Tuesday, October 29, 2024
7:07 a.m. Room 19, Hotel Malahayati
Tanjung Balai, Sumatra, Indonesia
(4,137 words)
I hardly know what to say about my small adventures of yesterday getting a SIM card. A phrase like “Hopefully, this goes well” has an unusual meaning when you are a foreigner in a place like Tanjung Balai. The accurate definition of something going well is simply to accomplish what you set out to do. And based on that definition, yesterday went well. I now have a brand new Telkomsel SIM card in a phone that has mobile access to the Internet. I accomplished what I set out to do. However, it would be a stretch of logic to claim that it actually went well.
Even getting to the Telkomsel Grapari office was a challenge. I rode there on my bicycle, and navigating the traffic was quite the experience. I’m accustomed to it, I suppose, but I think the average person encountering that for the first time would have thought it insane. There were so many moments at which an accident was narrowly averted. There was one in particular when a heavily-loaded becak turned right in front of me and came at me head-on going the wrong way. The becak driver never even looked where he was going. He just turned and gunned it. I had to swing hard out into the road to avoid a collision. We did not collide, but I could easily have been hit by someone coming up from behind.
Luckily, the Telkomsel Grapari office was located where Google Maps said it would be located. And it was open, and it wasn’t super crowded. A pleasant young man met me at the door and did the screening. And then I went inside and took a seat to wait my turn. My turn came very quickly, and I found myself seated in front of a very nice young woman who spoke English well. She was quite professional and good at her job. She asked me how she could help me today, and when I explained what I needed, she got to work.
I don’t think I have the energy to go into all the details of the craziness that ensued. I think I was in that seat for an hour and a half before it was all done. Right out of the gate, we ran into my usual issues with my phones and customs and IMEI registration. This woman worked for a long time and asked me a lot of questions about my visits to Indonesia. She really wanted or needed specifics about exactly how many times I had been to Indonesia and when was my first visit and how long was I in the country each time and where did I go and what other countries did I visit and how long did I stay in those countries. I couldn’t answer any of those questions with specifics. I can’t remember all those details. She asked me far more questions than any immigration officer ever has. And I have no understanding why all this data is needed for simply getting a SIM card. And then after all of this, she had to go to the back and consult with her supervisors. And after a bunch more work on the computer, she turned back to me and asked me if I had a second phone. I said that I did, and I handed it over. And she informed me that my first phone couldn’t be used in Indonesia anymore. The block from Customs was permanent, she said, and I would never be able to use it in the country again. She said that she could extend the IMEI registration on my second phone for this visit, but that would be it. And after that, it would also be banned forever. Therefore, if I ever wanted to return to Indonesia in the future, I would have to buy a new phone.
I honestly didn’t and don’t understand any of this, especially when you consider that I had just seen the large sign at the dock stating that if you were going to be in Indonesia for less than 90 days, you didn’t have to register the IMEI of your devices. I was going to be in Indonesia for less than 60 days. So, according to the posted rules, I don’t even have to register the IMEI. Yet, Telkomsel insisted that I did. It’s so confusing. And it’s doubly or triply confusing when you consider that I know lots of people who enter Indonesia through places like Jakarta and Bali and they get a SIM card at the airport and the issue of the IMEI and customs never even comes up. I was chatting with a friend of mine yesterday who is currently in Indonesia. And he told me that he had gotten a SIM card at the airport quickly and easily and he didn’t have to do anything special. That is the story I get from other people. So why has it been different for me? I simply don’t know. All I can guess is that in Sumatra, they applied the rules differently.
While I was there, I also learned that my old SIM card had expired and could not be reactivated. So I had to get a new SIM card. Luckily, that is not a big deal. It cost only 10,000 rupiah, which is about 65 cents US. And the woman at Telkomsel activated and installed it for me and registered it with the Telkomsel app. I didn’t have to do anything other than pay for it. The 10,000 rupiah was only for the card itself, however. There was no data package attached. So I had to select the amount of data I wanted. She told me how much it cost, and I settled on buying 100 gigabytes of data for 150,000 rupiah. That’s about $9.50 US, and I think it works out to ten cents per gigabyte.
It’s interesting to compare SIM cards in Indonesia and Malaysia. Simply getting the SIM card in Indonesia is FAR more complicated and time-consuming than in Malaysia. In fact, it’s kind of overwhelming. But the data side of things in Indonesia is much better. I have a Digi SIM for Malaysia, and their data packages are horrendously complex and confusing and difficult. They seem designed to purposely confuse their customers so that they can take advantage of them and sell them things they don’t want and take away as much money as possible. But with Telkomsel, it’s simple. I just had to decide how many gigabytes I wanted to buy. And that data can be used for anything I want. I can use it for uploading, downloading,streaming, web surfing, and for mobile hotspot. In Malaysia, they divide it all up into categories, and you get a certain amount of data at one speed and an amount at other speeds and some can be used for streaming social media content but not for other things. A small amount can sometimes be used for mobile hotspot depending on the package you buy. And you can’t buy more hotspot quota. And if you leave more money in your account beyond a certain day, the money “expires” and Digi just takes it. And every time you make a purchase, extra money is removed from your account beyond the cost of the purchase, and they don’t explain where the money went. And the data packages are monthly subscriptions that renew automatically in the background. Whenever you add money to your account, these monthly subscriptions just suck up all that money and renew without your permission. It’s insanely complicated. So, the systems here in Indonesia and in Vietnam are far superior. In both those countries, you just buy data and you’re done. And you can use that data however you want without any restrictions, and you can have money in your account that just stays there until you want to spend it. It’s YOUR money, after all. Somehow companies in Malaysia have the right to just empty your account whenever they feel like it. But getting a SIM card and the requirement to register the IMEI of your phone is much more complicated and confusing in Indonesia.
After I got everything set up at Telkomsel, I was happy if confused, and I continued on my bicycle into downtown Tanjung Balai. My goal was to buy a replacement for my aging and broken electric kettle. I’ve been using these inexpensive cooking pots that I’ve found in Myanmar and here in Sumatra. And my last one, the one that I purchased in Medan, had burned out and melted. It still worked, but it was a serious fire hazard and was sure to break down completely any day. So I wanted to replace it. I rode through all the crazy traffic, and I stopped at a series of shops until I found one that sold almost the exact same product. These cooking pots seem to all come from the same factory in China. And then they are sold to dozens of companies worldwide, and each company puts their own branding on them. So even though this new kettle was essentially the same product as my old one, it had a different name and came in a different box. It’s also slightly larger. These pots have a small, medium, and large size based on the diameter of the pot in centimeters. I think my old one was 9 centimeters. It’s the smallest. But this store in Tanjung Balai didn’t have that size. The smallest they had was 12 centimeters. But I bought it anyway. And I discovered later on that it was actually the same weight as my old smaller one. I was very happy with this purchase, and I have been boiling water for coffee with it ever since.
Right across from the store where I bought the kettle, there was an ice cream shop, and I popped in there to rest, relax, get a cold drink, and ooh and aah over my new kettle. I got a bubble milk tea and an ice cream sundae. While I was there a local man came over to chat with me. His name was Duen, and he was a teacher. We chatted for quite a while about the usual things. And he told me things I didn’t know about Indonesia, such as the fact that their national anthem is extremely long. It was also some kind of holiday yesterday, and lots of men were wearing a particular type of traditional shirt.
I had a lot of fun riding my bicycle around Tanjung Balai yesterday. Lots of people shouted greetings and asked me questions as I rode past. Others stopped me for a chat and for a selfie session. It was quite an active ride.
I spent the late afternoon and evening back at my hotel. I was editing a video I shot in Malaysia. It’s another trip preparation video that I planned to post to Patreon. I was also trying to upload a different prep video, and that turned into a frustrating experience. I thought I would try to upload the video using mobile internet, since there is almost no WiFi here in my room. But I ran into the same problem that I encountered in Malaysia. The upload would cancel and reset to zero. I let the uploading go on for a long time, and the upload would reach about 11 gigabytes. And then, for no reason that I could see, it would reset and all 11 gigabytes would be lost and the video would start uploading all over again from the beginning. I stuck with it despite the frustration and late in the evening, the upload reached 19 gigabytes of a total of 19. It just had to complete a tiny bit more. But instead of completing the upload, it reset to 11 gigabytes and started all over again from that point. I just about lost my mind with stress and frustration. All these technical and gear problems have been getting to me in a bad way. I was about to give up, but I decided to just let it continue uploading, and I went to sleep. Around 3 in the morning, I woke up and checked on the progress, and to my relief it had completed. It had taken me several days to upload this one video. And I had used up 50 gigabytes of mobile data to upload 19 gigabytes.
I also took advantage of my new SIM card and mobile data to download a couple of shows. And I started watching the latest season of Deadliest Catch. I enjoy that show. But it’s also interesting when you consider it from a YouTube or filming point of view. What I mean is that when you stop to think about it, you see just how much the experience is curated to be exciting and how much is left out. Personally, I enjoy shows and YouTube videos that contain the entire experience. I want all the work and all the behind-the-scenes content. I don’t want just the highlights. But with a show like Deadliest Catch, you can see how it could be a wise choice to focus only on the exciting highlights. For example, they completely ignore the long stretches of time when the crab boats are simply steaming to the next location and the crew are lying in their bunks or hanging out in the galley. And they never show them cooking and eating and cleaning. Obviously, a big part of work on a crab boat involves getting enough food and water and other essentials on board and then having someone prepare meals for the crew.
Therefore, if you watch an episode of Deadliest Catch and you think that THAT is what you would experience while working on a crab boat, you would be wrong. The show only shows you the times when they are dumping the crab pots into the sea and then pulling them back up to get the crab. And they don’t show you the parts when the water is smooth and calm and work is easy. They only show you the parts when there are huge waves and storms and there are fires on the boat and people are being injured and gear is breaking. Personally, I would like a more realistic portrayal, but such a show would not be nearly as popular.
And this same thing applies to YouTube travel videos. You can see this clearly in the first video that Noraly posted on Itchy Boots about her new journey. The video begins, as nearly all her videos do, with her about to get on the motorcycle and go. She skips all the stuff that, I guess, most people would consider boring. She doesn’t show any of the packing or preparations. She doesn’t show where she spent the night. The video opens with her having a simple breakfast and announcing that she is in Istanbul. And within one minute, she is on the motorcycle and riding. And she explains that she shipped her motorcycle to Istanbul. Then she travelled there to meet it and pick it up to begin her new journey.
But think about that. Think about just how much is NOT shown in the video. She didn’t show how she shipped the motorcycle. That must have involved days of work and a LOT of expense and effort and research. She didn’t show her own trip to Istanbul by train or bus or flight. She doesn’t talk about how she got SIM cards for her phone and other devices. She doesn’t talk about how she is carrying money. She is probably doing tons of work in the background arranging visas for various countries and getting her vaccinations updated and getting the customs papers for her motorcycle and getting insurance. THAT is probably 90% of the journey, but she shows none of it. And I guess that is the smart thing to do. People don’t want to see the hard work that goes into one of these journeys. They just want the fun and drama and beautiful scenery as captured by a drone.
Think about the equivalent in my case. In theory, I am here in Tanjung Balai to begin a cycling journey to Lake Toba and across Sumatra to Sibolga (and perhaps beyond that). And if I adopted the Itchy Boots approach, I would open the very first video with me on my bicycle in Tanjung Balai and starting to ride. That’s what she does all the time. I would ignore all the weeks of work that got me to that point. And I would ignore the ferry ride from Malaysia to Sumatra. I would ignore all the days in Tanjung Balai getting settled and getting a SIM card and getting food and buying gear and figuring out how to get water and a dozen other things. I guess that would be the smart thing to do, but I have to say that I would find it boring to tell such a limited story. I like to tell the WHOLE story in detail, whether on video or in words and pictures. That’s the fun of it. I would find it very strange to have that huge adventure of transporting my bicycle from Port Dickson to Tanjung Balai and then pretend that none of that happened and not show or tell the story.
Of course, as I’ve learned over and over again, video is so time-consuming that you CAN’T tell the whole story on video. I keep making the mistake of trying to do that. And my entire life is lost in just the video-production process. I spend so much time making videos that there is no time left for the trip itself. And that’s just plain stupid. Yet, I do it over and over. I swore that after my last trip to Sumatra, I would never do it again, but I did it again in Vietnam and I can feel that I’m already repeating it here in Sumatra. I shot a big video about my ferry ride to Sumatra. And I shot another big video about just going out yesterday to get a SIM card and buy a kettle. And it would probably take a week just to edit those two videos. And that’s the problem I always run into. So the Itchy Boots approach is probably the best.
I did have my usual problems with her video. The thumbnail was pure clickbait again. The thumbnail is a close-up of her face looking worried, and the word HELLISH is plastered across it in huge letters. But when you watch the video, you learn that it happened to be raining on the day she set off on this journey. And rain is certainly unpleasant. I never ride in the rain at all. But from what I saw of her trip, there was nothing hellish about it. It’s just misleading and annoying clickbait.
The other day, I was writing about how so much of the exciting drama in these travel videos is artificial in that it is all self-created. People put all these big obstacles in their own way and then make a big deal about how they had to overcome all these problems. My approach would be to simply avoid the obstacle in the first place. In this case, Itchy Boots was approaching Istanbul at the beginning of the video. And she had plans to ride 350 kilometers to a village in the Turkish countryside and spend the night there in an interesting hotel she had picked out. And then it began to rain heavily. But since she is so focused on the video rather than the experience itself, she decided to just keep riding. And then she could put the drama into the video and call it a hellish trip, etc. In my opinion, the more reasonable choice would have been to stay in Istanbul for the night. Why not wait until the rain ends and leave the next morning or the morning after that? Why ride in the rain when you don’t have to? And why not explore Istanbul and record THAT on video? But I guess she has been to Istanbul many times and it would be nothing new to her.
In the end, she rode the full 350 kilometers to this village and she recorded some nice drone footage. Of course, I also have my usual issues with drone video. I can’t help but think about how that beautiful scenery had nothing to do with her trip. She never saw any of it. Only the drone saw it. So it’s a bit of an illusion when drone video is included in a YouTube travel video. It makes the trip seem wonderful and amazing. Yet, it doesn’t factor in at all because the person flying the drone doesn’t see any of it. They’re stuck on the ground with the rest of us. So it’s a bit artificial. It’s beautiful and it makes the video better, but it is artificial in a way.
When she got to the village, she found that the hotel wasn’t open and the owners were nowhere to be found. So she then had to continue riding to the next major town to find a place to stay. And the video suddenly ends with a close-up shot of her face while she is lying on the bed in this new hotel in this new town. And the video is perfectly fine and perfectly entertaining. Watching it is a fine way to spend 20 minutes of your day and life. However, I can’t help but think about everything that is NOT in the video. We saw nothing of her journey to her journey’s starting point. We saw none of the logistical preparations. She did mention at the beginning that the motorcycle mechanics threw a going-away party for her. But she showed only two seconds of that party. We didn’t see the new hotel at all. We didn’t see her load up the motorcycle in the morning and mount the cameras. We didn’t see her unload the motorcycle and remove the cameras. I think she has ten separate bags on her motorcycle. And that makes me wonder how much of a hassle it is and how long it takes to remove all those bags and bring them all into the hotel each time and then bring them all back out again in the morning and reattach them. It looks like a lot of work. And how does she deal with the security of her belongings as she brings in a couple of bags while leaving all the others on the motorcycle? How does she deal with needing to go to the bathroom while on the road? She has to go inside somewhere for that, and then how does she make sure her bags and their contents are secure and safe? That must be a huge hassle. She did show a light breakfast and a loaf of bread during the ride, but she didn’t show her meals. She didn’t show how she finally unpacked and then went out looking for dinner and then getting water and gas for the next day.
And setting aside all those logistical details, what about Turkey? What about the country she is in? Based on this video, you would have no clue where she was. We barely saw any people. She spoke to no one except the dude in the bakery. There was no mention of the Turkish language, culture, music, art, money, history, religion, geography, or food. It felt a lot like her recent Africa trip where she posted 110 videos, but if you watched all 110, you wouldn’t have learned anything about Africa at all. I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing. Her videos aren’t about that. Her videos are about her motorcycle journey and that’s fine. But I do notice all these things that are missing.
And I haven’t watched it, but Backpacker Ben posted a new video, and this video’s thumbnail and title instantly triggered some of my pet peeves. The title is “Entering the Country They Warned Me NOT to Visit!” I see video titles like that all the time, and they tend to annoy me. It’s false sensationalism. And I always wonder who these mysterious “they” are. Lots of people make YouTube videos about how “they” warned me not to do this or go there. They told me it was dangerous. They warned me to stay out. But who are “they”? It’s a silly video title.
Well, time is passing by quickly, and I should start my own day here in Tanjung Balai. Time to shut down and time to get busy.