Thursday, October 23, 2025
7:00 a.m. Raja Bot Hotel
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Just a quick update about what is happening on Planet Doug. Life circumstances and new opportunities have kept me in Kuala Lumpur, so I’m still here, much longer than I had planned. I keep making plans to leave and then extending my stay by a couple more days and then a couple more days as life complications take over. My visa expiry date is still bearing down on me and approaching fast. My current social visit pass expires on November 13, so no matter what happens, I must leave Malaysia in some fashion on or before that date.
I’ve had an extremely enjoyable time in Kuala Lumpur, as always. I’ve been hanging out with the American Hobo a fair bit. The American Hobo (AKA Daniel the long-distance cyclist) was staying at the Raja Bot Hotel for a few days. It was great to have a neighbor for a change. We went out a couple of times together into the city. And even when we weren’t out shooting a video together, we could touch base throughout the day and share notes and stories about bicycle touring, about camera gear, about shooting and editing videos, AND, of course, about all of life’s little problems when you are overseas.
Daniel has plans to take a ferry over to Sumatra with his bicycle and do some travelling there. And to do that, he needs to figure out what to do in terms of getting a visa. We’ve been comparing notes about that, and he eventually applied for the 60-day C1 tourist visa, which is now available online. The hope is that his application is working its way through the system and he will get it soon. The Indonesian immigration website says it takes five days to process a C1 visa. Assuming Daniel did everything right in the application, he should be hearing about that soon, maybe even today or tomorrow. The clock is ticking for him, too, as he has even less time in Malaysia than I do.
Daniel has since moved on to a new home. Here at the Raja Bot he had his own private room. He chose to stay here initially just to hang out with me. But eventually, he had to go back to his roots, and he moved into the top bunk bed of a dorm room at a hostel just on the outskirts of Chinatown. It’s called The Manor by Mingle. He shows the place in detail in his videos, so I’m not betraying any secrets by naming his new home.
I’m hoping to drop by The Manor today or tomorrow to see his new home and touch base with him. I really want to see what The Manor is like. It looks like a cool place. It’s always good to learn about new places where one could stay. Unfortunately, they have few private rooms, and the rooms they do have are actually more expensive than those at the Raja Bot or Crossroads. And I can’t really stay in a dorm these days. I have too much camera gear and video editing gear and my life is too complicated and demanding to sleep on the top bed of a bunk bed.
And other than just catching up with Daniel, I have another reason to drop by the Manor: The American Hobo bought a new bicycle! I really want to check out this bicycle in person. His current bicycle has been suffering from a rash of flat tires and other mechanical problems, and I think Daniel was starting to wonder if this particular version of his cheap bicycle was up to the rougher conditions (and steeper roads) he will likely face in Sumatra. And when he saw the opportunity to pick up a better bicycle at a good price, he went for it. This happened really fast. He picked it up last night and now he will be spending some time modifying it so that it can carry his pannier bags and other gear. It is a mountain bike, so it doesn’t have the attachment points you’d find on a touring bicycle. So he has to do some DIY magic to get it ready for Sumatra.
I haven’t seen this bicycle in real life, but I saw a picture and a list of stats, and it seems like an upgrade over his current bicycle. Hopefully, the tires are tougher and don’t get punctures as often or as easily. And the gearing ratio is much lower, so he will have a lot more power and torque for going up the steeper roads of Sumatra. I don’t think his older bicycle could have done much climbing there.
My bicycle remains in Port Dickson waiting for me. Despite delays, I still have just enough time to go there and get my bicycle on the road and then ride to Johor Bahru to cross over into Singapore before my current visa expires. I could spend some time in Malacca along the way. It’s about 300 kilometers from Port Dickson to Johor Bahur along the coast. And that is doable even at my slow pace. But I would have to leave Kuala Lumpur very soon. I could, if I decided to, leave Malaysia and return by air, if that is more convenient. And THEN go to Port Dickson to get my bicycle. Or I could simply go to Singapore by bus. That would avoid the hassle and stress of getting a bicycle across that border, especially since I will be showing up with two passports. I need to get immigration to transfer their records from my old passport number to my new one.
In recent days in Kuala Lumpur, I’ve met up with friends and gone out for meals and seen some new parts of the city. All of this is documented in upcoming videos that are already completed and uploaded. Tonight, for example, I will be posting a 5-Snack Challenge video from Taman Connaught Night Market. I was thinking about making this video a Premiere. But I’m not sure how people feel about Premieres. I almost wish YouTube used a different word. A “Premiere” makes me feel like the video has to be something very special. A more natural description might be “Live Presentation” or “Live Screening” or something like that. This 5-Snack Challenge video isn’t so amazing that it needs a full-on Premiere with a red carpet and a photo shoot. But perhaps it would be fun to post this video in a live setting where I can chat with people in the Live Chat window and give real-time commentary.
I posted my last video as a Premiere, but that was probably a mistake. I did that on impulse, not considering that that particular video was very long and very talky. It was more of a Behind-the-Scenes video than anything else, and I think it dragged heavily as a Premiere. Perhaps Premiere “events” should be reserved for shorter and more active videos, such as this 5-Snack Challenge, which is “only” forty minutes long. Forty minutes is a shorter video on wordy Planet Doug.
In recent days, I’ve also had the opportunity to meet a new Planet Doug follower, and that has opened up a whole new side of Kuala Lumpur to me. This new follower is a foreign resident of Malaysia and quite a well-known and prominent businessman. He was kind enough to invite me into his home for a nice dinner and then a lunch the following week. I was also able to have a meeting with his company’s video editor, and we had a great talk about shooting and editing video and all the associated gear and apps. This man’s home happened to be on a high floor of a condominium tower, and I was able to take in some fantastic views of Kuala Lumpur from high up.
The recent loss of my credit card (which was cancelled because of fraud and a security risk) continues to be an issue. My bank has already issued a new card, but the postal strike in Canada means that it hasn’t been delivered, and there is no way to know when it will show up. It could take weeks or months. And this month just happened to be a month when a bunch of online payments were coming due. And these payments were being rejected because the credit card was invalid. I was suddenly faced with all these past-due bills with notifications that various online accounts were going to be deleted if I didn’t pay up!
Luckily, Malaysia came to the rescue once again in the form of my Touch’nGo eWallet and my brand new Touch’nGo Visa card. I look back now, and I can’t believe the luck of this timing. I discovered that I could get this Touch’nGo Visa card totally by accident, and it happened the same week that my actual Visa card was hit with fraud and cancelled. The Touch’nGo credit card was issued very quickly, and though it isn’t a full credit card, I discovered that it functioned online exactly like any other card. And I was able to use it to cover the payments for my online accounts, and my online life was saved. I got that new card just in the nick of time. I don’t know what I would have done without it. My online life would have come crashing down.
And that’s it for now. It’s time to set aside this brief update and start my day.