VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
Another behind-the-scenes chat over instant coffee. Today’s random Planet Doug stories include:
🚇 The Mystery of the Malaysian Transit Cards – A viewer sent me three old Rapid KL Touch ‘n Go cards. I went on a mission to see if any money was left on them, leading to a trip to the Touch ‘n Go office, passport photocopy confusion, and a surprising lesson in how “credit” on a card isn’t actually your money.
📹 My Broomstick GoPro Mount & The Quest for the Perfect Vlogging Rig – I dive deep into my endless struggle to mount action cameras for cycling vlogs. Why a simple broomstick became my secret weapon, why RAM mounts are non-negotiable, and why the geometry of a bicycle makes everything so hard. Also, my thoughts on the GoPro Boom, 3-Way mounts, and why AI is the only entity that truly understands my tech problems.
💳 Indonesian E-Wallets in Malaysia – The Final Chapter – A follow-up on my video testing GoPay & QRIS in KL. Why the comments got so technically complex and my simple takeaway for actually using them.
📍 Location Update: Starts in Kuala Lumpur (Chow Kit) and concludes in Port Dickson, where I’ve reunited with my bicycle and its famous broomstick mount.
This is a casual, rambling update about daily life, tech hassles, and travel prep—no big adventures, just Planet Doug thoughts.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Planet Doug behind the scenes for Tuesday, January 27th, 2026. I don’t have any big travel adventure exploring stories, anything like that. This is going to be another random thoughts from my recent daily life and daily struggles. Nothing more than that. Just basically a morning chat over a cup of instant coffee. So if you’re happy with that, just stick with me for some Planet Doug drama, technology stories, thoughts, things like that. So going to dive into my coffee and let’s get started.
I was talking the other day about all the goodies that came in a box for me. A Planet Doug subscriber sent me a care package of GoPro goodies and other technology, you know, memory cards, GoPro batteries. It all started with the GoPro batteries where this person upgraded. I’ve since gotten a message from him, so I have the facts a bit more clear in my head that he had a GoPro Hero 11 and then it stopped working properly. He took it into some very, very cold areas and I guess the cold damaged the camera. So then he got a GoPro subscription which is like a monthly payment you make. You sign up for a monthly subscription and then GoPro offers camera replacement. And I think in my previous video I was saying that you get a brand new camera for $99 and you can do it twice a year. But he wrote and corrected me. He says, “Well, it’s actually a refurbished camera.” Though in his case, he had a GoPro Hero 11 and he contacted GoPro and said, “Is there anything you can do for me?” And they said, “Yeah, we’ll replace it.” And then they actually replaced it with a GoPro Hero 13, the latest, greatest model. So he jumped from an 11 to a 13. But I don’t know whether the 13 he got was brand new. But I think in general the policy is they will give you a like-new at least GoPro, could be a refurbished model and you just have to pay $99 and that’s it. But I think maybe in his case, in any event, he went all the way up from the 11 to the 13. Maybe he got a refurbished model or a brand new one. I’m not sure. But then he had all these extra batteries that only fit the 9, 10, 11, and 12 because the 13 takes a bigger size battery. They redesigned the camera body. So he had all these leftover batteries and he could try to sell them or give them away. And he thought he would be kind to poor Planet Doug here suffering with my swollen GoPro batteries and he said, “I’ll ship them to you.” And then since he’s shipping a box and he had some other extra stuff he wasn’t using, he put a whole bunch of stuff in the box for me. Memory cards, SSD drive, a Ulanzi case for the camera and what I want to talk about today, these three Rapid KL Touch ‘n Go transit cards for Malaysia. Because on a previous trip to Malaysia he had these three cards and then he left the country and took them with him, but he couldn’t really remember. He thought maybe one of the cards had a substantial amount of money left on it, but he wasn’t sure about the other two. And he said, “Well, I’ll send them to Doug and then he can find out and then maybe he can use them.”
So I took these cards and I brought them into the MRT system and I tried to use them one at a time and all three of them I just got an error message. So I brought them over to the window in the MRT system. I was actually on the monorail, but it’s the same system. And I showed the guy, “Yeah, I’ve got three of these cards. They’re older. They haven’t been used for a long time. Can you activate them or can you tell me if there’s any money on the card?” And he checked on all three and he says, “Yeah, there’s nothing I can do here. They’re all blocked right now because they have to be used.” He said, and Touch ‘n Go confirmed that they have to be used at least once a year. And if you don’t use them within a year, they go dormant and then he can’t reactivate them. He said, “You have to go to a Touch ‘n Go office.”
So actually I hopped on the monorail yesterday or the day before. I zoomed down to KL Sentral. That’s an interesting thing about where I’m staying here in Chow Kit. In the past I think I’ve said a number of times that I love this neighborhood. It’s just got so much going on. It’s very vibrant, very active, so many food options right outside my door. But the one disadvantage is that it’s not on the LRT or the MRT. I’m sitting right on the monorail, the Chow Kit monorail station. But over time I’ve gotten used to that and it kind of works for me because I often go to KL Sentral because that is central and it’s right on the monorail. It’s the final station of the monorail. So I can just hop on the monorail here and just sit comfortably. It’s a longer ride and it’s slower. I love looking out the windows though. You get this amazing view of Kuala Lumpur. And then it just takes you to KL Sentral direct shot. I don’t have to transfer or anything. And it takes me to Bukit Bintang. It goes to the KL Tower stop right near there, Bukit Nanas, the hill area. It goes to Bukit Bintang. It goes to Imbi Station right beside Low Yat Plaza, the giant electronics market. So it goes to so many places that I visit regularly. So in fact it’s a lot more handy than I thought it would be. And if I want to get onto the MRT, it’s one stop away. I just hop on the monorail in Chow Kit station. One stop I’m at Titiwangsa and from there I can get on the LRT and the MRT. So in fact being on the monorail line has turned out to be quite a good thing. And it can get crowded at times. And what I do if I’m going to go to KL Sentral, I actually go to Titiwangsa first because it’s only one stop away. So I hop on the monorail here at Chow Kit, one stop to Titiwangsa, which is the terminal station. So everybody gets off, the entire train empties. I take a seat, I have my pick. I just stay on the train. I don’t even get off the train. I just stay on and I find an out-of-the-way seat and then I have a comfortable seat all the way back to KL Sentral. So essentially using that method I have a guaranteed seat every time I ride the monorail which is kind of cool. There’s none of this stress about oh how crowded is the train going to be? Will I be able to get a seat or not? All I do is one stop Titiwangsa guaranteed best seat in the house and then I just wait for the train to unload and then everybody gets on but I’m already on the train so I get a seat and then we all just go back to KL Sentral. So yeah, it’s kind of great being on the monorail.
So I took the monorail down to KL Sentral. Sip of coffee. And then I went to the Touch ‘n Go office in KL Sentral. Really nice people there. They have this machine like a kiosk and you can take your new Touch ‘n Go chip-enabled card and you can do whatever you want in that machine. Check your balance, top up the card, do whatever you want. All kinds of things this machine can do. But then you can’t use these, I don’t think, in that machine. Not what I wanted to do. So I just took a number. Took about two minutes. They had a whole bunch of people sitting at these counters. And eventually my number was called, go to counter 4. I showed the woman my three cards, told her my story, and then she quickly scanned all three of them, and then she said, “Okay, this card is done.” You know, card number one, it’s done. There’s no money on it and it’s deactivated. It cannot be activated. It’s basically garbage. Card number two, same thing. Nothing we can do. This card is done. But then card number three, she said it is also deactivated. And actually card number three is, yeah it is. This one has the X on it. She marked it to remind me which was which. And this one is also deactivated, can never be used again. But she said it had 33 ringgit on it still. And I could get that money back, but the only way to get the money off the card is to transfer it to a Malaysian bank account or a Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. And of course I went, “Ta-da!” For once something in my life technology-related works out. Most of the time whenever people say to me, “Well to do this you have to have this,” I never have it and I can’t get it. But in this case she kind of looked at me and she kind of said, “Well sorry but we can only send the money to a bank account which you probably don’t have, or we can send it to a Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. I’m very very sorry.” You know, here you go. I’m like, “Hey hey hey hey, I am Mr. Touch ‘n Go. I’m gonna get t-shirts, Touch ‘n Go. I’m all about the Touch ‘n Go life.” And I said to her, “Yeah, I’ve got a Touch ‘n Go e-wallet.” And yeah, let’s get that transfer happening.
But then she did throw me a bit of a gotcha which I just sometimes I anticipate this and sometimes I don’t. She says, “Oh, can I see your passport please?” And I’m like, “What the heck? My passport?” You know, like normally if you’re going anywhere official to do anything, well I have this little thought, yeah I should, I’ll just take my passport, make sure I bring it with me. But for a rapid transit card has no ID attached to it, no name, no nothing. It’s just a cash card. Why in the world would it occur to me to bring my passport? But then because I’m transferring the money to my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet and I set up my e-wallet with my passport, then okay, she needed to see my passport. But I was like, “Oh yeah I didn’t, you know sure I didn’t bring my passport with me.” You’re like, “Ah why would I?” But then I realized well she’s probably doesn’t need my actual passport. And of course in my wallet I carry around photocopies of my passport. So I said, “Oh oh oh I have, is this good enough? I have my photocopy.” But then of course because I live on Planet Doug, nothing is ever straightforward. I pulled out my photocopy of my passport. But then just as I was doing it I realized oh I have two photocopies. My old passport which is expired and gone, and now I have my new passport, the one that I used to re-enter Malaysia. So I’m like ooh which one do I give her? Because my instinct was to give her the new one cuz well this is my passport now, my old one isn’t even valid anymore. But when I opened my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet I had to do like that know-your-customer procedure where you upload a photocopy or a digital image of your passport information page and have your picture taken. So I used my old passport to open my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. And since I got my new passport I couldn’t remember whether I had updated my e-wallet account because I don’t think you can. There’s no way to go into your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet and say, “Oh I got a new passport” and then delete your old one. It doesn’t work that way.
So then I was really stuck because in dealing with officials I’m always in this weird category that doesn’t fit. There’s always a problem. There’s always a contradiction, some sort of an issue and I never know whether I should mention it or not. Like what should I do? And I just went okay just give her the old one and see what happens. Like I don’t want to give her the whole song and dance, tell her the whole story I just told you and I just okay I got two of them. I just gave her the old one. Yes this is my passport. But then because I’m a babbler and I like to shoot myself in the foot and I like talking to people, I then started babbling about oh by the way that’s my old passport. Just in case there was going to be a problem I didn’t want to come across like I’m trying to scam her or anything and she’s going to go online and go, “Oh this passport isn’t valid sir. What are you trying to pull?” So I did say to her while I gave her the old one and then I said, “Oh by the way that’s an old one. It’s now expired but and I have a new passport here.” I told her that and then she thought for a second as well but you opened your e-wallet with this passport. I says, “Yeah okay well let’s just stick with that.” So I think all she really needed was the passport number. That’s all she wanted. You know what I mean? But I run into this with officials all the time where they might say you know I need to see your passport but in actuality they don’t need to see your passport. What they’re asking for is your ID number because they need to enter the ID number. They’re not confirming your identity. She’s not an immigration officer. She’s not a police officer. She’s just looking for my account. And so she should have said, “Oh what’s your passport number?” And then I can just tell her my passport number or give her a photocopy. That’s my passport number. But they always say, “Oh I need to see your passport” and that makes you think it’s something really official when it’s not. I’ve learned that over the years. So in fact many many instances where they ask like you’re checking into a hotel they always say, “Oh I need to see your passport.” They’re not officials. They’re not immigration. All they’re doing is looking at your passport number and they’re looking at your booking reservation. Okay that matches. So they’re usually totally happy with a copy that you don’t actually have to give them your real passport.
Anyway so I had to deal with that. And then she did a whole bunch of stuff on her computer. And then she eventually finished and gave me back the card, put an X over it, and said, “Okay for this one I’ve initiated what she said. This is important. Okay you will get a refund in 14 days.” So it’s going to take 14 days to process and then the money 33 ringgit will show up in my e-wallet. And then I got an email yesterday that said, “Oh we are processing it. We’ve received your request for a refund and you will get it from 14 to 30 days from now.” So I mean success but I had two other issues with the whole procedure if you want to get deep into the Planet Doug nitty-gritty.
One is even though I got excellent customer service from Touch ‘n Go, it wasn’t perfect in my eyes. It annoys me when I constantly have to ask for information because she scanned card number one and says, “Uh garbage, throw it away. Card number two, garbage, throw it away.” And she says, “Okay no you can’t, these are just they’re done.” But she wasn’t very clear about it. So then I had to ask her okay so like you can’t activate them. Like these cards can never be used again. You know that’s what you’re saying. Like she wasn’t very clear about it. And I had to really ask for confirmation. And then she says yes. And again she wasn’t very clear the way she answered my question. I had to ask again like just to be absolutely sure. I can’t go to the MRT and say, “Put 100 ringgit on this card please.” Like they’re done. Like never ever ever. I can never use this card for anything ever again. And then I finally got her to say it clearly. Okay throw it in the garbage.
But then I wanted to know cuz she did say the money on that card had been confiscated. It was gone. But she didn’t really make it very clear. So again I had to ask her when she was all done. Okay so for this, you know not this 33 ringgit card but for cards one and two, like there was money on the card. Yes. I’m like okay. Like so then I had to ask okay on this card how much money was there? Because also I want to tell my mystery benefactor, he was curious like how much money was left on the cards and so I want to give him a full answer and I’m interested for myself. But she never volunteered that information. It was like pulling teeth to get this information out of her. It’s like, “Okay so this card is deactivated 100%. All I can do is throw it in the garbage.” And she says, “Yes sir.” And then she gave them back to me. So I was like, “Why are you even giving them back to me when like wouldn’t you just keep anyway?” It didn’t make any sense to me. And then she didn’t tell me how much money had been taken. And I says, “Okay so on this card, card number one, how much money, like could you see on your system how much money was on the card?” And she says, “Yes I could.” I’m like, “And like come on.” Like obviously I want to know how much. And then she says, “Oh three ringgit on this one. Thank you very much.” I’m like, “Oh come on. Why do I even have to prompt at this point? What about card number two? Yes three ringgit on this one.” Obviously I’m going to follow up with well how much on this one? But yeah I was really like pulling teeth to get any information out of it. But there was three ringgit on this card, four ringgit on this one, and the three and the four they had taken it back. And this one that had 33 ringgit it was still on the card and I could get a refund. But for three and four ringgit each I could not get a refund.
And of course with my brain now I wanted to know why. Like what was the difference? These cards are all used at the same time on the same trip. Why is the money still available for refund, not available for refund? There’s got to be a difference. But I took pity on the poor woman at that point. And I says well who knows? Maybe these are slightly older or they have a limit, it has to be more than 10 ringgit in order to do a refund. Who knows? So I did not press her for those details.
But the interesting thing was well two interesting things how complicated it is. It’s not like oh here oh yeah 33 ringgit here you are sir and then she’s like you know counts out 33 ringgit and hands it to me. No no no no. It can take as long as a month and I have to transfer the money to an e-wallet or a bank account. I mean it’s a very complex procedure. And the other key thing is that it was called a refund. And that points to a clear difference between how we as the customer view one of these as opposed to how they are in reality. Because I think most people if you have a cash card and you put money on the card or in your like um SIM card, you got a mobile internet SIM card account. You put credit in your account. You think of it as money. I put 100 ringgit on this card therefore I have 100 ringgit. No you don’t. Your money is gone. You didn’t put money into an account, you bought a product. So the money has been spent. It’s exactly the same like you go to a store and you buy a new mouse for a hundred ringgit. You bought a product, they have your money. So the money is gone. And now if you want to get any money back you have to ask for a refund, return the product, convince them that you are eligible for a refund, and then they have to process it and then give you a refund. So even though technically there was 33 ringgit on this card, that’s what we think. No there is 33 ringgit of product of credit. You basically bought 33 ringgit of MRT trips. You just paid for them in advance but you bought a product from them. You don’t have any money anymore. They took the money long ago, gave you a product, and then you can get into this gray area. Well for this product you can’t get a refund anymore. They didn’t actually take the money cuz they took it at the very beginning. They took back the product. And for this one there’s no refund possible. There was no money on the card technically and I couldn’t get a refund. For this one I could get a refund but it’s really just like returning a product to a store and getting your money back. So it’s not as automatic as you might think.
And I run into that all the time because with certain um mobile internet providers I’ve had credit in my account. Like I’ll have 20 ringgit in my account and at the end of the month the 20 ringgit vanishes. I’m like, “Hey you stole my money.” And no they didn’t technically steal your money because they already have your money. They gave you a product and that product expires in 30 days. If you don’t use that product within 30 days it disappears. So they can argue in a court of law no no no no no we didn’t take your money. You bought a product from us and your product had an expiry date. So I mean you can’t touch these people when it comes to legality right? That’s just they they’ll get you one way or another. Every company in the world is going to get you. I’m very cynical about all companies, all corporations, employers, YouTube, Google, everybody. You know I’ve lived long enough to become very cynical about that. There’s no nice guys out there when it comes to corporations. They are soulless entities that just basically they win. You can’t win against them. All you can do is kind of duck and dodge and not get hammered so much.
Anyway so that is the story of my Rapid KL cards.
A bit more technology talk and this is about mounting GoPro cameras or any action camera really. Doesn’t have to be a GoPro. Could be a DJI Action or Insta360 Ace Pro 2, any kind of camera you want to think of but just mounting apparatus for cameras. And I have a strong interest in this because I’m constantly trying to mount a GoPro for walking around vlogging, then you’re at a restaurant and you want to mount the camera somewhere and around your neck and then on a bicycle, then on a scooter, then on a motorcycle. You know there’s so many different ways you might want to hold a camera or mount it somewhere else. And I’m always looking for some sort of a system that is usable in all of them. So you basically adopt one technique and then it can be used in all these different situations.
So over time I’ve developed my own preferences which basically are centered on two things. The very first thing, I’ve talked about this endlessly in the past, is my GoPro Jaws. So my entire GoPro life the foundation of it is this. And I’ve tried to get away from it a few times because the one really strong limitation, well a couple of, I mean there’s always limitations but there’s no threaded mount on the bottom. GoPro for me is notorious for doing that where every time I look at a product the first thing I look for is well is there a threaded mount on the bottom? And GoPro never puts them in for some reason. And here they could have done it I think pretty easily. And it might seem ridiculous to do that but you know if I’m walking around with my GoPro like this talking into the GoPro and then I sit down in a coffee shop and there’s nowhere to attach the jaws, well I might want to attach this to a tripod. Makes sense. So then I’ve got a little three little legs here or I have a big tripod and I just if there’s a hole on the bottom you put this on and spin it around and now it’s mounted on a tripod. To me as a systems kind of person that’s absolutely the most obvious thing to do. So a big problem with this is there is no quarter-inch 20 threaded mount on the bottom. So when it comes to this I have to figure out a way to put this onto a tripod which gets a little bit awkward. So that’s one problem. And I do find the gooseneck is a little bit short because the big advantage of this is that it can curve right? Because if you watch a lot of YouTubers that just use a selfie stick they’re just straight bars. So when they hold the camera away from them you know 3-4 feet of the bar ends up in the video which is it’s not a deal breaker but it’s a little bit annoying. So I gravitate towards things that can be curved so that you hold it down low and then it raises the camera up to eye level but your arm and the bar are not that visible. Well not visible at all in the video. But this is a little bit short for that. So I end up needing to hold the thing too high which is why I put things like this on the end which doubles the length. So this is my go-to thing.
And then I often want to have a GoPro around my neck. Like not around my neck but I want a POV shot. And for that there are some standard techniques you got. Like put it on your head. You know you can put a GoPro on your forehead, on your helmet, on your hat, or use like the head strap. So then your GoPro is here. But of course nobody wants to walk around all day you know like with a GoPro on their head. And then you get the chest harness. And the chest harness is really annoying because it like it’s yeah. All day long you’ve got this elastic thing you know it’s not a huge grip or anything but you feel it and it just gets annoying over time. You know it feels constrictive. And I don’t like how visible it is. You look like you’re heading out to go mountain climbing cuz you got this big harness going over your shoulders and around your chest. It just looks weird. So I put it on under my shirt to hide it but then it’s next to your skin which feels even more awkward as you wear it all day long. And then of course I famously cut holes in all my shirts because when I had the harness underneath my shirt I still need the GoPro mount to stick through the hole so I can put the camera here and then all you see is the camera. But over time that chest harness became uncomfortable and the view was too low. I got like low on my chest. I wanted it higher on my chest.
So then I discovered through Expat Pete, you know hats off to Expat Pete for introducing me to this Telesin, but I really wasn’t aware of this at all. I certainly wasn’t aware of how useful it could be. This Telesin neck mount which is of course geeky and nerdy where you you know you walk around all day with this thing around your neck you know you’re not exactly blending into the crowd. But in terms of you know comparison to the chest harness and the head strap this worked out really well for me. And I like the fact that this rubberized bar is so thick and heavy. It’s comfortable and you can bend it. So you bend it so it kind of sits over your shoulder and on the back of your neck which allows you to raise it up higher and higher. And then the key, it’s an advantage and a disadvantage is that Telesin has this quick release system built into it. So you take this quick release gizmo and then it just clicks into place. So now your GoPro is here and I’m filming because I want my hands free. I’ll often stop like if I want to film inside a store and I walk up to the store and I’m talking into my GoPro like this and then it’s like, “Oh I’m going to go in. I’m going to pop into 7-Eleven and buy some milk” and then I stop. Unclick the GoPro. Click click. And then I go in I make a purchase and I come out. Click put it back on here and away I go. And I can do the same thing on my bicycle when I’ve gone on bicycle trips where with a quick release you just unhook it here put it on here then you walk over to your scooter unhook it or your bicycle click it into place. So then the camera can move from neck mount to hand grip to tripod to bicycle mount. Boop boop boop boop boop boop. So that’s the system I developed.
But the issue here is that the Telesin quick release is proprietary to Telesin right? So if one of my units has a Telesin quick release built into it then all of them have to be adapted. So if I want to use this device around my neck then I have to use the Telesin quick release. So now that the GoPro is attached to the Telesin system then I have to take a Telesin quick release base and put it on every other item that I use. So this one has one. You can’t really see it but there’s a Telesin base on the top here. So that this attaches there and then when I put it on my bicycle I have to take one of these and put it on my bicycle put it on a tripod. So basically GoPro has its own quick release system. You can see it here. It’s built into the bottom. It’s a really good system that nobody ever mentions. I don’t know why but it’s the GoPro quick release buckle. Takes a little bit more muscle power to get it off but it is really strong and so solid. Like a lot of quick release systems have play in them. This one does, the Telesin. So you attach it but there’s some movement. It moves like an eighth of an inch. So it kind of rattles a little bit. But when you use the GoPro, like GoPro’s main point is to be used in action sequences. So that everything about GoPro is very solid and designed with that in mind that you’re you know doing 360 loops on your snowboard and on your surfboard and on your mountain bike. So everything has to be solid. And this quick release buckle system and then it’s got a rubber lock mechanism. Locks down. There’s no play at all. Nothing. It is solid.
You can buy secondhand like third-party buckles like this but they never work. They’ll click into place but there’d be just like a tiny bit of movement and as you’re walking around there’s like this clicking sound. So yeah GoPro everybody dumps on GoPro. It’s like a hobby now. People just it’s like an entertainment to talk about how horrible GoPros are and how the company is dying and falling apart and they’re terrible and then all the competing cameras are so much better. But there are a lot of very good things about GoPro cameras and the GoPro system.
So anyway GoPro has their own quick release buckle system which is what I would normally use but now that this neck mount has changed I switched it over to the Telesin quick release. I have to have Telesin quick release on all my GoPro products. I can’t use the GoPro quick release buckle anymore. So that’s a little bit of a pain. So I had to put a Telesin adapter here. I had to put a Telesin adapter on all my tripods and a Telesin adapter on all my bicycle mounts, scooter mounts, on and on. So anyway that’s basically what I do as a general thing. I don’t know why I went on that tangent because that’s I didn’t even want to talk about that at all. But anyway that’s what’s happening with my GoPro.
But when you put a GoPro on a bicycle which I’ve done in the past and I plan on doing it very soon in the future which is why I’m thinking about this, you run into a lot of problems mounting. No no this drives me crazy because unless you physically do these things yourself nobody ever understands what you’re talking about. Drives me nuts. Which is again why I love super tangent, which is why I love AI so much because when I have these technology conversations with any of the AI systems they grasp what I’m talking about instantly perfectly. They always get me when it comes to technology. And it’s such a relief to talk to something you know you’re not talking to a person but you’re talking to an entity that actually understands what you’re talking about. And then the AI replies are always perfect when it comes to this. I’m like whoa you actually understand the problem I’m describing. You say well yeah it’s obvious because of this angle and the way this works and that adapter doesn’t fit. Like well nobody else knows that. Every human being on the planet if I try to talk to them about this issue with mounting my GoPro they would all say dumb things that clearly indicate they have no idea what I’m talking about but the AI just gets it instantly. It’s really quite something.
But anyway the issue with a bicycle and mounting a camera is all about geometry. And the reason this gets misunderstood is because so many people refer to motorcycles and scooters when they’re talking about it. But motorcycles and scooters have a completely different geometry compared to a bicycle. So when you as the rider you’re sitting on your motorcycle it’s completely different from sitting on a bicycle. And basically with a motorbike the seat is lower and the handlebars are higher and forward from you. So it’s like you’re sitting in a chair and your handlebars are up here. So you can take a very very small short mount, mount it on the handlebars and it’s perfect. It’s at the nice height aiming backwards and it’s far enough away from you. So mounting a GoPro on a motorcycle or a scooter, motorcycle in particular, it’s really easy. You can use any mount you want. There’s dozens of options out there. They all work beautifully.
Scooters are a little bit more complicated because they don’t have a bar like a motorcycle will have a handlebar and then different mounting apparatus, even like the jaws can go around the bar and clamp down. But scooters don’t have that. Scooters have the grips on the side but then the middle part is like a dashboard of a car and there’s nothing to attach anything to. So you got to do a lot of DIY thinking in order to find a way to mount it. But at least the position of the mirrors and the handlebars the grips and the dashboard are the same as on a motorcycle. It’s like you’re sitting in a chair with your mount in front of you and it’s very easy to mount a camera.
But on a bicycle the handlebars are the same height as the seat. So when you sit on the seat you’re way above the handlebars and you’re leaning over them. So here’s your face and here’s your handlebars right? So you can see the problem. You put a camera down here you got to tilt it like pointing straight up at your face and it just doesn’t work. And then um like I’ve been following a whole bunch of cycling travelers lately on YouTube and two in particular that fit into this category. Daniel the American Hobo who I’m in daily contact with through his Telegram group and through his videos. He’s still vlogging every single day. He’s on his bicycle riding through Java. No he just arrived in Bali. He’s moving so fast through Sumatra, Java. He’s a real hardcore cyclist. He’s turned into one. And then a couple days ago he just hopped on the ferry going from Java to Bali. So he’s on Bali now. But he recently bought his first action camera, a DJI Action 6, and he doesn’t have any kind of handlebar mounting apparatus. Mainly because as I’m hinting at it’s really hard to do. You can’t just go to the store and just say, “Oh I’d like a bicycle mount for my GoPro” and just get one and you know screw it on and you’re done. It doesn’t work that way. There’s a lot of problems you need to solve.
And there’s another guy from Morocco. His channel is called Let’s Go Cycling and he’s also recording videos using I think a GoPro and he doesn’t have any mounting apparatus at all either. So both Usfan and Daniel their solution is just to use a selfie stick. Yeah I got a relatively short one here kind of you know but you think of a selfie stick and they put the camera on the end of the selfie stick and then they just hold it while they’re riding. So they hold on to the bicycle with one hand. Then they want to take video they take out their camera on a selfie stick and then they hold it out here and then they talk to the camera. Yeah here on Bali and then if they want to film from behind they actually kind of hold their arm out behind them and hold it in front of them and then they point the you know this is what they use their arm as the mounting apparatus which clearly introduces a lot of problems. One is it’s you know it’s a little bit awkward because you’re trying to hold on to the bicycle handlebars with one hand. You can’t change gears anymore and you don’t have access to both brakes things like that. And of course when you’re trying to hold this out the whole selfie stick and your arm ends up in the shot which makes it look really really awkward.
So that’s how a lot of cyclists solve the problem of how to mount a camera on a bicycle. They don’t. It’s like they look at it and go, “Oh yeah now I know what Doug is babbling about all this time. Now that I’m on a bicycle yeah I see what he’s talking about. Like where am I going to put the GoPro or my DJI Action 6? Like yeah how do I do it?” It’s really hard to do. So they just go for the easiest option which is don’t film very much when you’re cycling. And when you do want to film you just stop and get out your selfie stick. And then you film for a while while you’re pedaling. And then when you’re done you just collapse it and put it back in your bag and get back on your bike and keep going which I don’t like to do.
So I worked very hard to develop a system cuz I enjoy doing it too. I probably put so much work and effort into figuring out how to mount an action camera on my bicycle that the value I got out of it was not worth the effort I put into it in terms of the video I got. I probably would have been better off in the long run just to do this right? But I also enjoy these sorts of problems. I like to figure them out develop a system. It’s just a hobby I guess.
So what I did with my bicycle eventually was try to work out a system where I could take the you know long selfie stick approach but instead of holding it in my hand somehow attach it to the bicycle permanently. And that introduced all kinds of problems again related to the geometry of a bicycle. So I mean for example there are a million mounts that can be attached directly to the handlebars but they’re designed for the GoPro to be pointing forward. If that’s all you want to do you’re riding your bike and you’re trying to film your ride like a mountain biker going down a mountain well you got no trouble at all because you chest harness helmet mount and then you put something on the handlebars facing forward you’re done. But as soon as you’re trying to film yourself as a vlogger occasionally talking into the camera now the camera has to be in front of you. And if your head like I said is over top of the handlebars up here basically like this sort of a spatial relationship how in the world do you talk into a camera without just having the camera pointing straight up your nose? And if you take a mount and put it right on the handlebars a nice tall mount and just have it going straight up well then you end up with this situation you know you know the camera is right there because it’s coming straight up from the handlebars. That doesn’t work. You can’t have the camera 5 inches away from your nose. The camera has to be far ahead to give a nice wide field of view. And then as soon as you start trying to move the camera farther and farther ahead now you’re dealing with this problem with the mount on the base. How do you get that to grip? And you can see right there but I just shook the camera a little bit. Like the camera might be aiming this way. And as soon as you go over a bump it starts to twist on whatever mounting you’re using. It has to handle major forces as you go up and down bumps.
So I remember ages ago this was way before my first bike ride in Sumatra where I was shooting video and I rode my bike up to Bukittinggi. And then what I tried to do originally was take my Insta360 selfie stick because I’m carrying it around anyway for my Insta360 camera. No need to buy any more gear and it extends out quite a long ways right? And then I tried to find it’s very lightweight. So I tried to figure out a way to attach this to the handlebars of the bike and then raise the camera. So the camera has to be very far forward and you have to raise it up high enough so that it’s at eye level basically and filming you. So I tried to do that and it was a disaster because this thing is just way too wobbly. There was just and because the mount is not suitable. It’s just like a little um tripod threaded mount there. And to adapt that to a GoPro system was very complicated and nothing was strong enough. Nothing would work. And then this thing was just like bouncing all over the place. It was just it was basically a non-starter.
And then I was playing around. There’s two different approaches you can use. One is to take a selfie stick like this and attach it to the handlebars. And that was also a big problem for me because this thing was so long the way it turned out. And then if it’s on the handlebars as you steer the bike now this thing is moving with the handlebars right? Cuz you’re turning right and then you’re turning the handlebars you’re also turning this. Your camera is like waving through the air like a crazy thing. And then it’s yeah it’s just really really kind of strange.
So then I tried to mount it to the frame of the bicycle which is much better in many ways because the frame of the bike is steady and then as you turn the handlebars it doesn’t affect the frame. So your camera is in front of you and stays in the same position no matter whether you’re turning or whatever it is you’re doing. But then I ran into problems. There’s so many issues because I like to use a handlebar bag and a handlebar bag sits on the handlebars and no matter where I tried to put this selfie stick it jammed into the handlebar bag. There was no way. I couldn’t figure out a way to have both because whenever you put this on the frame the angle of the frame was such that the bar came right up through the handlebar bag and then they interfered with each other and there was no way to get around that. And I worked on so many different variations constantly for a long long time.
And then when I got to Sumatra I was in the city of Dumai and I discovered the patented I think it was there that I discovered this technique. I think so. It was the Planet Doug broomstick and that had so many advantages because a broomstick is made out of wood normally some sort of thicker stiffer material. So rather than this which just wobbles and bends all over the place a broomstick is much stiffer, much more rigid, and if you get a good solid mount on the base it doesn’t vibrate as much and it doesn’t swing and bend as much. And they’re incredibly cheap. You can just buy cheap brooms at the hardware store for a dollar and then you just disconnect the broom part and now you’ve got a broomstick. So you can experiment with it. Different lengths. You can buy like five different broomsticks because the first one you try you cut it. Oh it’s too short now. So then you just go back to the store and buy another one for a dollar. You can do a lot of experimenting and then if they break or you change your mounting procedure or you’re trying to pack up your bicycle and the broomstick is too long well you just leave it behind and when you get to the new place you just go to the local store buy another broom and then cut it to length and you’re ready to go again. As opposed to you know dedicated mounting apparatus which can be quite expensive.
So that’s what I did. And I originally had the broomstick mounted on the frame of the bicycle. That’s what I developed. But I don’t know it was just a little bit awkward. There were some other issues with how it interfered with my water bottle cages and things like that. And I decided to try the handlebar mount. And I figured out a way to mount the base on the handlebars like on the handlebar stem using hose clamps from a hardware store like a plumbing supply store. And you can get these very very cheap hose clamps that are very strong. And then you just put a couple of hose clamps holding this to the handlebar stem. And then just tighten tighten tighten down those hose clamps. And again they’re cheap. You can buy them for nickels. And then you put a couple of those on the handlebar stem. And that was the solution I came up with. And I’ve been experimenting with that ever since. How long the broomstick can be. And then I’d have one GoPro camera mounted on the end of the broomstick facing back towards me. And then I have a second GoPro hanging below the broomstick pointing forward. So I can have two GoPros running at the same time. One filming me one filming forward. And then I just take those videos and sync them in the editing program. And it was a pretty nice overall solution.
So that’s where I was recently but and this is actually what I wanted to talk about. It took me a long time to get to this topic but we finally got around to the topic I wanted to talk about which is that there is a GoPro product called the GoPro Boom. And it came out years ago. It’s an old thing. I remember when it came out I was so excited about it. It seemed to have so many possibilities and I wanted to at least see one of them play around with it maybe even buy one and then even if it wouldn’t work for mounting on the handlebars of the bicycle I could see it having so many other uses. So I wanted to buy one. I never did get to even see the GoPro Boom because back in those days when it was released it wasn’t available in Malaysia. Like no store carried it and then no store could even order it. And as time went by I could probably have ordered one but they’re really expensive. I think now yeah it’d be something like 550 ringgit. So I mean yeah that is so much money for a simple little mount a grip. And because it’s a GoPro product I’m pretty sure it’s going to be very high quality very nice design and build quality. But for 550 ringgit for basically a stick yeah that’s really really pushing it.
So that’s where I was a long time ago. And just a few days ago I happened to be roaming around Lazada and to my surprise I found the GoPro Boom listed in Malaysia and they could deliver it within 2 or 3 days. So they have it now in Malaysia. It’s available and I could order it online. So I went down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out once again would it work for me? Would it be useful? And is it worth 550 ringgit? In the end I decided that’s way too expensive. Like even if it did work come on. A broomstick for next to nothing works just fine. So why are you spending $200 on a stick from GoPro right? But and I rejected it because it doesn’t seem long enough. The way the GoPro Boom works it’s basically two arms with a bend an elbow. So one two and then when I’ve never seen one in real life but I’ve watched all these reviews on YouTube and when people use it on a bicycle it isn’t long enough or high enough. So even mounted on the handlebars it doesn’t seem to get up to eye level. And even if you do raise it to eye level then you get the problem where it’s so close to your face because it’s just not long enough. So I basically rejected it again.
But then someone uh was it wasn’t even in Planet Doug. I’m a member of the Telegram group for the American Hobo. There’s like 53 members of this. It’s a chat group basically and I’m there quite often. And I was talking about this GoPro Boom. And then somebody from that group made a suggestion. I think he said, “Well why not attach it to the broomstick?” And I just kind of went, “Wow.” I never even thought about that. Because when you attach it to the handlebars it’s not long enough. But if you have a broomstick going a short distance out from the handlebars cut it off really really short and then attach the GoPro Boom to the end of the broomstick and then the GoPro Boom can take over from there. And suddenly it felt like that is the best of all worlds. And I was very excited about that idea for a while. And a couple of days ago or 3 days ago I spent a long time doing like thought experiments and measuring and calculating and trying to figure out whether it was even a possibility. Would it work? And then in the end I decided that actually it wouldn’t work. And the problem is that the broomstick is too good. Like when you put the broomstick on the handlebars on the handlebar stem with the clamps that I talked about it has a rigid angle. It has to follow the same angle as the handlebar stem because in order for the strength it has to be mounted on the base and then it has to rest on the handlebars like on top of the handlebars. And because you’ve got this and this that’s what gives it its rigidity and its strength. It’s resting on top of the handlebars. But when you do that it has an angle that is fixed and it has a natural angle that goes right to the perfect spot. So the GoPro sits here and that is the perfect spot for the GoPro. That’s where I want the GoPro to be.
So now if all you do is cut the broomstick and then add the GoPro Boom because it can curve. So now you’ve reduced the length of the broomstick. You attach the boom here. But I still want the GoPro to be here. So I can’t curve it up the way I wanted to. So in order to do the broomstick boom combination I have to lower the angle on the broomstick then attach the boom and then it can curve up nicely from there and place the GoPro in the right spot. But there’s no way to do that. There might be a very complicated way of doing this using all kinds of stuff but I just didn’t need that hassle in my life. And why spend $200 to buy a stick that may or may not work? Plus it’s not really that rigid. And what I’d probably have to do with the GoPro Boom is put a brace underneath it like a triangular brace and then it would work. And um so I rejected that idea eventually.
But then I had another idea and I was surprised I hadn’t thought about it earlier. There is something that GoPro makes called the GoPro 3-Way. And this is the old one. This is the original one that I used to use a lot in the old days. And what I like about it is what I’ve already talked about in the past. It curves. So just like this you know you can bend it so it raises the camera up in a curve. And that’s what the GoPro 3-Way is designed to do because it has three sections. So you basically tighten this one down tighten this one down and now you hold the base here and then it raises the GoPro up like that. So I thought well this is essentially a GoPro Boom and it’s longer. Well maybe the same length as the GoPro Boom. But I thought well just as a test as an experiment I could bring this with me when I get reunited with my bicycle cut the broomstick and then attach this to the broomstick using some hose clamps make it really firm and then I can play around with the angle to see whether this would work or not. I thought ah okay now now we’re thinking outside the box. Broomstick to get some length and then this to get the curve to bring the GoPro up to the correct spot.
So anyway I was really excited about that idea but then I ran into what I’ve talked about earlier that every time I try to do anything there’s always a gotcha. There’s always a deal breaker. And then when it came to this the deal breaker I figured out could be two of them. It could be that these elbow joints you can’t tighten them down hard enough that when you go over a bump they’re not going to stay. Then the thing will start to fall and bend and bend and bend like that over time. And you got to keep you know putting them back in position. The only way to know for sure is to test it. So you put a GoPro on the end get the weight up there and then you can see you know will it hold or not and how tight can I make these etc. But the other problem is that this has the GoPro fingers up at the top the normal GoPro mounting apparatus. And the problem with that is that it’s not a ball joint. It can only point in this direction or that direction. It can’t turn to face on an angle right? It’s rigid. So once you mount a GoPro there the GoPro has to point directly ahead or directly back. There’s no way to turn it in any other direction. You can angle it down and you can angle it up but you can’t point it to the left or the right. And I do that all the time because you’re riding your bicycle and you got your GoPro out in front of you recording but now you park your bike and you want to walk over somewhere and do something but you want to film yourself. Well I want the GoPro to be able to turn and now it’s aiming in that direction. And with this you can’t do that.
Potential solution because this is the GoPro 3-Way 1.0 and when GoPro got feedback a lot of people said, “Well this would be much better if it was a ball head.” So and if it would have the GoPro quick release. So in a rare moment of listening to their customers GoPro came out with the 3-Way 2.0 which is essentially the same as that other one except at the top there’s a ball head. So you can release the ball head and now it can rotate and point in any direction you want. So I thought oh that’s very cool. And it has a quick release buckle at the top. So it’s got GoPro quick release and a ball head. So I thought ah this maybe I put this on the broomstick and now I’ve got the best of all worlds. And I was thinking about bringing this with me when I go to my bicycle and trying to I may still may bring it with me just to test it. It’s a very handy little it’s more weight to carry around but it’s a very handy little grip. You don’t need it all the time but it’s very nice to have. So I thought I could bring it with me and experiment with it but I don’t think it will work. Mainly because the ball head is not strong enough. And I can tell I mean it’s got a little bit of a tightening mechanism here so you can adjust how firm it is. And I tried tightening it a lot without breaking it. But even then once it’s tightened at its maximum if I grab it with my fingers I can just move it. So if I can move it with my fingers pretty easily once you put the weight of a GoPro on there and you go over a bump the GoPro is going to tilt. It’s going to rotate on the GoPro fingers. And I don’t think there’s any way of getting around that.
Using all my gear all my adapters all my gizmos there’s no way to get away from this ball head suddenly moving too much. You can tighten down the thumb screw but I don’t think this ball head can be tightened down enough. But the only way to know for certain is to try it cuz it’s not designed for mounting on a bicycle. This is designed for just walking around. So of course the ball head is more than strong enough for walking around. It’s not designed to be on a mountain bike or a surfboard or you know the ball head was not designed that way.
And um that brings me all the way back to my broomstick because one of the reasons the broomstick works is that I use RAM mounts. And what I’ve learned over time is that if you want to mount a camera on your scooter your motorcycle your bicycle you have to use RAM mounts. You just have to. You don’t have a choice because these are heavy-duty powerful mounting things with a ball joint that tightens down. And once you tighten that sucker down it is not moving. And I’ve seen YouTube video after YouTube video after YouTube video of cyclists motorcyclists buying cheap mounting little gizmos and they put it on their bicycle or their motorcycle and they’re not buying the RAM mounts cuz they’re too expensive and they’re too specialized and every one of them it’s like, “Oh my GoPro just fell down again. I got to pull it back up.” And eventually that mounting apparatus whatever cheap thing you bought from Lazada Shopee it’s going to break. It is inevitable.
So what I’ve learned and trusting my own instincts if you’re not mounting your camera on a RAM mount just give up now. Don’t even bother. Nothing else is going to work. And I’ve already worked out a complete system of mounting my GoPro on a RAM mount on a broomstick. And it’s a fully mature developed finished system. So trying to adapt it in some way might give some advantages but I wouldn’t want to fight with this ball head all the time. Yeah. But we’ll see. I may end up bringing this with me trying it out when I get back to my bicycle at some point and just see what I can do with it.
Anyway that is the story of mounting my GoPros on a bicycle.
Moving on to a Planet Doug video story. I finally posted my video about using an Indonesian e-wallet in Malaysia. That was one of the first things I wanted to do when I came back to Kuala Lumpur. And I finally settled on a title for that video. Very long and wordy. But anyway I called the video, “Can you really use Indonesian e-wallets in Malaysia?” And then I afterwards I put “I tested QRIS and GoPay in Kuala Lumpur.” And uh yeah I don’t know. I just I did want to make sure I had QRIS the name of the Indonesian QR code payment system in the video title because if an Indonesian person is interested in this topic and they see oh here’s a video about QRIS in some way. I wanted to put QRIS in there. And then I wanted to have the word e-wallet in the video. And then um I suppose my video titles don’t have to be quite so descriptive. Maybe something shorter and catchier would work better but I don’t know. This tends to be what I always do.
This video has been quite an interesting experience because the language surrounding e-wallets is very complex. It’s a really hard topic to talk about because everybody uses different vocabulary depending on what country they’re in and depending on their own experiences and what they use. So you can have this long conversation with another person about e-wallets but you’re basically talking past each other because you could be talking about the same thing but you don’t know you are because they use a different word for that thing. And they’re saying something that can be 100% true but it sounds wrong to you because you don’t use any of those words and the technology is so complicated. There are so many layers to it so many different systems interacting. And then people will talk about the technology from the point of view of this layer of the system. And what they’re saying might be technically true but then when you jump up to another layer suddenly what they’re saying doesn’t seem accurate at all. It’s accurate at that level but not at this level. And you just go around and around and around.
And I ran into that right from the beginning even when I was making the video because I had a certain understanding of how it worked. But my understanding could be completely wrong. I don’t know whether the way I view it is correct or not. So when I walked up to my very first place here in Kuala Lumpur I had the GoPay e-wallet open on my phone an Indonesian e-wallet and I went to this place right across the road from my hotel where I get fried bananas almost on a daily basis. And they have a QR code on display. So even as I walked up to the fried banana stall and I wanted to talk about what I’m going to do I didn’t know exactly what to say because in Malaysia the national standard for QR payment systems is called DuitNow. But my understanding is that some businesses can be hooked into DuitNow but others are showing a QR code that only works with Touch ‘n Go or only works with Maybank or this bank right? So in my mind I was making a distinction between a DuitNow QR code and then all these other QR codes.
So when I walked up to the fried banana place I went to oh I’m talking on video. Look here is the DuitNow QR code. But as soon as the words came out of my mouth I was thinking well maybe this isn’t a DuitNow QR code because in fact GoPay didn’t work. And I thought oh this must be only a Touch ‘n Go QR code. But why does it look exactly the same as a DuitNow code? Same color scheme and it even says Malaysia National QR is written on it but it doesn’t say DuitNow anywhere.
So in all of my experimenting my conclusion and I think it’s a solid conclusion is that if you want to use an Indonesian e-wallet in Malaysia you have to look for QR codes that have the DuitNow name and logo. If the DuitNow name and logo are above the QR code then your Indonesian e-wallet will work because that QR code going through DuitNow is linked to QRIS in Indonesia. The two systems talk to each other and the payment can cross borders. So my payment can go well it’s actually going that way when you think about it. My payment is going from my Indonesian e-wallet using QRIS to DuitNow. And then the money gets converted into ringgit and is deposited into their bank account or e-wallet. So that’s how that works. And if it is a QR code and it doesn’t say DuitNow on it it won’t work because it’s only local it’s Malaysian.
So in my mind there was a difference between a DuitNow code and a Maybank code or a Touch ‘n Go code. So that was the conclusion I came to that if you wanted to use an Indonesian e-wallet look for the DuitNow logo. You see the logo it will work. If you don’t see the logo it won’t work. So I think my conclusion was valid.
But then I got a lot of comments to that video and all very very technical comments and there were a number of them from Malaysians who really seem to know what they were talking about and they were saying that they’re all DuitNow codes like trying to distinguish between DuitNow and non-DuitNow. They says no that’s not true. All the QR codes you see they are all DuitNow codes. But then they said well some of them are merchant codes and the merchant or merchant account and the merchant account is set up for cross-border payments. But if it’s a personal account then cross-border payments don’t work. But they were all saying and this comment was repeated many many times. It’s like no distinguishing between DuitNow and others is not accurate. All the QR codes are part of the Malaysian DuitNow national standard but some of them are merchant accounts some of them are personal accounts. That’s the distinction.
But of course now you’re in a world of vocabulary because you’re okay you’re telling me that this one is not a DuitNow code. Okay you’re telling me that this one is a DuitNow code but it doesn’t say DuitNow. Like this one over here it says DuitNow. And there’s the DuitNow logo. So that is a DuitNow QR code. But this other one that doesn’t say DuitNow you’re telling me that oh no it really is a DuitNow code. So I’m like well now I don’t even know what to think anymore. You see what I mean?
Luckily in order to use an e-wallet which would be my what I would say to people my messaging would be well if you want to just use an e-wallet it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to understand how it works. You don’t have to understand the systems. You don’t have to understand the technology. All you need to do is download the app. You know how to do that. Open an account. You know how to do that. Hit the button that says QRIS or scanner or pay. Everybody can do that. Scan the QR code. Enter how much you want to pay. You’re done. Anybody can do that. And I’m saying that if you’re going to use GoPay from Indonesia in Malaysia all you need to do is look for the DuitNow logo. If you see it you can scan it and pay for that product or service. If you see a QR code but it doesn’t say DuitNow on it it won’t work. Why? Like maybe they’re mislabeled. Maybe they’re all DuitNow codes. Maybe this is true or that is true. You can discuss the vocabulary and the technology for the next 20 years but it doesn’t really help you in terms of using it. So that’s kind of the good news.
But um yeah it’s an I haven’t been able to answer all the comments to that video. There’s just way too many of them and they’re all way too complicated and too technical. So and a lot of people have their own understanding of how it works. And if I try to answer every question or if somebody says something that I think is incorrect and I try to explain to them how it actually works from my point of view I’d be working on those comments for the rest of my life. You know it’s a very very complicated business. So for now I think that is going to be the end of my e-wallet video series because I’ve done everything that I can do right now. I tested a Malaysian e-wallet in Indonesia. I tested an Indonesian e-wallet in Indonesia. I tested a Malaysian e-wallet in Malaysia. And now I’ve tested an Indonesian e-wallet in Malaysia. So I’ve done every possible combination. And uh that was a lot of fun. But in terms of Malaysia and Indonesia and the e-wallets that I use there’s no other testing that I can do. So that should probably be the last one.
All right for the conclusion I’ve jumped ahead in time and in space because it’s now Friday January 30th and I’m in Port Dickson. So I’m staying at a new hotel in Port Dickson a place I’ve never stayed in before. And I came down here with my friend KY a couple of days ago picked up my bicycle from his house and I’ve been slowly getting organized here in Port Dickson putting my bicycle back on the road and things like that.
And to be honest I forgot that I had recorded this behind-the-scenes session where I’m babbling endlessly about GoPro mounts and other technology and things like that. To be honest there was another section to this behind-the-scenes podcast where I just babbled on endlessly about Olympus cameras and vlogging cameras and I was just I didn’t even want to hear myself talk about it anymore and I just deleted that whole section. So that whole technology section about cameras is gone. You can thank me for that. But I did leave in the GoPro section because it does connect to me coming down here to Port Dickson and trying to get my bike set up. And in that whole GoPro mounting section I talked about the GoPro Boom and how I could somehow take my broomstick and cut it shorter and attach the boom arm or take one of the GoPro 3-Ways and attach it to the broomstick. And in the end all of my calculations told me it wouldn’t work. So I didn’t even bring the 3-Way mounts with me. And I definitely did not try to buy the GoPro Boom. It’s just way too expensive for what it is. And I have a perfectly usable broomstick on my bicycle with a mount and the GoPro sits on it. And uh like I don’t think anyone else in the world has a unicorn like my bicycle with a broomstick you know sticking out the front like the horn of a unicorn. It’s not very common but I don’t know. It works. So why mess with it if it works?
One funny thing is when I was in Kuala Lumpur and I was recording these behind-the-scenes videos I was talking about how one issue with using the Olympus camera is that it’s so far away and it’s so far away I can’t use my lavalier microphone because I plug it into the camera but it doesn’t reach. It’s too far away. So I’m using my Rode Wireless GO which means it’s just more complicated because then I have to plug in the receiver. I have to make sure the batteries are charged up on the receiver and the microphone. And so anyway I’d prefer to use the lavalier mic because it’s simpler.
And I remember saying in Kuala Lumpur that, “Oh it’ll be so nice to get back to Port Dickson because I had left behind some of my gear here with my bicycle.” And one of the things I had left behind was my microphone extension cord. And this is kind of a crazy thing. This thing is 20 feet long 6 meters which is way too long. I don’t need anything near that length. But it was the only adapter cable I could find. So I was telling myself, “Oh when I get to Port Dickson I can get this extension out of storage and then I can plug my lavalier mic into this 20-foot extension cord and now it can reach all the way to the camera and beyond because there’s so much cable here.” So I was very excited about doing that to film this conclusion. And then I plugged it in plugged this in other end into the camera and of course it didn’t work. There was like no audio signal was getting through and then I thought why it’s like ah for Pete’s sake. The Olympus requires a TRS plug. The one like tip ring sleeve right? A TRS. And this cable I forgot is a TRRS extension because it’s designed I bought it to plug into my laptop and my laptop requires TRRS and smartphones require TRRS but cameras don’t use TRRS they use TRS. So this extension cable which I bought to plug into my laptop I thought I could use it with my Olympus camera but I can’t.
And this drives me crazy because over the years that I’ve been doing this I run into these compatibility issues over and over and over and over. Whether it’s plugging in a microphone to a tablet to a laptop to a smartphone to a camera. There’s so many different ways to combine things or whether it’s mounting a camera on a grip or on a bicycle or on this or that. Every time I run into one of these problems I sail off into the world of Low Yat Plaza and I buy another adapter or I go on to Lazada and I order another adapter. And every time I run into a dead end where this doesn’t fit into this I go out and buy the adapter that allows me to plug this into this and now they work. And you would think at some point in my life I’m going to end up with every adapter in existence. I have to reach the end of the adapters right? Where no matter what situation I run into I will have an adapter to fix that problem right? You’d think so because I bought so many adapters.
So I was thinking okay I have a TRS and a TRRS cable. So what I need is an adapter to go from TRRS to TRS. And then I need something on this end to go from TRS to a TRRS. So I need two adapters one on this side and one on the other side. And I figure I must have one right? So this is my little microphone pouch. And I got a little pocket at the back here. Check this out. Cables. All of I bought all of these adapters at one point in my life. So here is a TRS to TRRS cable right? And then we’ve got a USB-A to USB-C cable. This is another this is TRS to TRS. This is a TRRS to USB-C. I need this sometimes. Now we’ve got a TRS to USB-C. On and on and on. So I go through my entire bag of cables and adapters and not one of them will work for what I need to do.
So now I need another adapter. And then I thought well I got another bag of adapters. This was also here with my bike. And I thought, “Oh there must be something in here.” And in here I’ve got another cable adapter. This cable adapter. There’s three more cable adapters in here and none of them will work either. So even though I have every adapter in the known universe I still need one more to be able to plug my microphone into the Olympus. It’s just never ending. And I don’t know why this happens to me all the time. I have so much gear and even though I have all this gear when I try to do something I still run into a dead end that item A does not plug into item B again and again and again.
And sometimes uh anyone out there who does this can probably relate that even when you have one that has the right connectors on each end you’ll plug it in and it still won’t work because USB cables and TRS to TRRS cables are very finicky things. Like if you’re trying to plug something into a Samsung phone and you buy a cable off Lazada that’s like a third-party cable it won’t work. You have to buy the exact Samsung version of that cable. Just weird things happen with cables which is how I ended up with so many of them. And once again none of them work. So in order to plug my lavalier microphone wherever it is into the Olympus I need another extension cable. I need a straight TRS extension cable the TRRS. It’s just not going to work. I have to buy another cable at some point. It’s crazy.
Anyway that’s why I’m using the Rode Wireless GO because it’s wireless and I don’t need a cable. So yeah what a thing.
Anyway all I wanted to do was conclude this behind-the-scenes video. Of course now that I’m here in Port Dickson I have a dozen other stories I could tell. All of my adventures of coming down here getting my bike um even checking into this hotel. What an adventure that was. I yeah I took I shot video an actual sort of daily vlog video of my trip from KL down to Port Dickson. And then I went out exploring in Port Dickson a little bit. I went down to the beaches and I and I’ve been using my Olympus camera to shoot kind of B-roll like cinematic scenic B-roll and I put music over top of it. So there is a video coming out that is not going to be one of these talking head behind-the-scenes videos. So you have that to look forward to. But uh anyway I will probably record another behind-the-scenes video just telling the story of coming down to Port Dickson. Or maybe not because I have the travel vlog video to tell that whole story.
So that’s it. It’s time for dinner for me. I have to head out into Port Dickson find something to eat. And with that I guess I will shut down this video. And as always I’ll see you in the next one.