VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
Back on the bike and back on a live stream! In this spontaneous, unedited adventure, I dust off my GoPro and hit the streets of Port Dickson, Malaysia, for my first live stream in years.
Join me for a real-time, raw cycling journey from my hotel to the bustling waterfront. It’s a Sunday, and the town is packed! Along the way, I’ll share the challenges of live streaming tech on the go, navigate busy Malaysian traffic, and explore the weekend carnival atmosphere.
This livestream covers:
🚴 Live Cycling & Exploration: Riding 7km from the Gemilang Star Hotel into downtown Port Dickson, sharing the sights and sounds in real time.
📱 Tech Experiment: Testing a GoPro Hero 12 live stream via mobile connection, with all the unexpected glitches and lessons learned.
🏨 Hotel Hassles: Reliving the frustrating 45-minute check-in debacle over Malaysia’s tourism tax—a recurring headache for this traveler.
🪁 Waterfront Vibes: Soaking in the weekend energy at the PD waterfront, watching kids fly kites, and dodging the crowds.
💳 Tech & Payment Tips: My first successful “Tap & Go” payment with a Touch ‘n Go Visa card at 7-Eleven!
🗺️ What’s Next? I discuss serious plans for a 2-month bicycle tour around Malaysia and potentially into Thailand.
Chapters:
Intro & Live Stream Setup from Hotel
Cycling into Port Dickson Traffic
The Infamous Tourism Tax Story
Arriving at the Waterfront & Kite Flying
McDonald’s Stop & Live Stream Tech Issues
Backstreets of Port Dickson & Local Temples
Touch ‘n Go Visa Card Test at 7-Eleven
Q&A & Future Bicycle Tour Plans
Live Stream Note: This is the full, uncut recording of the livestream, complete with a few connection drops (especially near the waterfront). All the real-time reactions, technical fumbles, and spontaneous discoveries are here!
#PortDickson #Malaysia #LiveStream #Cycling #GoPro #TravelVlog #BicycleTour #TourismTax #TouchNGo #DigitalNomad
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Good afternoon to anybody out there who might be watching this live stream. I haven’t done a live stream for a year or two years maybe. I think I played around with live streams when I was in Vietnam and then I really just haven’t done them since in Sumatra. The Wi-Fi, internet connection, mobile connection is never very good. So I just never even tried. It was more technology problems, but I wanted to sort of dip my toe back in the waters. So, this really isn’t an official live stream, I guess, because I haven’t scheduled it or anything. I didn’t send out notifications. All I really did was launch live streaming from my GoPro through my phone using mobile internet. And what I’m going to do is get on my bike and ride my bicycle into downtown Port Dickson. Um let me put away my phone. I guess I just have to have confidence that the live stream is running cuz I put away my phone and then I can’t really see anything on the GoPro. But where I am right now is in Port Dickson in Malaysia. And I came down here a couple of days ago. My friend KY drove me here in his car. And that was very kind of him. And my bicycle was stored at KY’s family home while I was in Sumatra. So I came back here to get my bike set up and ridable. Got it out of storage the other day. And this is where I’m staying right now. This is the Gemilang Star Hotel. And there’s my bike down here. There’s no convenient place to bring the bike inside. And the hotel staff here aren’t exactly customer service oriented. They don’t go out of their way to help anybody. So, I just locked it up out here. And so far, nobody has stolen it. And so yeah, when it comes to this live streaming, I guess I’ll just put my GoPro up here on my broomstick. I don’t have it fully mounted yet, but it’s good enough. And then I can aim the GoPro at me or turn it around facing forward. It’s all going to be a little bit of an experiment because I haven’t live streamed for so long. I’m so used to shooting video and then editing it later on. I would just turn off the GoPro and then do something and then restart recording. With a live stream, it’s recording all the time. And there are battery limitations because I’m running it off the GoPro. And I assume, as far as I know, yeah, the live stream can only last as long as the battery lasts. When the battery dies, the live stream just stops. So anyway, what I have to do right now is unlock my bike. So again, this is sort of a new experience. Normally I’d be mounting my GoPro and pointing it in a new direction and then restarting. But yeah, live streaming is different. Got to unlock my bike.
And yeah, I’ll just be talking and narrating as I normally do, except I’m live streaming instead of editing later on. And I’ll occasionally, I guess I’ll be out of frame a lot because I can’t be constantly adjusting the camera angle. And for now, I can’t really see YouTube comments because my phone I’m not going to be looking at my phone. So, basically, if you’re watching this live stream just to pass the time and you leave a comment or ask a question, I won’t be able to reply until maybe I stop the live stream or anyway, I’m going to ride downtown, go to a coffee shop, and see what happens. So, now I have to— Oh, boy. Yeah, this is more complicated than I thought. So, now I have to move the GoPro from my hand mount to the bike.
Oh, yeah. And I have to adjust something over here first. So, yeah, right out of the gate, I’m running into live stream issues. I just noticed that my teles mount isn’t lined up perfectly. There we go. So, now let’s put the GoPro up here.
Yeah, I’ll have it facing towards me for a few minutes as I ride away.
There we go. So far so good.
And downtown Port Dickson, it’s maybe six or seven kilometers away from here.
And this is pretty much— it’s only the second time I’ve been on my bike since I got back here. I rode my bike from KY’s house to this hotel and then I locked it up and that’s it. That’s the last time I was on the bike. So, going to have to get used to the traffic here as well. Malaysia has a lot of one-way streets and divided highways which involves a lot of U-turns. So I basically have to go in the wrong direction to start and then I got to find someplace I can cross over the highway, get over onto the other side.
There we go.
Yeah, I’m not far. Not sure how far I have to go. Suppose I can always pick up my bike and just carry it across the divider. But yeah, there’s got to be an easier way to do this. This is taking me way out of my way. But hey, yeah, I’ve talked about this before that Port Dickson is a relatively small town. And you might think it’s pretty quiet and not a lot of traffic, but when you come out here onto the main road, it’s very very busy.
Just had a car coming up behind me. I’ve got to get over here.
Yeah, there’s a traffic light up ahead and I get there and then I can do a U-turn. Yeah, not bicycle friendly right out of the gate.
Yeah, I shot a video when I came down here. And let me turn the GoPro. Oh, no. I can’t yet. I’ve got traffic. Oh, look at that.
Could have gone forward already. Nobody’s turning here.
Yeah, I did shoot a video.
Look at that long-distance cyclist over there.
They were loaded up with all their gear.
Let me turn the GoPro around.
So, now it’s facing forward. You can see what I’m dealing with. Are we going to get a right-hand turn, a U-turn light? Not yet.
Yeah. When I came down with KY, I shot some video, recorded the day he came to pick me up at my hotel, and then he has a lot of family obligations. So when he helps me out by driving me somewhere, he usually folds me into all his other errands, dropping off his kids, picking up other family members, driving them somewhere else, picking up things, buying food, bringing it back to the house. So I just go along for the ride. I jokingly call it a KY kidnapping. When he picks me up to take me somewhere, you basically never know where you’re going to go or what’s going to happen. A KY kidnapping. And then after he finished all his family errands, so we got a U-turn light here
and around we go. And now we can finally head towards downtown. I don’t really need to go downtown to be honest. I’m just doing this as a live streaming experiment. So yeah. So KY drove me down here, picked up the bike. The bike was in surprisingly good condition considering it had been sitting here for months. All the months that I was in KL. And then I went on the guided car tour around some of Malaysia and then two months in Sumatra. My bike was just sort of sitting outside. It was covered from the rain, but I didn’t have a tarp over it and it wasn’t really protected in any way. But yeah, all I needed to do was pump up the tires and that’s it. Chain wasn’t rusted, gears were working, brakes were working.
I was going to say that I could catch up with those other two cyclists, but I’m a very slow cyclist. At the best of times, I have a very slow measured pace. So, even though they have all their luggage on their bike, much heavier load, I don’t think I can catch up with them. Very windy today. I’m heading into quite a strong wind. Hopefully the microphone isn’t picking up too much of that wind.
So, when it came to finding accommodation in Port Dickson, I had a little bit of trouble. It’s sort of a beach resort town, so the hotels tend to be a little bit more expensive. They charge a premium because it’s a weekend holiday sort of town. And I would normally go to a place called the PD Sea Front Hotel. That’s where I’ve stayed in the past, mainly because they have a big lobby and they don’t mind if you park your bike inside the lobby, but their prices were really high. I don’t know what’s going on there, but the rooms are too expensive. And then I found this other place, a new one. Seemed to be a newish hotel. I don’t think I’d ever heard of it before called the Gemilang Star Hotel. Hey, let me see. Let me check my microphones for a second. I want to make sure
that I have audio.
Yeah, both my microphones are working.
One problem with doing the live stream that I noticed through the GoPro is that I don’t get an audio readout. So like on the GoPro screen, I can usually see the audio signal, but as soon as I started doing a live stream, the audio signal just didn’t appear. So, I just have to guess or hope that the microphone is working and that audio is being recorded or transmitted. So, yeah, I found this new hotel, Gemilang Star Hotel. I think that I booked it. I think it was like 50 ringgit per night, but I ran into a few issues. One being I got the location wrong because on Agoda the location pinned was like downtown and even the description said it was 1 kilometer or like 1.5 km from the waterfront. So I was moving pretty quickly and I thought, “Oh, that location sounds pretty good.” I saw it on Google Maps and I booked the room. Well, I saw the location on Agoda, I mean, and I booked the room, but then when I wanted to go there with KY, I looked on Google Maps to confirm the location, and it turned out the Agoda location was wrong and it was actually located way out here, 6 or 7 km away. So, that was a bit unfortunate.
And then as I showed and as I recorded in the main video, I ran into trouble at the hotel. I debated whether I should include it in the video or not. But in the end, I included some of it because when I showed up there, the customer service was pretty poor from a Planet Doug perspective. Very high expectations when it comes to customer service and they didn’t even meet the lowest bar complete failure from that point of view. And then I ran into trouble again with the Malaysian tourism tax because I booked the room on Agoda. I paid for the room in advance and the payment included all of the taxes and the fees. Including the Malaysian tourism tax. So, I’d already paid 10 ringgit per night as part of the Malaysian tourism tax. It was already paid. I had the receipt from Agoda. I downloaded it. It was on my phone. Everything was done. But a lot of these hotels don’t seem to understand how the system works. And after I checked in, they said I had to pay them the tourism tax in cash. I’d only booked three nights, so it would be 30 ringgit for the tourism tax total, which I’d already paid. And I showed them the receipt from Agoda. They just sort of waved his hand at my phone like, “Get that phone out of my face. Like, get rid of that thing. I don’t care what that is. I don’t know what that is.” Says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is our policy is all foreigners have to pay 10 ringgit per night.” And then I kept trying to tell him, “I know. I know the policy. I’m trying to tell you that I already paid the tourism tax.” And he just refused to listen to me. He wasn’t paying attention. He just kept saying over and over that I had to pay. And then eventually they put me on the phone with the hotel owner. And the owner was the same. He would not listen at all. And I just kept repeating, “No, you’re wrong. Your policy is not correct. I already paid the tax and I’m not going to pay it two times.” And he just kept insisting, you know, you must pay. You must pay 30 ringgit. You foreigner, you have to pay. And I said, “No, I do not have to pay. Not two times. I already paid.” Anyway, the whole process took 45 minutes to check in because we had to spend so long talking about the tourism tax. It was pretty crazy.
Oh, I was so busy talking I completely missed my exit. I totally forgot where I was going. So, I went by where I’m supposed to go. So, I’m back on my phone now and, I don’t know whether I can exit away from the live stream window to look at Google Maps. And if I do, it might stop the live stream.
I don’t know. So far, it seems to be going. All right. So,
yeah, I’m taking the roundabout route of getting there. And a friend of mine is communicating with me on WhatsApp.
But now I’m not sure now that I’ve navigated away from the live stream whether it’s still working or not. I think it is. And if you don’t mind a bit of a technobabble, let me open it up. Yeah. Okay. So, that’s good. The learning curve is underway. So, I am able to navigate away from the live stream window. I can check Google Maps. I can check WhatsApp. And then I can come back.
But since I missed my turnoff, I have to continue ahead.
A little bit of a longer route.
Yeah. So, I don’t think I’m going to go directly to ZUS. I’ll go downtown and then I’ll ride along the waterfront a little bit. Show you what Port Dickson is all about.
Yeah, I’m a little bit out of my element now because I don’t usually go into town this way. Anyway, yeah, I was telling the horrible story once more about the Malaysian tourism tax. And in the end, I stood my ground. I just said absolutely there’s no way. I’m not going to pay it again. And I just refused. So we were at kind of a standoff and then eventually I just took my hotel key and they were somehow they got on the phone with their Agoda agent. So there was going to be more phone calls and more discussions. And I’d already been there for 45 minutes, so arguing with them about this. So I finally said, “Listen, I’m just going to go to my room.” And they said, “Yeah, do that. We’ll work this out and then, you know, if you have to pay the tax, we’ll come up and tell you.” So I was like, “No, anyway, whatever you tell me, I’m not paying the tax a second time.” And yeah, it was a very stressful experience for me cuz I’ve gone through it so many times in Malaysia, it just never ends. This fight over the tourism tax, it just goes on and on. And in the video, I was making a joke about how this is Visit Malaysia Year for 2026. And yeah, for Visit Malaysia Year, yeah, this tourism tax is a real problem. Other foreigners I’ve spoken to, they kind of look at me puzzled and they say, “Well, we don’t know what you’re talking about. We never have that problem,” but I have this problem all the time. I always pay the tourism tax online. And then the hotel says, “Oh, you have to pay the tourism tax.” And we go through this big long process of me trying to give them receipts or convince them that I’ve already paid. It’s so stressful. In fact, this time it was so stressful that I decided to actually send an email. So, I did some research into how the system worked and found out that the money and the whole program is organized by the Royal Malaysian Customs Department. I tracked down their website and they have a whole section about the tourism tax. So, they’re the people that are in charge of it. So, I read up all the information there and they had a contact email address. So, I wrote them an email
basically just saying,
you know, I’m a Canadian tourist in Malaysia and I keep running into this problem with the tourism tax. And I said that it seems like the hotel owners and the hotel staff, they don’t understand the system and they keep trying to charge me the tax two times. Even though I paid online, they always want me to pay a second time when I check in. And it makes being a foreigner in Malaysia, being a tourist, very stressful experience. Anyway, I wrote the email I even included the name of this hotel as an example. A little bit of revenge, I guess, on my part.
And I suggested to the Royal Malaysian Customs Department that maybe they would like to contact this hotel and nudge them, give them some education in how the tourism tax actually works. So we won’t have this problem in the future anymore. So I think yeah, here’s where I have to turn to head into downtown. Got no cars behind me, so I can zip over to the far right lane, the turning lane,
and off to the right, I can see the water. So, originally, I thought my hotel was right down here near the water, but as I said, it was actually located a lot farther away than I thought.
All right.
Though I think I did educate the hotel staff a little bit because I needed to stay in Port Dickson longer than expected, of course. So, I booked two more nights and of course when I booked again online, I had to pay the tourism tax online again. And now I was worried that when I told the hotel staff that oh, I’ve extended my stay by two nights, we were going to have another big argument about the tourism tax, but I think I might have freaked them out a little bit. So, they just let it go this time. They never mentioned it. So maybe for future foreigners, they’re still going to try to double charge them. But in my case, I got so upset with them, argued with them for so long, they thought, “Ah, it’s not worth the argument. We’ll just let this foreigner not, as far as they’re concerned, I’m not paying the tourism tax.” They still don’t believe that I’ve already paid it. They wouldn’t even look at the receipt. I tried to show it to them and they just sort of said, “No, we don’t even want to look at it. We don’t know what that is.” They just refused to engage. So, left a really bad taste in my mouth.
Yeah, it was such a bad experience. I was even joking to myself, half joking to be honest, that I’m in Port Dickson and the ferry back to Sumatra is right here. You know, if I don’t want to deal with this tourism tax anymore and not have to deal with this horrible customer service, I can just hop on the ferry, go back to Tanjung Balai, and do some more traveling around Sumatra. I was even thinking about it for a couple of minutes, but of course, I’m not going to do that. Yeah. The other thing about Malaysia, the traffic lights have a very long interval. So, you end up sitting at traffic for a very long time. Cycles through. In the end, it probably doesn’t matter. If it’s cycled faster, it still probably ends up being the same thing. But takes such a long time. It feels like you’re waiting forever.
All right. But yeah, you can see just how much traffic there is here in Port Dickson. It is a Sunday as well. It’s the weekend. So, a lot of weekend people are here. They drive here from Kuala Lumpur. Spend the weekend in one of the beach resorts. You can see one of them right there. If I know my history of Port Dickson, I’ve been told that when they were building or adding to KLIA airport, they had this idea that Port Dickson was just going to explode. So they were preparing for a huge increase in the volume of tourists that everybody from like international tourists I mean that they would fly into KLIA and then go directly to Port Dickson for a beach holiday. So they built a lot of beachside resorts and they overbuilt because the explosion of foreign visitors that they anticipated never happened. So, Port Dickson does sometimes have a bit of a feeling of a ghost town because you see a lot of these construction projects anticipating a huge boom in tourism and that boom never really materialized. And this is a good example. That’s why I was thinking about this because I spotted this building here and I’ve noticed it many many times and that building was never completed. Supposed to be, you know, a nice beachside condominium or accommodation for tourists. And they built it to that point and then I guess the money ran out and the tourism never started. So, they just abandoned it. And there’s a bit of the attraction of Port Dickson. Here’s some of the beach, some of the water. So, since I’m here doing a live stream, let’s just ride down here and take a quick look.
Beautiful day. When I stepped outside of my hotel, the heat hit me like a punch to the face. Like the sun and the heat was intense. And I’ve talked about this in the past though that when you step outside of your hotel into heat like this, you instantly think, “Oh, it’s so hot. There’s no way I can ride a bicycle. It’s too hot.” But one thing about having a bicycle is you create your own breeze. So once you start riding, it’s still just as hot, but you don’t feel it as much because as you’re cycling, you’re moving through the air and it’s like you’re creating your own breeze. And then down here at the waterfront today, it’s pretty windy, so it feels a lot cooler here.
There we are. Downtown is off in that direction and the ferry port going to Sumatra is over there. And then as you go down the coast in this direction, it’s heading towards Malacca. And if you go all the way down, eventually you’re going to hit Johor Bahru, and Singapore. And there’s, you can see, you probably can’t make it out on the GoPro screen. It’s too small. But you can see all those big buildings down there. Those are all beachside resorts. And I’ve never stayed in one. I’ve only ever
I am a live streaming novice, so I’m learning as I go. I’m basically live streaming here in Port Dickson, Malaysia. I’m staying at a small hotel. It’s about 7 kilometers outside of town. And this morning I decided to relearn how to do a live stream using a GoPro Hero 12 connected to my Samsung S10 Plus smartphone. So the way you do that is you just connect your GoPro to the GoPro Quik app and then if I want to do like an instant live stream like without a notification, without scheduling it, it’s pretty easy to do. I just set it up in GoPro Quik app and then I hit the button go live and then it starts and I recorded a live stream cycling all the way from my hotel down here to the waterfront you see behind me. But then it shut off and the message I got was that there was a network error like I lost network connection. And I’ve noticed this in the past when I was staying in Port Dickson before. Downtown Port Dickson really struggles with mobile internet. It’s like a dead spot. And I remember doing a lot of testing with this trying to find a place where mobile internet would work. And it was really hard. I don’t know. I could be just imagining things, but it just felt like mobile internet was not great downtown Port Dickson. Anyway, since that area behind me seems to be a dead spot, I’m just going to turn left here. I’m back at the main road, and this road heads into downtown Port Dickson. And you’ll have to bear with me if there are any technology problems like it disconnects again because there’s no mobile internet. There’s nothing I can do about that. Just have to see how it goes. So when the previous live stream quit, I was talking about Port Dickson as a tourism destination. It’s very popular amongst Malaysians. You can tell like look at the lineup of cars. It’s a gorgeous coastline down south of me here. Some nice beaches, beautiful coastline. A YouTuber cyclist that I was following, I’m still following called the American Hobo, he rode his bicycle all the way down this coast of Malaysia and then all the way up the east coast as well. And he did a lot of camping. He was camping in a hammock night after night. And he found lots of public bathrooms along the way where he could take a shower. Like you pay one ringgit or two ringgit and that gives you access to a nice bathroom and he could take a shower in the morning. But he’s much more hardcore than I am. I would find camping, cycling, camping and cycling that combination is already pretty tough. And now you’re trying to record video and edit and upload video, doing all that from your hammock. Wow, what a job that is. And the American Hobo, he was vlogging every single day for a full year. Every day he vlogged and almost every day he posted a new video and each video was 30 minutes to over an hour long. Major project. Can’t believe that he did it. So, I got a sign in front of me for the PD Waterfront City. And again, just to explain, I’m live streaming from my phone. And normally a live streamer would be responding to comments and people asking questions like having a conversation, but I can’t do that right now because I’m riding my bike and I can’t see the comments if anybody’s leaving any. So that’s why I’m treating this as if it’s just a regular video that I’m recording and that I’m going to edit later, but instead of doing that, I’m just doing it as a live stream. Anyway, I stopped here cuz I’m going to turn the GoPro around so you aren’t stuck with just looking at me all the time.
And as far as the technology goes, there’s a limit of 1080p for this live stream. So that’s the maximum that I can post, you know, 1080p in terms of resolution. So this is heading towards downtown. And if I remember right, there’s something fascinating over here. I recently watched a whole bunch of videos from a YouTube channel called 10c FILM. So it’s the number 10, then the letter c, and then films. Really, really good videos all about the history of small towns all across Malaysia. And they made like a 3-minute documentary about Port Dickson, like focusing on old Port Dickson. And this is one of the buildings, you know, that they focused on. It’s the old movie theater. People that grew up in Port Dickson, like KY, my friend, he remembers coming here, watching movies. It was like a center of the social life here in Port Dickson. And yeah, I showed this building on video last time that I was in Port Dickson, but yeah, it was very cool to see it in the video from 10c FILM. So, if you want to look that up on YouTube, yeah, they have a lot of interesting videos about these small towns all over Malaysia and they focus on a lot of the old traditional like fishing villages, farming villages and family traditions for different types of products that they make. Yeah, really, really well done. More documentary than travel. As I said, they made a video about Port Dickson and then they featured I mean I knew every building that they showed in the video. It was very yeah, I recognized everything including this movie theater. So, that was kind of cool. Yeah. Every time I ride around Port Dickson, it’s like a little bit of a walk down memory lane because this shop on my right, a very interesting place. Like a real jumble almost like a junkyard of jet skis, motorboat engines. I came here to get someone to weld my kickstand. I had an old kickstand that needed to be repaired and I brought it here and they said they could fix it for me and they tried to weld it but it didn’t work.
So far, I still have a mobile network connection, which is good.
One reason I can do this is that with my Digi SIM card, I found a data package of like 2,000 gigabytes that’s valid for 9 days. So, it’s basically unlimited high-speed internet. So, I can live stream for hours and hours and I would never get close to using all of that data.
Yeah, when I had this idea to do a live stream riding around Port Dickson, I totally forgot that it was Sunday. I didn’t know. It slipped my mind. So, and since the weather is so nice, that’s why you have all of this traffic. All these people are trying to turn left to head down to the shoreline. And I don’t really have to wait in line with them. I can scoot around them if I want to. Just got a lot of traffic behind me as well. See how’s the angle of my GoPro. Maybe aim it down a little bit. Maybe not.
Yeah, I don’t know about the exposure. Live stream says GoPro by the seat of your pants. You get what you get. And I mentioned in the previous live stream, one of the problems is it doesn’t show audio. So I have no idea whether audio is being recorded or not. I’m assuming it is, but I don’t really know.
Bustling Port Dickson.
I think once I turn this corner, I’ll be able to get ahead of some of the cars. It’s just a little bit jammed right here.
All right, let’s go.
Yeah, that’s the problem. When everybody has the same day off, when everybody gets the same weekend off,
it’s always busy everywhere you go.
All right, let’s see if we can— Oh, this van is blocking my way.
I’ve eaten here a few times. They’re open 24 hours a day. Oh, 23 hours a day. I remember that now. That’s quite funny. They closed for 1 hour just to reset or for some reason.
And this is the first time I’ve come down here on this trip down to Port Dickson, so I don’t really know what’s going on. They often have a children’s traveling carnival. Looks like they have one set up.
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s over here on the left. They call it the carnival waterfront up there. All kinds of rides for children.
Probably midday is not the best time to be down here. Too hot. I think it’ll be much busier in the evening when it cools down. Yeah, look at all the cars here. This is crazy.
Had I remembered it was Sunday, I may not have come down. I’m not sure. But yeah, it’s interesting to see Port Dickson at its busiest. If you come here on a Wednesday or something, you’ll basically find almost a ghost town. There’s so little going on. You hear people talk about Port Dickson all the time. And I remember a foreign YouTuber from KL coming down here to shoot a video cuz he’d heard about Port Dickson, but he came on a Wednesday or something like that. And he was very unimpressed. He just basically drove his car around and then turned around and left because nothing was open and nobody was here. But yeah, so if you come here on a Wednesday and then come back on a Sunday, you’ll find very different atmosphere. So this is ZUS. Yeah, ZUS or used to be ZUS. Has it changed? Ah, you go away for a couple of months and everything disappears. Yeah, they moved. So, it’s an ice cream shop now inside Scoop. I had no idea. Google Maps still has it listed as a ZUS coffee shop. Wow, that’s interesting. And you can see all these motorcycles and scooters. These are all people who they would have driven down here from Kuala Lumpur. Oh, I think I can just walk my bicycle along the waterfront for a little bit. Figure out. Oh, no. I’m such a dummy.
That was not the ZUS location. ZUS is still here. Still alive and kicking. Oh, they did move. Now I get it. Oh. Ah, it’s all becoming clear to me. When I was here last time, I was with my friend KY and we found this building and it was completely empty at that time. And we were both wondering what in the world it was going to be. But I guess they finished it. And then they moved ZUS from where it was, that ice cream shop. They moved it to here, a bigger location, two stories. Okay. All right. But, yeah, let’s just walk along the waterfront,
see what’s going on. You often find fishermen here. Though I see signs painted on the sidewalk now that say no fishing, but I always see people fishing here. Maybe this no fishing business is a new rule. And of course, they don’t want you riding your bicycle down this walking trail. So that’s why I’m just pushing my bike along.
Yeah, just stop for a second. Take in the atmosphere. Take in the breeze. It’s really nice.
Yes. Turn the bike around. So, there it is. There’s the new ZUS location. Much bigger. I don’t know if I really want to go in there or not now that I see how busy it is. Yeah, a lot of people there, but we’ll see how it goes. Yeah, can understand why they moved. I had no idea when they were building this that they were building it for a ZUS location. I didn’t know what it was at the time. It’s all making sense now.
All right.
Here’s the main Port Dickson waterfront park up ahead. It’s got the big Port Dickson sign where you can take your Instagram photos and a lot of toys for children, kites and bubble makers, things like that.
So far, I haven’t run into the mobile internet dead spot yet.
Yeah, I’ve talked about this sign in the past. I’m always entertained by signs where bicycles are not allowed, but then it says ride at your own risk. So, I always end up thinking, well, which is it? Like, it’s a contradiction. But when it comes to government signs, that’s not a big surprise. They’re not always the most well thought out.
So, you can’t ride your bike here, but if you do, you do it at your own risk.
It’s a pleasant town. I’ve always liked it down here during the week. As I said, it’s not exactly a hot spot. You feel like you’re alone during the week, but then weekend comes and the place explodes, especially on a nice day like this.
Get your PD waterfront photo. That’s a really nice little kite. Bird with wings. Remember when I was in Sumatra, I always felt bad for the kids there because I saw a lot of kites, but they were of such an odd design that they couldn’t fly. So, they would run and run and run and run down the roads, run across the fields, and while they were running, the kite would be aloft. But then, as soon as they stopped running, the kite would— Whoa, look at that. I love kites. So, like we’ve got this little character right here happily kite flying. And then you look above. Check that out. Look at that beautiful kite up there. That’s what I associate with kite flying. But in Sumatra, none of the kites would ever get off the ground. I could never figure that out.
But yeah, so yeah, here we are. So this guy, when I was thinking if I went back to Sumatra, you could stock up on like a dozen of these kites and then bring them there.
Yeah. But even this little kid, just a toddler, barely able to walk and is flying a kite like a pro. Yeah. That kind of kite just flies itself which is very cool.
And they come with fishing rods too with the string.
I am a master kite flyer from my childhood. So I know what I’m talking about when it comes to kites. I used to build them myself. Box kites. Those were my favorite kites, the box kites. And then I would make my own.
Oh, and he’s trying to get their kite off the ground. He’s trying to figure out how to let out the string.
But yeah, it flies right there all by itself. Yeah, they’re nicely designed. Oh, and that little girl has got her bird way up there. Look at that. That’s a great little kite. Love it.
Oh yeah, the guy who sold them the kite is helping them figure it out. It’s got to get a little bit more string out so it gets some height. Anyway, we’ll leave them to it.
And then you got the bubble machines too over here.
Oh yeah, that guy with the fishing rod kite. It’s not flying that steadily yet, but he’s getting it up there.
I remember the last time I was here, I just happened to meet a local man who owns a number of units in this building right up ahead. It’s like right above the McDonald’s sign there. And yeah, and he invited me up there. We rode the elevator all the way to the top just to get a view of the area. That was really nice. And he gave me his name card and says, “Hey, if you’re ever coming back to Port Dickson and you’re looking for a place to rent, you know, get in touch with him.” But of course, he rents out by the month, things like that. So, wouldn’t quite be suitable unless I knew for sure I was going to stay for a month. Yeah, you got your beach chair covered here.
And then looking back from where we came.
Trying to think where I can stop just for a few minutes to enjoy some air conditioning. Sit inside for a bit. Could always get an ice cream cone from McDonald’s, but I imagine it’s pretty crowded.
Let’s walk by the window, see what’s going on.
No, it doesn’t look that bad. So yeah, why don’t we pop into McDonald’s just for a minute and see if the live stream keeps working. I can park my bike right here in and amongst all the motorcycles. Oh no, I forgot. I usually lock it on this post up ahead.
There you get a nice view of the bush. Let me flip that around and you can sort of see me. I just have to get out my padlock. Lock it to this post.
And with the power of the Telson quick release, I can mount the GoPro on my hand grip. So yeah, kind of just leave my bike there. Yeah, sometimes it’s nice to park your bike and then you feel a bit more free, a little bit unencumbered. You start walking around.
So, it’s nice to be able to unclip your GoPro from the bike mount and then just clip it onto a hand grip. Works really nice.
All right, there’s a Starbucks over there as well.
So, and I have my other grip ready to go, my neck mount. So, I need my hands free for ordering. So, let’s move my GoPro.
Yeah, you can see I’ve got this neck mount here. And it also has a Telson quick release. So,
click it into there. And now I have hands-free. Let’s see what’s going on inside.
Thank you. And I have the— Okay, so there’s the live streaming control panel. And now I need to find a Touch ‘n Go.
All right. Now we just wait our turn for the machines.
Yeah. And this is where maybe live streaming starts to fail because when you’re shooting a normal video, you just stop recording and then you pick up later on when something is happening. But yeah, I thought it would be a lot more crowded in here.
Oh, there’s another
I’ve become a master of using all these sorts of machines and paying with QR codes and things like that. So, I tend to go quite quickly, but we’ll see. Saying that maybe I set myself up for failure.
Might need my glasses. Okay, there we go. Start order. Skip login. Eat in. And I’m just going to get a dessert. Where is my dessert? Burgers, nuggets, desserts. There we are. And just a sundae cone. Add to cart. And that’s it. Next. I don’t want to add anything. No thanks. Confirm my order. And cards and e-wallets. Why not get table service? 106. Continue. QR payment. And now I need a QR code that they can scan down there.
Approved.
The power of Touch ‘n Go. So then I just bring the number and then I wait for the ice cream to come to my table.
I have to keep reminding myself that the GoPro is transmitting live to the world.
Oh, that’s not going to work. Yeah, this table, it has a curved surface and because it’s curved, it won’t grip the GoPro grip. So, my handy dandy mounting system doesn’t work. And I don’t have my small tripod with me, but I have my big one. So, I’m going to transfer the GoPro to this. But now I need both hands to do that. How do I do that without making you seasick? All right, I guess I’ll just do it this way. Take the GoPro off.
Oh.
Oh. Is it still recording? I got a notification that a connection was lost.
So
I don’t know what’s going on. Oh, stream health is building back up again. So now I can view my stream
to see whether it’s still running.
Yeah, somehow
So, this is attempt number three. I’m testing live stream technology with a GoPro Hero 12 connected to my phone using the Quik app, the GoPro Quik app to connect to YouTube. That’s how this is working. And I’ve done two live streams already, but both of them got cut off because here in Port Dickson, when you get down near the waterfront, for whatever reason, it’s a dead zone for mobile internet. And I guess I just lost my connection to the network. But there appears to be a problem with GoPros. Hold on to your hat, you know. It’s not like I’m announcing big news, problems with a GoPro. That’s practically synonymous with GoPro it seems. But there seems to be a deeply embedded problem with GoPros in that when the live stream fails, it fails on my phone. So the phone is no longer connected to YouTube. But somehow they don’t tell GoPro that. So, on this latest live stream, it ended after 10 minutes, but I kept talking for another 30 minutes. I went all up and down the waterfront. I was talking about the shops and all the kids flying kites. And I go into McDonald’s and I’m talking and talking and talking because on the GoPro, the red lights are flashing. If I turn on the screen, it says live. It says I’m live on a live stream. Everything is fine on the GoPro. But if it fails on the phone, the live stream ends, but the GoPro just keeps going and it doesn’t tell me that the live stream has a problem and that it ended. So, I checked online. I did some research into some forums and asking my AI buddies when I was at McDonald’s and they said, “Yeah, that’s a known problem with GoPro with their live streaming that when the live stream fails, the GoPro doesn’t indicate that it failed.” So the only way to know is to keep staring at your phone. So it’s like I’d have to mount my phone as along with everything else on my bike. And I don’t normally do that, but I guess for live streaming now I have to find a mount for my phone and mount it here cuz the GoPro basically doesn’t tell me that the live stream failed. So now I’m putting my phone away, you know, I’m putting it in my pocket. Well, I do have a little compartment here, a little bag. Let me try this just for fun. I’m going to take my phone. Make sure the screen is on and I’ll slide it into this compartment on my bicycle. I don’t normally do this, so I don’t even
doing anything on a bicycle, you know, you kind of need two hands. And when you’re GoProing, live streaming, you don’t have two hands anymore. Anyway, maybe that’ll work. I put my phone in this little bag on my bike. and I can monitor the live stream down there. So, if it ends, I should be able to figure it out. Anyway, let’s go for a little bike ride. I started uh Oops. Let me get my GoPro lined up. I started the live stream here because I’m right outside of McDonald’s and I remember they had really strong internet in this part of Port Dickson. So,
I’m hoping the live stream will continue.
Yeah, I mentioned in the previous live stream that I watched a short documentary about Port Dickson on the YouTube channel 10c FILM. And one of the places they featured was this hotel behind me. And I’m really curious about this place myself. It says Arang Inn and they have a door there that’s open. I’ve always wanted to go in and find out like is this a hotel? Could you stay there? How old is it? You know, what’s the history? But yeah, this is one of the old buildings of Port Dickson that they featured in their documentary. Let me turn my GoPro around so it’s facing outwards for you. And yeah, bustling Port Dickson
on Thaipusam weekend. If I was in KL, I suppose I might have gone out to Batu Caves for Thaipusam. I did that two years ago. Had quite an interesting experience, an exhausting experience, but an interesting one nonetheless.
So, yeah, you don’t go to Batu Caves for Thaipusam casually. If you’re going to go there, you better be all in for a very big and a very intense experience. So, just for fun, I’m going to take some smaller roads here.
I spent some time in Port Dickson in the past and I figure I might as well just ride this way through the back streets.
Yeah, just through here, I guess.
Oh, no. I’ve never actually come this way before. That’s all right. There’s a very old traditional mosque here on my left. And then up ahead, yeah, there’s a large Hindu temple. Oh, wait. We kind of went past it already. No. Yeah. This is the Masjid Lama Port Dickson. That’s uh I have to turn my bike around to show it to you.
Yeah. I don’t really know the history of it, but I met a man here who he sells some lotions or it’s like a food spice, some sort of a liquid in a bottle outside of the restaurants here. And he told me that he lives here at the mosque. They let him stay in a room basically for free and then he works at the mosque. He does chores for them, cleaning. So that’s how I know about this mosque. And looking down at my phone, the live stream still seems to be working. So, I guess this is kind of a workaround
that even if I don’t know from the GoPro whether the live stream is still working or not, I can look at my phone and monitor it that way. But here is the Hindu temple that I was talking about. But it’s not dedicated to Lord Murugan. So I don’t think they would have a big Thaipusam procession with kavadi and the ceremonies and all the rituals. It probably wouldn’t take place here. So I didn’t go out looking for that celebration here in Port Dickson. There might be a Lord Murugan temple in this area but I don’t know where it might be.
Yeah. But this is one of the back streets of Port Dickson away from the waterfront. Much quieter here.
And we’ll see whether I can maintain an internet connection or not. And I guess it’s possible that when I was down at the waterfront, there were hundreds of people there and maybe all of them were connected to the internet. And that kind of diluted the signal maybe and that’s why I lost a connection.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It’s Port Dickson here. They have a lot of dogs. A surprising number of dogs like domestic and then these street dogs like gangs of them. It’s quite a big gang in this neighborhood I remember. And they would never really chase me. I usually run away like that fellow ahead of me now. But yeah, he’s part of this big group of dogs. They all seem to be related. Same colorings. Yeah, you don’t usually see that many dogs in Malaysia, but Port Dickson has a surprising number of them.
It’s okay, buddy. I’m not chasing you. I think I remember that one. It was a very young puppy last time I saw it. Very steep hill here. And in my previous video, I showed this neighborhood because KY’s house is right over the hill up ahead, and that’s where my bicycle was in storage.
So, this is where I got my bicycle. I can tell my legs are not in good shape at all. Even this short ride going up this short steep hill, I can feel my legs getting tired. Yeah. Check out this building here. It’s another temple. A temple complex. Forget the name of it though. Beautiful building. It’s not generally open though. It’s not like a temple where you can go inside and look around. And there’s another sort of a community center for the Chinese community. They have a lot of activities here.
Yeah, I had no reason to go up this hill. I just went up this hill so I could go down the other side basically. But yeah, this is
KY’s house right here. So, this is where my bicycle was in storage for a long time
and I just picked it up.
And as I showed in my other video, the other house where I stayed in Port Dickson was just down this hill. And if I make any noise while I go down this hill, the local dogs are going to start barking at me. Let’s see if I can sneak through.
None of them saw me or heard me. I’m like a ghost in the wind. Yeah. Right here. This is my other— I should say was my other home in Port Dickson for a short while. I don’t think anybody’s living there anymore. The house is sitting empty, I think. But I think family may come here on the weekends and stay here as a weekend retreat from their main home.
Yeah, Port Dickson is surprisingly industrial as well. You probably can’t see it, but we’re looking straight ahead at an oil refinery district. You can make out a big smoke stack out there. If you head in that direction, you’ll find acres and acres of industrial oil refineries and where they process oil and make all kinds of different products.
And then right across the road here is a power plant. Took me a long time to figure out what this place was, but it’s a giant power plant for making electricity, which is why they have all of these huge electrical towers.
Yeah. Anyway, I just went through these side streets just to show a little bit of the behind the scenes of Port Dickson. And right here, I’ll be linking up with the main road and following the main road back to my hotel. As I talked about before, I thought this hotel was like right downtown Port Dickson, but it turned out it’s a few kilometers north of the city, its actual location.
And the rooms are okay. I’ve been getting it for about 48 ringgit per night. I find it on Agoda. That’s as cheap as it gets, but it can go up as high as like 90 ringgit a night depending on when you book it.
So yeah, here we are down at the main street. You got to be careful crossing this road. Traffic moves a lot faster than you’d think.
Yeah. Coming around a corner in that direction. Yeah, I was just about to go, but then that red car came zipping around the corner. All right, break in the traffic. Here we go.
I can’t really see the screen on my phone because of the bright sun. It’s sitting inside a little case with a plastic covering. So, it’s supposed to be transparent, but it’s a very cheap case. Can’t really see anything.
And one of my big adventures in Port Dickson so far is that I learned how to use my Touch ‘n Go Visa card. So, I’ve been using e-wallets quite a bit. Malaysian e-wallet, Touch ‘n Go, and the Indonesian e-wallet, GoPay. Learning how to use it. And with a Touch ‘n Go in Malaysia, you also get a transit card, like a Touch ‘n Go, like it’s like a transportation card. You can use it for paying for rides on the MRT and KTM trains and the Rapid KL buses, but you now you can also get a Touch ‘n Go prepaid Visa card. And I didn’t really know much about how to use it, but I have been figuring it out. And the one thing I wanted to learn was how to do PayWave because this Touch ‘n Go prepaid Visa card, it’s not a credit card, but you can use it anywhere in the world that Visa is accepted. So, this card can be used throughout the entire Visa global network and that includes PayWave. And I’ve never done it before in my life. I’ve never used like tap and go with any kind of a card before. And I wasn’t sure it would work. I tried to do it in Indonesia, but it failed all the time. I couldn’t find any place that had like the NFC technology. But I went into a 7-Eleven here in Port Dickson and I did some research beforehand and I found they had a terminal there that had the curved circles that indicate NFC connectivity. So I just tried it out the other day. I bought some milk, of course. And then when I went in there to buy the milk, I just instead of using my smartphone and the Touch ‘n Go app for them to scan my QR code, I just took the Touch ‘n Go Visa card out of my wallet, put it on the scanner, and it beeped, and then the payment was automatic. So, you don’t even have to use your phone anymore. You don’t even have to scan a QR code. They don’t have to scan your QR code. You just touch the card to the terminal, wait for the beep, and then the payment is deducted from your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet balance. It’s very, very cool. So, I’m quite excited about that. That’s been one of my adventures here in Port Dickson. Ah, I should stop and show you guys something here. Yeah, you can see I was talking about how they have a big oil refinery here, big industry and this dock up ahead. That is where the big oil tankers, they connect there and they offload crude oil or they get pumped full of other oil to take somewhere else. Who knows what all they do, but all these ships out here. Yeah, you can tell you’re in a really industrial area. And there’s my other hotel. That’s where I was going to stay, the Sea Front Hotel.
And it’s not a great location. They advertise it as being, you know, on the sea giving you a beautiful view of the sunset. And I guess it does, but it’s not like there’s a beautiful beach. This is the only beach here and it’s not very pleasant here, but you are on the water. But as I said, the prices went way up. It was I couldn’t get it any less than 90 ringgit a night, something like that. And the rooms aren’t worth 90 ringgit a night. It’s all kind of old and broken down.
I have to try to double check my phone. Yeah, I think it’s still I think we’re still live streaming. What an adventure. More technology in my life. So, we’re not that far away from my new hotel. It’s really just right around the corner up ahead.
And when I first came to the first day that I arrived in Port Dickson, I noticed they were having a big celebration at a Buddhist temple up ahead and they set up a lot of giant incense sticks that were burning and they had a stage where they were putting on performances. So, I walked down there with my cameras on the first day, and I took some video, just B-roll kind of video.
And I went down to this beach. There’s a sign up ahead. Hai Tanjung Gemok. It’s where the sea turtles go. Yeah. Right here is where they were having the big performance. This there’s a Buddhist temple here. And you see that tent? They had a stage there and a traveling troop came here to put on a performance. And you can still see a few incense sticks there that haven’t been burning yet.
Is my GoPro still running? Yep. GoPro’s still running.
I noticed that there was a hotel here. I’ll turn my bike around. Now, I always have to move my bike in order to point the camera in different directions. I noticed this hotel, Tanjung. Oh, there it is. Rumah Tampungan Homestay. So, I tried to find out whether I could stay there, but it’s one of these places where you just have to contact them through WhatsApp. The door is locked and you have to get their phone number and you have to call them and I guess Malaysians know how to do that really easily. But for me, it’s too much trouble. So, when I see that, I just ride away and look for a different hotel where there’s actually a front desk. I guess if those hotels that have no staff were cheaper, then I would still try to figure out how to contact the owner, but they’re usually more expensive than the other places. So, there’s no advantage to going to the places that have no staff and you have to arrange it through a WhatsApp.
So, so far I think the Wi-Fi connectivity is better out here. It’s just down by the waterfront where it doesn’t work. So, there’s all the incense sticks and the temple. I can still smell the fire still burning a little bit down there. I can smell the smoke.
And that building right up ahead, the kind of a strip mall, that’s where my hotel is located. And maybe I’ll go into 7-Eleven and I’ll buy something, a cold drink, and I’ll try to pay for it with my Touch ‘n Go Visa card. And you can see it in action.
Try to keep the live stream going. One good thing about the live stream setup is that even if the live stream disconnects and the live stream isn’t working anymore, the video is still being recorded on the GoPro. So, I end up with two copies of it. One copy is uploaded to YouTube automatically, but a backup copy is being saved to the SD card on the GoPro. So, even if the live stream fails and I’m talking for another 30 minutes with a dead live stream, at least all of that is being recorded on video just so I could edit it on my laptop like a normal video. It’s not like the video is completely lost. So essentially there could be two versions of it on my YouTube channel. A live stream version and then I could upload a second copy as a regular video. Do a little bit of editing and put it together. So here I am.
Busy here too. Yeah. Look at this parking lot completely full. There’s 7-Eleven.
And right here
is my hotel, the Gemilang Star Hotel. It’s not a bad place if you can get it at a good price. I wouldn’t pay any more than 40 or 50 ringgit if you can get that price.
So,
this is me. Just have to lock up my bicycle.
Yeah, it’s not a very strong lock, but if a professional bike thief comes along, yeah, there’s really no lock that is going to stand up to a professional bike thief. They can cut open any lock. But yeah, so I’ve been babbling away on this live stream for 27 minutes. My phone is really hot. The screen it doesn’t turn off like on the live stream, so it’s still on. But if I’m going to put this in my pocket, I think I need to turn the screen off. And one good thing about my broomstick technology is that because I have the broomstick, I can also connect this like I just clamp this to the broomstick when I’m not using it. So it’s just hanging off the bike and clip that to my pocket. And now when I go into 7-Eleven, I’m just going to take that GoPro and attach it here so I have a hands-free. So,
just connect this here. And now, yeah. So, there’s my bike and where I lock it up. And the card I was talking about, this is what it looks like. A Touch ‘n Go Visa card. And I didn’t know anything about this, but those the white lines there, you see the curved lines? That means it has NFC contactless connectivity. So, I can use this just by tapping it on the scanner. So, let’s go into 7-Eleven and show you how that works. Oh, this is quite interesting. I’ve been having a lot of burgers from here. Hello. This is my regular burger guy. And I came here the very first night I was here and I got a burger and I ate it in my room and I reacted like, “Wow, this is so much better than the usual Ramly burgers that I get in Kuala Lumpur. It had like fresh tomato slices, fresh onion slices. It was just much better. The sauce was better. It was bigger. And then I realized it actually isn’t a Ramly burger. It is the competitor to Ramly. OTAi. I don’t know how you say that. OTAi Burger, but I guess they are sort of a competitor to Ramly Burger. They look, you know, pretty much the same and they’re halal burgers and the pricing is the same. But yeah, so there’s they have their own sauce. The chili OTAi. And to be honest, I’ll probably come back here a little bit later after I take a shower and the sun goes down a bit and I probably— Oh, look at that. Oh, I asked him the other day like, “Do you have Touch ‘n Go?” And he said, “No,” but I just noticed there’s a Do It Now code there now. Maybe they put it up, but there you go.” So yeah, it also accepts Touch ‘n Go. The other day he told me no, I can’t use it here, but apparently I can. I never saw that before. Anyway, let’s head into 7-Eleven.
And every time I do this, when I’m testing a Touch ‘n Go and GoPay, I’m always getting milk. But this time, I think I’m going to switch things up and I’m going to get vanilla Coke. Is that vanilla Coke over there? Oh, no. That’s A&W. Oh, okay. Maybe we can get a can of vanilla Coke. Mmm. So good. So, let’s see how easy it is to pay for this with my card connected to my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet.
Yeah, I’m learning all of this for the first time. Like, I didn’t even know what that symbol meant, but it’s the same. So, cart, you just put the card here and it beeps.
And that’s it. Thank you.
So yeah, how easy was that?
And in a live stream, you get to see all the behind the scenes of Planet Doug. This is what you normally don’t see. I have to set this up before I sit down. And then I use the quick release mount. Put it there.
And then I can come around here and just keep recording. And I suppose I’m worried I’m going to turn off the live stream by accident. But there is a button here where I can view the live stream. And if I do that, then I should be able to see if there are any messages. Oh yeah, there’s a few. So, while I sit here, these are going back way in time. The people who left these comments, they’re probably not even watching anymore, but I’ll zip through them anyway.
So good. Ice cold. So nice. So, uh, Mr. Watermelon asks, “This is an ebike or you need to pedal yourself.” No, it’s not an ebike. I bought this bike in 1999 and back in those days, mountain bikes were just sort of taking over the market. And this one was marketed as a combination mountain bike, touring bike. So, it was like what they called a hybrid. But yeah, it’s I have to pedal that bike. It’s not an ebike, just a regular mountain bike, basically.
Dominique Schwind, he writes, “The video quality is amazing for a live stream.” Well, that’s good to hear. I think I mentioned before that the resolution for the live stream, it tops off at 1080p, so you can’t go any higher than 1080p. And if you have a good enough internet connection, then you can live stream at 1080p. And today is the perfect day for a GoPro because it’s such a bright sunny day. You know that’s when you get the best exposure, the best colors from an action camera. Tom Cam says, “Hi Doug.” Hi Tom. And Tamasi 65. Good to see Sumatra adventurer Doug on his bike again. Yeah, feels great to be on the bike. It really does. As soon as I don’t have the bicycle, like when I was in Banda Aceh, it really felt like my legs had been cut off because I’m not accustomed to always summoning a Grab or always getting on a bus or always getting a taxi or a becak. I like the freedom of a bicycle where within a city you can just go anywhere you want
and mattress 8965. Hi Doug. I love Planet Doug. Well thank you very much. These comments look like they’re pretty up to date. CS Chua, he writes, “Yep, any place that has a wave payment handheld will be able to support the TNG Visa card. More convenient than having to use the phone. Places like supermarkets and KK will have the Wave terminal.” Yeah, I didn’t know about this. This was all brand new to me because in the past when I had my own Visa credit card, I assume I could do PayWave, but I’ve never done it. Not once in my entire life. So, when I got my Touch ‘n Go prepaid Visa card, I never knew about PayWave. I didn’t even know it was a possibility. And, you know, yeah, I just never figured it out until basically 2 days ago. So, I’m pretty excited about that.
Oh, another drink.
So, good. I’m assuming the live chat is still working. Conscious mind 998, he writes, “Is the traffic heavy at PD since it’s a holiday?” Yeah, the traffic here is really, really heavy down by the waterfront. Absolutely jammed. All the parking is taken. Kind of gridlock, slow-moving, traffic jams all through the waterfront area. This parking lot outside my hotel completely full. Yeah, a lot of traffic. And I guess tomorrow, Monday, is also a holiday, so it’s going to be busy here for another couple of days. Tom Cam he writes Daniel live stream finished and now Doug is live. So people who are following Daniel, he does live streaming quite often and I join a lot of his live streams as well and if somebody is watching Daniel’s live stream and then I start one now I’m competing with Daniel for his live stream audience. But I’m not doing anything nearly exciting as what Daniel is doing cuz he’s riding his bike through Bali right now like cycling every day like a real adventure. So, go watch his live stream. More interesting than mine. I think I’m just doing live stream testing.
Mode K2299 asks, “How long does the GoPro battery last for live streaming?” Well, that’s a good question. For this one, I didn’t put in an Enduro battery. I put in one of the older batteries. So, this whole live stream has been on one battery and it’s been going on for 38 minutes and we are at 30% for the battery. So, it looks like it would last about 1 hour per battery. Looks like that would be it.
Live and direct from the Cameroons.
I don’t know what that one means. Yeah, someone is telling me that it’s called Visa Paywave. But of course, when you use the terminal here, it doesn’t say PayWave on it because Mastercard has a different name for it, right? American Express has a different name. So, I don’t really know what to say. When I go up to the counter, I just say, “Card, I’m going to pay with my card.” And then I do it because it really is tap and go. Anyway, I’m not familiar with the vocabulary yet.
Next comment, that Canada t-shirt seems indestructible. Yeah, I wear this all the time. I tend to find one t-shirt that fits my shoulders and everything. It just feels comfortable. The material is just right. And then day after day after day, I just end up wearing the same shirt until it’s worn out and then I get a new one. So I tend to wear just one shirt at a time. Yeah, it’s a habit. Yeah, it’s lasted a very long time.
Okay, here’s a comment. The TNG Visa is not NFC compatible. TNG NFC interferes with the Visa Paywave. As such, TNG Visa does not have an NFC chip. I guess that’s true. I don’t know. Like I said, the technology and it is all brand new to me and the vocabulary. Yeah, I don’t have it straight in my head.
You’re not buying milk because you can’t put a cow’s moo in the live stream. Well, I thought about that. If I was going to buy milk, I was going to moo myself. I was going to sound like a cow. But yeah, I can’t put in any sound effects.
Ian Kairens writes, “Enjoying the live stream. Seems to be— Oh, number three seems to be going well.” Yeah. So, here I seem to be in an area with a really good mobile connection. As I talked about in the previous live streams that failed, the downtown area of Port Dickson is a mobile internet dead zone. Particularly at the waterfront, there’s like no mobile internet there. And I don’t know why. I’ve noticed it on my other trips to Port Dickson.
And Flea writes, “It’s a long weekend this week. Thaipusam holidays.” Yeah. Thaipusam. So long weekend. I don’t think there was a big Thaipusam celebration in Port Dickson. There may have been one, but I couldn’t figure out where it was taking place. So I didn’t go out to look for it. But it is still a holiday weekend. So yeah, a lot of people here for the weekend for Thaipusam. Do try the seafood restaurant over at PD Steamfish and Kangkung Potato Leaf is a must over there. Yeah, I’m not a big seafood eater, so I’m probably not the best person to send to have good seafood. I wouldn’t appreciate it, I don’t think. I don’t have a lot of experience with it, but I’d be open to it. We’ll see.
One couple more comments maybe before I sign off. Your live stream knocked off earlier and Daniel’s live stream came on. He just ended it as he is on a boat to Lombok. Your stream just popped up on my YouTube. So yeah, it worked out pretty well. So Daniel and I have been live streaming. I stop, he starts, he stops, I start. So, I guess that worked out well. And finally, I’m not sure about indestructible. A few holes that could be repaired. Yeah, he’s talking about my Canada t-shirt. And of course, before I had this neck mount, I used a GoPro chest harness. So, the chest harness was under the shirt. So, the GoPro mount came through these holes and I don’t know, I couldn’t figure out where to cut the hole. So, I would put a hole here and it wouldn’t be in the right place. So, I cut a hole higher. But then this one was interfering with my microphone. So, I cut another hole down here lower. So anyway, yeah, my shirts are falling apart again because of a GoPro.
Yeah. And then the million dollar question, are you going to ride a bicycle after this? So that question is asking me, am I going to do any bike touring around Malaysia starting now? And yeah, I think I am. I think so. My bike is ready to go. My gear is here. It’s not pouring rain. I have 2 months left on my current visa. So, if I start cycling like in 2 days or something like that, I can have 2 months to ride my bike before my visa expires. So yeah, I’ve been thinking about doing a bike tour around Malaysia. I think it would be good to do that finally.
To be honest, I feel like I owe it to the people of Malaysia. People here in Malaysia have supported my channel quite a bit and I’ve spent so much time in Kuala Lumpur and then going back and forth from Sumatra to KL, back to Sumatra, back to KL. I haven’t and I’ve done a bit of traveling in Malaysia, but not very much. So, I think it would be nice to finally break free of KL. So, I’m trying to decide whether I should start from Port Dickson and ride north because the weather is good on the west coast right now, ride up the west coast to, you know, Penang and then cut across to Terengganu and that could take 2 months for me and then I can cross the border into Thailand, spend a couple of days, whatever, a week in Thailand, come back into Malaysia, hopefully get another 90-day visa, and then go down the east coast, and then loop back around to KL. So, I’m trying to decide whether to go clockwise or the other way, counterclockwise. So, I’m just trying to figure out the logistics. So, I’m thinking pretty seriously about going on a bike ride. And yeah, the timing for the weather, for my visa, everything seems to be coming together. I think I can do a little bit of a bike ride around Malaysia. So, yeah, that’s what I’m thinking about. Oh, great explanation about the holes in the shirt. I would never have guessed that. Yeah. I guess it’s been a while since I used the chest harness because ever since I started using this, I like it better because the GoPro is higher. The GoPro sits up here. The chest harness, the GoPro is down low and I don’t like that perspective. And the chest harness kind of sucks in on my chest and gets kind of uncomfortable after a while. And this I can take it off. So, I don’t use the chest harness very much, but I also use these holes for a lavalier mic as well. So, if I clip in a lavalier mic, I put the cord through the hole, you know, underneath my shirt. So, that’s how that works. Just checking whether my microphone was still working and it is.
And one more comment, do the bike tour. You owe yourself. So yeah, I think I will. As I said, I just need to figure out should I go south from Port Dickson like now down to Malacca, Johor Bahru, and then up the west coast or up the east coast or starting now go up the west coast and then down the east coast. That’s the way that I want to go. I think that works out better in terms of the weather, in terms of my visa. And this is a kind of a funny thing, but if you’re riding along the coast, it’s better to be going north because then I’m on the left side of the road in Malaysia, so the ocean is right on my left, right? If I’m going the other way, then I’m on the far side of the road and the road is between me and the ocean, right? So, if I go clockwise, I’m always right beside the ocean. If I go counterclockwise, the road is always cutting me off. I’m between the road and the water. So, I kind of want to go clockwise. I think that’ll work out better.
All right. Visa run to Thailand sounds good. A month or two there is a good idea, too. So, anyway, yeah, I think I’m going to shut down now because this is like my third live stream in a row and my voice is starting to wear out
and my vanilla Coke is empty. I finished it all.
So anyway, thank you for everybody who joined for the live stream and left comments and yeah, the technology. There’s a learning curve, of course. That’s what I wanted to do today, kind of figure out the learning curve using the GoPro to do a live stream. And yeah, I think I learned quite a bit. And I still have like 24% battery on my phone and lots of battery left on my GoPro. So yeah, that works out well. All right, that’s it. I am going to shut down the live stream and I’m going to call that a success. Yeah, there’s the button there that I click. Once I hit that, it will be shutting down again. Thank you for joining me. GoPro live streaming success. Yeah, I think that worked out really well. And yeah, if I do go cycling around Malaysia, maybe I can do live streams all the time. We’ll see how that works out. All right, shutting down. See everybody next time.