genuine than people like Backpacker Ben and Bald. And their videos are popular. But their videos are popular largely because they don’t seem to know what they are doing and they make so many mistakes. I’ve been watching the recent videos from a UK vlogger called We Hate the Cold. He set off on a long journey from Thailand back to the UK. And I guess his original idea was to do the whole thing by scooter, and he bought a Honda Trail 125. But then somehow he ended up deciding to do part of the journey by scooter and then switch to a pedal bicycle. I don’t know why. He hasn’t explained that yet, but I think it has something to do with the difficulty of getting the scooter through customs at various borders.
His first videos were quite popular. They were full of adventure and good stories and humor. But what I’ve noticed is that the adventure stories all come from poor preparation and planning. People in the comments admire these people for their sense of adventure and overcoming all these obstacles. But the obstacles were all of their own making. The We Hate the Cold guy bought this Honda Trail 125 and then took it down muddy rough roads where it didn’t belong. What’s so admirable about that? It’s not like these countries don’t have nice paved roads. They all do. But these vloggers take their unsuitable 125cc scooter down the roughest and most extreme backcountry roads. So of course the scooter gets stuck in the mud, breaks down, gets flat tires, and can’t make it up the steep inclines and over the rocks. And then the video is very exciting because he had to deal with all these problems. But it was his dumb choice to bring that scooter down such an awful road in the first place. It was a selected problem, no different than if I decided to walk across Indonesia blindfolded. Sure, it would be difficult and lots of bad things would happen, but it wouldn’t be admirable. It’s just a dumb choice.
He also got to a border where he was turned away because he didn’t have the proper documents for the scooter. And then he lost his wallet and had no money and no bank cards and no credit cards. Plus, the bags and mounting gear on his scooter all broke because he bought cheap crap from Lazada. So the video was lots of fun and he had to deal with all kinds of problems. Yet, all of those problems were of his own making. It’s just dumb to keep all your money and all your ID and all your bank cards in a wallet in a back pocket. Of course, you’re going to lose it and be in trouble. And that’s exactly what happened. Anyone with any sense will put their ID and bank cards in a safe place, separate from everything else. And they will have money spread out in their bags and have an emergency stash of a few hundred US dollars in case of an emergency. This is all normal. But he didn’t do any of that. And anyone with any sense will buy good gear that you know will be able to survive rough roads. But he didn’t do that either. He bought cheap plastic garbage from Lazada and it all broke right away.
This guy also suffered from dehydration because he didn’t bring enough water. He had trouble camping out because he had a brand new tent and hadn’t even bothered to learn how to set it up before the trip started. The first time he took it out of its packaging was when he needed it on the trip. And that’s just a recipe for disaster.
What I’m saying is that there is this other class of YouTube adventurers who are very popular because their videos are entertaining with calamity after calamity. They get praised for overcoming so many difficulties. Yet, all these disasters are a result of their choices and poor planning and poor preparations. Even Itchy Boots is in this category because practically her entire catalogue of Africa videos consisted of her pushing her motorcycle through deep mud, deep sand, and over rickety bridges on jungle roads. But she deliberately chose those roads. It’s not like it was a natural obstacle that anyone travelling through Africa will face. She could easily have chosen better roads. My video about getting my bicycle from Malaysia to Sumatra will be boring by comparison because I didn’t face any calamities. I planned properly and packed properly and selected proper gear. My bicycle didn’t break down, because it is a durable bicycle and I maintained it. I didn’t get a flat tire, because my tires are high-quality and I put most of the weight in the bicycle trailer. I didn’t get lost, because I knew where I was going and what to do. I didn’t die of thirst, because I made sure to bring enough water. I didn’t lose my money or my bank cards, because I kept them in safe places and in separate places. And I made sure to have local currency in advance.
Anyway, I’m not sure how I ended up going on this tangent. I guess I was talking about how I’m writing down my thoughts with the idea of putting them on Patreon. But having a Patreon only feels right if you are creating some kind of product that people find interesting or entertaining. And my confidence in my ability to make good YouTube videos is at 0% right now. I don’t even know what kind of videos to shoot anymore. I make mistake after mistake and make poor choices constantly.
And speaking of mistakes and problems, it’s now time to set out to get a SIM card. Hopefully, this goes well.