VIDEO SUMMARY
- A Planet Doug supporter surprised me with two mystery drinks and a very generous Indian dinner, turning ordinary evenings into something considerably more interesting.
- After more than two weeks in an extremely basic RM20-a-night hostel room, I finally decided that air conditioning, sleep, and an actual bathroom were worth paying for.
- The move to M Candy Hotel was a dramatic upgrade — but weekend prices forced me to move again almost immediately, proving once again that budget travel is often an exercise in constant adaptation.
- Along the way, there were the usual Planet Doug complications: confusing Grab orders, mysterious hotel taxes, bicycles that need somewhere to live, one-way streets, language misunderstandings, and even a surprise film set appearing outside my hotel.
A Mystery Delivery from a Mystery Supporter
The video begins in typically chaotic Planet Doug fashion.
A viewer, supporter, and friend arranged for drinks to be delivered to my hotel in Malacca — from another country, no less. I was supposed to have the GoPro ready and capture the delivery, but the delivery driver arrived before the tracking map suggested he would, so I ended up sprinting barefoot down the street to meet him.
The reward was two mystery drinks from Bingxue: a boba milk tea and a watermelon drink with an alarming-looking mass of dark material floating inside.
The first drink was immediately successful. After spending months without having boba, that familiar combination of cold tea, milk and chewy tapioca pearls was a welcome surprise.
The second drink was more mysterious. I couldn’t initially identify the giant dark blob, but eventually discovered that it was — predictably — more boba. With watermelon.
At that point, I had apparently been provided with enough liquid, sugar and tapioca to constitute a small meal.
Dinner: Another Surprise
The same supporter also arranged dinner for me from a nearby Chettinad restaurant.
There was just one small problem: I had no idea what had been ordered.
When I arrived to pick it up, the staff naturally wanted to know what I had ordered. My only answer was essentially, “I don’t know. My friend ordered it for me.”
This produced the sort of confusion that seems to follow me around whenever I attempt to do something slightly unusual.
Eventually the order materialized: chicken biryani, bread, vegetables and an assortment of sauces. The biryani itself turned out to be so flavorful and spicy that I could happily have eaten the rice by itself.
And that raises one of the recurring realities of eating while travelling: I don’t always know the names of the things I’m eating, and I frequently forget them immediately after somebody tells me. But I know whether I like them.
This one was very good.
The RM20 Room That Became an Endurance Test
The real subject of the video, however, was accommodation.
I’d been staying in an extremely basic hostel room for more than two weeks. It cost only RM20 a night, and that price was almost irresistible.
But there was a catch.
There was no working air conditioning, no outside window, no private bathroom, and the room became brutally hot because it was directly underneath the roof. The solution was essentially a continuous cycle of sweating, taking bucket baths, returning to the room, sweating again, and repeating the process.
The room was cheap enough that I kept extending my stay anyway.
That’s the funny thing about budget travel: the cheapest option can be such a good deal that you tolerate conditions you wouldn’t normally tolerate.
Eventually, though, I reached the point where saving those extra ringgit wasn’t worth sacrificing sleep and basic comfort.
When RM31 Turns Into RM50+
On paper, the next step looked like an easy decision.
The M Candy Hotel was advertised at around RM31 on a weekday. Compared with RM20 for the hostel, that sounded like an astonishingly good upgrade for only RM11 more.
Except that’s not actually how the calculation works.
Once tourism tax, heritage tax and other charges enter the equation, the real price of the hotel climbs above RM50.
Suddenly you’re not comparing RM20 with RM31 anymore. You’re comparing roughly RM20 with more than RM50 — about two and a half times the price.
And that changes the economics completely.
For somebody travelling on an extremely tight budget, an extra RM30 a night isn’t insignificant. That’s money that could otherwise pay for food, drinks and everything else required to get through the day.
But there comes a point where the value of a good night’s sleep becomes greater than the value of the money you’re saving.
That was the point I’d reached.
And Then: Paradise
The contrast was almost comical.
The new room had air conditioning. A proper bed. Plenty of space. A desk. A chair. A window. And — perhaps most importantly — a private bathroom with an actual shower.
After spending weeks in a tiny, windowless room where I was constantly drenched in sweat, it felt almost luxurious.
The room itself wasn’t particularly luxurious by normal hotel standards. But compared with what I’d just left, it felt like paradise.
The staff were friendly, they let me check in early, and everything went surprisingly smoothly — except, naturally, for a long and increasingly confusing discussion about the heritage tax.
Even the question of where to park my bicycle turned into a miniature communication adventure.
That is one of the interesting things about low-budget travel: the price of a room tells you only part of the story. Location, staff, check-in flexibility, bicycle storage, taxes, noise, air conditioning and dozens of other little details can completely change the experience.
Budget Travel Means Moving
Unfortunately, the M Candy Hotel didn’t remain home for very long.
The weekend was approaching, room prices were climbing, and before I could make another booking, my room disappeared from the inventory.
So I had to move again.
Fortunately, M Candy was only a short distance from my old haunt, Mahkota Vibe Inn. I packed up once again and moved back in that direction.
The new room turned out to be perfectly decent — air conditioning, private bathroom, plenty of space and even a little table. The biggest advantage was that it was on the ground floor, which meant no climbing several flights of stairs with all my gear.
The disadvantage was noise.
Ground-floor rooms came with doors slamming, alarms beeping and the general chaos of people moving in and out of the larger family rooms next door.
That’s another lesson of budget accommodation: there is almost always a trade-off.
The room might be better in one way and worse in another. You get the ground floor but more noise. You get a low price but fewer amenities. You get a bigger room but perhaps an inconvenient location.
You adapt.
A Movie Set Appears Outside
There was also an unexpected little bonus to the move.
While walking through the neighborhood, I discovered that a building I’d been watching being renovated had suddenly become a film set.
There were trucks, lighting equipment, cars and an assortment of people involved in the production. Among the vehicles was an old Morris that appeared to suggest they were filming some kind of period piece.
It was a good reminder that when you’re moving around a city on foot or by bicycle, you stumble across things you would never encounter if you were simply staying inside your hotel.
The Luxury of Being Comfortable
Looking back at the whole sequence, the biggest difference wasn’t really the size of the room or the quality of the furniture.
It was simply being comfortable.
After weeks of heat and bucket baths, feeling cool air-conditioning slowly dry the sweat from my clothes was almost enough to make the new hotel feel luxurious.
And that probably says something about long-term low-budget travel.
When you’re travelling this way, luxury isn’t necessarily a five-star hotel or an expensive meal. Sometimes luxury is just having a room where you can sleep properly.
And sometimes, after you’ve spent long enough trying to save every ringgit, you eventually decide that you’ve earned it.
Notable Quotes & Nuance
“I can’t resist a price that low.”
That probably explains the entire hostel experience better than anything else. RM20 a night was such an incredible bargain that I kept accepting conditions that were increasingly difficult to live with.
And perhaps the more important realization came later:
“At the same time in terms of value for money, yeah, there’s no real comparison.”
The M Candy room cost dramatically more, but the experience was dramatically better. That’s the calculation that eventually matters when you’re travelling for months at a time: not simply How cheap can I make this?, but What am I actually getting for the money?
And, as usual, the answer on Planet Doug is never quite as simple as the price printed on Agoda.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Time for a quick, very disorganized Planet Doug drinks review. A Planet Doug viewer, supporter, and a friend of mine sent a drink to my hotel here in Malacca. So, he’s in a completely different country, but he placed an order for a drink to come to my hotel here. And I thought I was prepared. I had my GoPro ready and I was going to record the delivery moment going out on the street, but then my phone started ringing and the guy was already here. So, I didn’t have a chance to grab my camera. I just ran out the door, ran down the stairs barefoot out into the streets because even with the delivery, he sent me the link to the delivery coming and I get a map that shows approximate times. So, I was still waiting for the guy to show up, but apparently the map wasn’t accurate and he was already here. And my room is in a different building from the main hotel location on Google Maps. So, I knew he couldn’t come to my location. I would have to run out to wait for him at a different location, but I was too late and he was already there. And then I’m just like barreling down the middle of the street bare feet on asphalt. Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. I hate making people wait. So as soon as he called me and said I’m here, I just barreled out the door down the stairs, ran down the street and I have the drinks and this looks terrible I’m sure because I’m in this hostel room and I have no place to put anything and I broke my light bulb. I knocked it off this little piece of furniture I have over here. So, I can’t brighten the room with my own light bulb. And I didn’t buy a new one today. I shattered my light bulb. So, it’s very dark in here. Anyway, what have we got? The drink is a surprise. As always, I’m under strict orders not to investigate and find out anything in advance, which I followed instructions. Boba. Actually, I knew it was a boba milk tea, but specifics beyond that I didn’t know. And I love boba. So there’s a comes from Bingo.
I’ve watched enough YouTube videos in my life to know that you can’t just shake willy-nilly. Put your hand over the lid and hold it and then you can shake just to be careful, just to be sure. Otherwise that lid is going to come off. Can you imagine what a disaster that would be? Can’t even imagine. So, anyway, there’s the boba, nicely shaken up. I have a second drink, so I’m going to sample both of them on camera here.
I mean, what am I going to say about this, right? It’s going to be good. On Planet Doug, the main thing is, is it cold? After that, I’m happy. So, it feels icy icy cold. And I can hear there’s ice in there. So, let’s give it a stir. I don’t know if there’s any special flavoring. I don’t know what the instructions were for sweetness, milk, boba, anything like that.
That is nice.
It’s been a long time. I think that’s the thing. I wasn’t expecting to be impressed because I know boba milk tea. I used to live in Taiwan and all that stuff, but I think it’s been months and months and months since I’ve had one. So, yeah, I love that flavor.
And on Planet Doug, if I close my eyes, it’s instinctive. Something like really tastes good. My eyes closed. I’m like, “Oh, that’s so good.”
That is nice. And I was out today shooting a video. Really hot day, bright sun. I was out there for hours and I don’t drink enough. So, this is going down very, very nicely.
Yeah, the tea is really nice. Nice nice flavor. Okay. And there’s a second drink, like I said.
So, if I’m dehydrated, I have a lot to get me back to hydrated. Also from the same place from Bingo. No idea what this is. There’s something dark in there. You see that? Oh, you probably can’t see it. There isn’t enough light in here. I can barely see.
So, I have no idea what this drink is.
All right, let’s give this a try.
Trying to stir up this giant dark blob in here. I’m breaking it up, but I have no idea what it is. Doesn’t look like boba.
Total mystery.
There’s something white and solid in there, too. So, it’s got to be a big fruity thing, right? So, anyway, let’s give this a try.
It is boba. It is all boba and it’s watermelon. So all that black, all that dark stuff, it seems to be more clumped together. Like it’s not separating. So I thought maybe it was some sort of strange fruit. But I think it is watermelon drink with boba. So it’s practically between the two bobas. It’s practically a meal, which is good.
It’s really nice. Thank you to my mystery supporter sending me this collection of drinks. Trying very hard not to spill anything. There you have it.
Heading out to pick up dinner. A Planet Doug supporter and friend of mine called in an order for dinner for me at a local restaurant right around the corner. And I’m just going to go pick it up and munch on it in my room. Going through my usual routine here. This is where you leave your shoes here at this hostel. So, putting on my sandals and then heading down. It’s a I don’t know what the meal is, but it’s at an Indian restaurant right here in my neighborhood. Chettinad food like from the Chetti community. So that ought to be interesting. And we did talk about me eating the meal at the restaurant, but then I tend to run into issues with that because he called it in on like online, so they automatically Yeah, there’s a lot of trouble getting out of this place. You have to unlock the door on your way out and then lock it behind you. And the key doesn’t always engage. So, I end up fighting with this quite a bit. It’s hard to find the right. Sometimes I just give up. Yeah, this is taking way too long. There we go. All right. But yeah, if he orders it in, then they just automatically put it together as a pickup order. So, if I show up and then I say, “Oh, I’d rather eat in,” then it just causes all kinds of confusion where they have to unpack it and make it a dine-in meal instead of a takeout meal. So, anyway, I’m taking it out. Here’s my neighborhood at night. And that’s actually the sign for my place, the Discovery Cafe and Guest House. And this restaurant is right here. Hari Aum. Yeah, I don’t really know how to say it. And it says, yeah, Chettinad restaurant. And my meal should be ready to go.
There’s the inside of the restaurant.
Hello. I have a pickup order.
Yeah. What do you order? I don’t know. It was from my friend. Yeah. Okay.
The message said it was ready for pickup at this time, but the time has to be translated from the country where the order was placed. Maybe I got the time mixed up, but we’ll see. Yeah, pretty cool place. They got some tables out here, or one table out here. And then some sweets, snacks, fruit juices.
I don’t know what it is about me and my style, but I always have the feeling like whenever I do something, it’s like nobody has ever done anything like this before in the history of the world. You know, like when I show up and like, “Oh yeah, I have an order for pickup.” and I show them the notice on my phone and they look at it like no idea what you’re talking about, dude. That always seems to happen to me. I think they’re putting it together right now. But of course, I don’t even know what the order is. So, he asks me, so what did you order? And I’m like, I don’t even know. You know, my friend ordered it for me. So, yeah, I never do things the normal way. Yes, sir. Oh, I’m just picking up an order. Yep. My friend sent an order. What do you order? I don’t know. My friend sent it in. A surprise.
So, another man came out to talk to me like, “What can we do for you? What do you want?” So, I had to show him my order. And he finally went to look at their phone, and apparently that’s the first time anybody even looked at the Grab order. So, yeah, a little bit of confusion here, but apparently I’m hoping they’re actually putting my order together now. Luckily, as you saw, this place is like right around the corner from my hostel, so it’s very very close. They’re all set to go. Got my order. My friend asked me on a scale of 1 to 10, how hungry was I? And I said medium, like a seven. And this is the result of a seven. There’s a lot of food there. Very heavy both sides. I’m guessing a chicken biryani over here and then breads over here. Chapati something like that. Roti. So I’m going to take this into my room
if at all we are going with this conservative approach.
All right. Now the reverse procedure.
Oh, and sometimes people go out and they don’t lock it. So, you never know whether the door is locked or not. I thought I had to unlock it there, but it turns out I didn’t. There we go.
I never know if these rooms are rented out or not. I’ve never seen a door open or any people down here on the ground floor.
Footwear comes off.
And it goes up here.
The dining experience on Planet Doug is a little bit complicated, but I do have this little table like I have actually two layers to it. So, it is yeah, chicken biryani. And I always forget the name of everything. Like, when it comes to food, I don’t know. I don’t care what it’s called. I know I’ve had this before and I know this particular type of bread has a special name. I’ve looked it up many times and I instantly forget it. It’s yeah, hot off the griddle, which is nice. I have a feeling it has like a little bit of a sour quality to the dough.
I wouldn’t call it sour, but there’s something special about that bread. And then
I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with all of that. We’ve got the sort of the veggies in there and then sauces and sauces and sauces. It’s like to be honest 10 times more sauce than I need for one of my meals. But I’m going to mix them all up on this little thing here and then dive in. Just give the rice a try without any of the sauces. To be honest, I’d be happy with just the rice, you know, that would be fine with me.
It’s good. Spicy. Very, very spicy. Very generous portion.
But yeah, I mean the rice on its own is like bursting with flavor. It’s hot, spicy, all kinds of flavors. So to be honest, for me and my normal diet, I don’t need all of the various sauces because it has so much flavor all by itself. But I do like these veggies here.
Yeah, they’re like onions, like all onions with a just for the video, I’m going to sample all of these.
These are very, very good. And I always know there’s like a special technique for undoing this. There it is. I guess I figured it out.
And then this sauce is very good. Pour some on there for a sample. Yeah. Once I like record sort of a reaction to the initial meal, then I’ll get everything spread out in different bowls and different things. But while I have the camera running, we’ll just sort of try a little bit of it. Let’s try this one.
That’s very good, too.
To be honest, this is so challenging in this environment with the camera running and microphones and everything. I’m just going to call it quits there as far as the video is concerned and then I will settle in and get all of this organized and dive in and enjoy this meal. Yeah, very good. It’s going to be very very filling. So yeah, I definitely needed this at the end of today. So thank you to my mystery benefactor for this delicious meal. Yeah, sorry about the lighting, too. But yeah, in my room here in the hostel, there’s no light. Such a dim light bulb. You can’t really see anything. I did have my own light bulb, but I broke it the other day. So I’m living in the dark once again. The plan for this video is just to record the differences between this hostel, the hostel room where I’m staying. I’ve been staying here for two weeks, maybe a little bit more than 2 weeks, and I’m moving into a slightly nicer place, a low budget still place called M Candy Hotel. The funny thing is the way you divide up the prices though like this hostel because it’s a hostel I’m assuming doesn’t charge the tourism tax and the heritage tax is included in the Agoda price and there isn’t very much service here to speak of. There isn’t any at all. So they don’t really have a long list of fees and charges and things like that. But the M Candy Hotel where I’m moving is still a low-budget hotel, but it is a real hotel. So the tourism tax, they charge you that. And then the heritage tax is on top of whatever you pay. You have to pay that in cash. And then there’s other fees and things. So when you compare these two places online, like on Agoda on a weekday, this room I’ll turn my phone around. I’m recording this on my phone. My GoPro is all packed away. So, this is my room here. There’s no air conditioning included in this room. And that air conditioner is broken anyway. It doesn’t work at all. So, it just has a fan. And there’s no windows to the outside world of any kind. So, because it’s so sealed off, I mean, it gets brutally hot in here because the ceiling of the building, the roof of the building is right there. So, the sun is like beating down. And this room becomes like an oven. There is a window here, but that just opens to the inside of the building. So, it’s not like Yeah, it’s just the heat of the building is on the other side of that window. There’s no window to the outside room. So, anyway, it’s not a great place. It’s really really hard staying here. It’s exhausting because you can’t really sleep. You’re covered in sweat all the time. So yeah, it’s been pretty it’s a real endurance test staying here. But when I book this room online, the price is 23 ringgit per night. And that’s including the heritage tax with nothing added on top. So I’m paying 20 ringgit per night to stay here. And of course, there’s no bathroom either. Shared bathroom down the hall. The shower doesn’t work. You have to take a bucket bath. You know, it’s a pretty rough place, but for 20 ringgit, you know, I just kept extending because I can’t resist a price that low. And when you look at M Candy on a weekday, it might have a price like I got my current room for 31 ringgit. So then you think, oh, 20 to 31, you pay 11 more ringgit. You get air conditioning, bigger room, maybe a window. I don’t know if my room has a window or not, but anyway, it’s a real hotel, not a stripped down hostel. So, you think, wow, that’s a great bargain for 11 more ringgit. But then they start adding, right, the tourism tax of 10 ringgit, the heritage tax of three ringgit, fees, things like that. So, by the time you’re done, the room actually costs like 50 plus ringgit even on the weekday. So, it’s 2 and 1/2 times more expensive than what I paid for this room. But I need to relax. I need to get some sleep. Even packing up my room here, I’m just drenched in sweat. You can’t move in this place without getting drenched in sweat. I spend 90% of my time taking bucket baths down there. Then I come back in here and then I’m okay for like 15 minutes and then I start sweating again. And then I go back and take another bucket bath. But anyway, I just wanted to document a little bit of the big move from this room right here to the M Candy Hotel, which seems like a pretty nice place from the photos. And I hope the people at the front desk are friendly and they are nice to Doug today. Well, I’m all checked out and I just have to ride my bike a short distance to get to my new hotel. Of course, you have to navigate all the one-way streets here. So, I’m walking my bicycle to get through this crazy little intersection.
Yeah, another reason I decided to move to this hotel for a couple of nights was to make it easier leaving Malacca because I usually like to go somewhere like early in the morning, but at this youth hostel, you have to give a 50 ringgit deposit. And then if you leave early in the morning, how do you get your deposit back? Right? So they have a system where if you want to leave early in the morning, you have to make prior arrangements and you have to arrange a time and I don’t know it all seemed to be like so much trouble that leaving from here seemed like too much work. So I thought it would be easier to pack up just ride across town into a regular hotel and then I can leave Malacca from there. Spend like a couple of nights there, do my laundry, take advantage of the air conditioning to get some sleep, feel more energetic, reorganize, repack, all that sort of thing.
And oddly enough, when I was checking out and getting my deposit back, the owner, manager, whoever he is, he suddenly became super friendly. I don’t know what happened. I guess I misjudged him or I’m ultra sensitive. I don’t know. But he was suddenly really smiling and happy and laughing and asking me questions about my stay and what I think of Malacca and where I’m going, what my plans are. I was like, “What the heck? I don’t know what happened.” So, I guess he is actually a very nice and a very friendly man. I just never heard him say a word up until just now.
Navigating a Dutch square.
Yeah, my new hotel, the M Candy, is actually on the same street as my old hotel, the Mahkota Vibe Inn. It’s just like two blocks away, but on the same street
that car, I wasn’t sure what they were doing. They turned on their left turn signal, but then they turned right. So, they’re definitely keeping me on my toes. Of
course, it’s too early to check in. Check-in time 2:00 p.m. and it’s 10 after 12 right now. But I’ll go there anyway. See if I can just park my bike. If I can’t check in early, I’ll just drop off my bags, park my bike and then head out into the city somewhere. I don’t know what this guy’s doing either.
Yeah, a lot of drivers in Malacca, you know, I don’t really blame them because it’s really hard with all the one-way streets to figure out how to get somewhere and they tend to just stop in the middle of the road in order to check Google Maps. So, you always got to be ready for a driver to just stop in front of you.
Yeah, when I was chatting with the owner of the hotel, it was kind of funny too because he asked me where I’m going and I told him I’m just moving to a different neighborhood but staying in Malacca. So he instantly said, “Oh, why? What’s wrong? Like is there a problem with your room here?” Which kind of amazed me that he was going to ask about that.
And then I just said, “Yeah, I’m planning on leaving Malacca, but I need a couple of nights in an air conditioned room just to relax and get organized.” And he laughed and says, “Well, what are you talking about? You stayed here such a long time, no air conditioning. Why do you suddenly need air conditioning?” But then of course, I didn’t want to tell him the whole story that when I booked the room, I thought it had air conditioning. And in fact, for the first five, six days, whatever it was, the air conditioner was working and then there was that whole drama where the air conditioner broke. So, I never chose to live in a non-airconditioned room. It just either was a big misunderstanding or I don’t know what the problem was.
So yeah, right here on my left is the Mahkota Vibe Inn
and the M Candy, unless Google Maps has led me astray. Should be just down the street here on the corner. On Google Maps, it has a different name on the hotel. I think it’s called Hash Hotel or Hash House, something like that. But maybe they have a new owner’s new name. I hope I’m not going to the wrong place.
So, let me head off on the other side of the street here and I can aim my GoPro. Okay, there. Okay, there they do have the new sign on the front. Let me turn my bike around which turns around my GoPro and hopefully Yeah, you can see the name. So, there it is. There my new home, M Candy Hotel. And on the front door, they’re listing a price of 50 ringgit. So, that’s their that’s what they tell people. Yeah. on the front door.
All right. Oh, yeah. There’s the old one of the old signs. Still has the old name on it. Hash Club, Heritage Hash Club. But that was the old name. And now they’ve new owners, I guess.
Ah,
hey.
So, yeah, very different from where I was staying. They actually have a front desk, reception, lobby area, water dispenser,
refrigerator, and microwave. Even a sofa for people to rest.
Yeah. Looks like they do like luggage storage for their guests, which is nice. They have all this space back here. Oh, yeah. So, they have their own restaurant.
Thank you very much.
Well, that went very very smoothly.
My room is
Oh, right here. Check this out.
Oh, man. What a difference. What a difference.
Based on first impressions, yeah, at this point, I would say only a fool would stay in the room where I was staying. I mean, compared to this place, it’s absolutely ridiculous to put up with the conditions where I was living to save a few ringgit. Well, I mean, I saved more than a few ringgit. I mean, as I said, this room is 2 and 1/2 times more expensive than my fan-only windowless hostel room with no bathroom. So yeah, it is 2 and 1/2 times more expensive and then the heritage tax on top of that. But at the same time in terms of value for money, yeah, there’s no real comparison. But still, you know, you pay 20 ringgit a night there and then you have 35 ringgit to spend all day long on food and drinks and other things. Right here, the whole 55 ringgit goes to the room. But as you can see, it is a completely different situation. Nice bed, very bright, lots of light, lots of room. You know, you can get at the bed from both sides and from the end. You even got a little desk and a table and a stool, air conditioning, which is the big thing. And even a nice window over there. And it looks like it can even be opened if you’re in the mood for fresh air. Looking down onto the street, there’s the Melaka Strait over there. You can just make out a massive cruise ship on the horizon there. That’s quite something.
And a bathroom of your own. And look at all the space in there. It’s like this bathroom is bigger than my whole room at the hostel. That’s what it looks like. And I’m willing to bet it actually has water. Tada.
Yeah, water. Probably. There’s even shower water.
I haven’t unpacked and settled in yet, but I thought I would give a little conclusion to this short video. Yeah, that was wonderful. Really friendly woman at the front desk. They let me check in early. So, even though it’s 2 p.m. check-in, they gave me my room at yeah, 12:30, hour and a half early. Didn’t charge me anything extra for that. Gave me a really nice room. I’m accustomed at most hotels, it feels like I’m always given the worst room. Like they have one room set aside. The whole world knows that if Doug shows up, give him that room. It always I always seem to get the worst one, but this one is very very nice. It’s perfectly fine. So, I got a good room. Of course, I had to make everything as confusing as possible. I always manage to do that. And in this case, I booked two nights on one reservation. And then I thought about it that ah, you know, that’s not really long enough for my needs. So, let’s make it three nights. So, just this morning, I booked a third night on a separate reservation. So, I’m trying to explain that to the woman, but however, whatever I said didn’t really seem to get across. And then when it came to the heritage tax, that’s when it got confusing because you have to pay three ringgit per night heritage tax in cash. At the youth hostel, for some reason, it’s included in the price on Agoda, but for this place, it isn’t. You have to pay it separately in cash. At least, I don’t know. I mean, there’s so many taxes added in Agoda, and some of them look like the heritage tax, but it’s not labeled heritage tax, so there’s no way you can argue with them. So, I just end up paying in cash. But I wanted to know, okay, I booked for three nights total. Should I pay 9 ringgit now and just get it all out of the way, or is that going to be confusing later? So should I pay for two nights now six ringgit and then pay for the third night three ringgit separately and then we went around and around and around in circles. I couldn’t understand what she was saying. She couldn’t understand what I was saying. And then eventually she said okay three nights you pay six ringgit. I was like ah well that’s wrong on both counts. That makes no sense. Like that’s the most confusing thing yet. But I thought well she did give me an amount and said now six ringgit. So I thought okay let’s just stop here and then I paid six ringgit and she took a picture of the receipt from Touch ‘n Go and then yeah if I have to pay again another three ringgit well we can deal with it there. So anyway we got through that and then of course I’ve got my bicycle and I have a couple of concerns about it. Of course, I want to park it in a place where it’s safe. In a lot of countries, I just bring my bike up into my room. I just do it and because there’s a real risk of theft. I feel more comfortable in Malaysia and I’ve gotten used to leaving it outside lately. But then I don’t want to put it on a sidewalk and have it be in everybody’s way. So, I want to put it in a place that’s safe and I want to put it in a place where it’s not bothering anybody. So, I wanted to ask her. I told her, “Okay, I have a bicycle. I’m traveling with a bicycle. Where can I where’s a good place to put it?” But apparently, she didn’t understand that either because she was talking and talking and I finally figured out she was telling me where I can rent a bicycle. She was giving me all this information. And if I go down here, you can, you know, there’s a shop you can rent. I like, “No, no, no, no, no. I have my own bicycle and I want to.” We went around and around in circles and never got anywhere. I finally pointed at my bicycle out on the sidewalk and says, “Okay, that there I’m my bicycle is parked there. Is that okay?” And she said, “Oh, it’s safe. It’s safe. It’s safe.” I don’t feel perfectly safe, but anyway, we worked through that topic as well. So, here I am now. I just got to go down and get my trailer and then I’m going to unpack, settle in, plug in my kettle, and have a welcome cup of coffee. Oh, I can feel the air conditioning, you know. I can feel the sweat. Like, my shirt is drenched just from the effort of changing hotels, you know, and my shorts, my shirt, everything is drenched with sweat. But I can already feel it evaporating because of the cool, dry air. Yeah, really nice. So, anyway, there’s the latest adventure on Planet Doug, moving from the Discovery Guest House or Discovery Hostel to M Candy. And I think this would be my new top recommendation for anybody on a low budget, but you can still handle 40 to 50 ringgit per night. If that’s within your budget, I like this place. It’s pretty good. You know, you can see the room how big it is. The location, you can’t beat the location. Just the same as Mahkota Vibe Inn. Mahkota Vibe Inn is also okay, but it’s more complicated. They have different buildings. You don’t know what building you’re going to be in. The reception area is a little bit cramped and confusing. The people are not as organized. This is a much more of a real hotel and in the same price range. So, M Candy is I think better than Mahkota Vibe Inn. So yeah, so far I’m happy with the place. And they have their own restaurant down there. And they make things like Nasi Lemak, a Nasi Lemak set for 8 ringgit. Yeah, can’t beat that. All right, that’s it. Since a big chunk of this video was all about moving from hotel to hotel, tracking my movements, I figure I might as well end it with my latest move. Because believe it or not, even though I found a very comfortable home here at the M Candy, I had to move again. It was heading into the weekend and the prices of these rooms like went way way up and then I was waiting to book it and then before I knew it, my room disappeared. So, like there even if I wanted to pay the higher prices, the weekend prices, my room was booked out from under me. So, I had no choice but to move. And luckily this M Candy Hotel is on the same street as my old hangout, the Mahkota Vibe Inn. So all I needed to do was move down the street. I just noticed though that there’s this one over here. Looks like it’s under construction. M Sang Hotel. And on the door it says check in at the M Candy. Yeah, I noticed the sign looked very similar to the M Candy. You know, the same white red or white pink coloring. So, yeah, it’s probably the same owners. So, what I’m going to do to end this video is just walk you over to my new home back at the Mahkota Vibe Inn. And it’s not terribly exciting, but it’s a new room, a type of room that I’ve never stayed in before. So, I’ll just show you where I ended up. And of course, even at Mahkota Vibe Inn, the price goes up for the weekend. There’s nothing I can do about that, but I still managed to get an okay price over here. Yeah. Interestingly, here on the corner, I saw them doing all kinds of work. Like, it looked like they were renovating the place, but it didn’t make any sense to me the work they were doing. It was like there’s something off about it. And then suddenly one day I noticed they had like a massive set of film trucks everywhere. They turned it into a film set and they did a shoot here yesterday. And I think these cars that you still see here, they’re part of the film set from the shot that they did yesterday. This one and this one. And then there’s a fancy little roadster over here. Yeah. Normally this blue junker is parked where that yellow car is parked. I noticed this blue one was over there. Had tons and tons of tickets on the windshield. Someone abandoned it or something. But I don’t know, maybe someone still owns it cuz they moved it over here. But yeah, they had to clean the place up. They mounted all kinds of lights. And it’s amazing how complex even a simple film shoot can be. The number of people they require, the number of trucks, the number of equipment. Yeah, it’s incredible.
Yeah, this is a very hard road to cross on the weekend. It funnels all the traffic into the downtown area. So, unless you put out your hand like a superhero and halt the traffic, sometimes you have to wait for a long time until there’s an opening. Somebody always comes around the corner at the last second. But no, here’s an opening.
Looks like there’s another car here. It’s probably part of the same shoot, same film set. I have no idea what kind of car that is. Looks cool. Yeah, they must have been filming some kind of a period piece. So, what is it? A Morris, it says back there. Yeah, I don’t know my cars, but
And right up ahead on the left hand side, you can see a blue corner of a building there where it says hotel. That is the Mahkota Vibe Inn, but it’s also known as Holitel. It has the word Holly on the front there. I’ve normally had very good luck with all these hotels because I just move from hotel to hotel. So I have to check out at noon. Normally check in is at 2, but then when I show up at like quarter after 12 12:30, they just give me my room right away. So I get to check in like an hour and a half early almost all the time. So I was hoping to do that this time so that the hassle of moving from that hotel to this one wouldn’t disrupt my entire day. I had a lot to do that day and I thought, “Yeah, I can just hang out at the M Candy like until quarter to 12, then quickly bring my bags down to the lobby, check out, come over here, check in, and it would be like a seamless move.” But out of nowhere, suddenly they says, “No, we can’t give you your room.” This was yesterday. You have to come back at 2. I guess it was Saturday. So, yeah, a busy day. The rooms weren’t ready yet. So, yeah, they said, “No, no early check-in today. You have to come back at 2:00.” So, I did come back at 2:00 and then I walked up to the counter and yeah, well, I’m here at 2:00 check-in. And they say, “Ah, I’m sorry. It’s a break time right now. It’s break time, so we don’t have any staff and your room isn’t ready, so do you mind waiting?” So, I finally got my room at 2:30. I had to smile at the break time idea. It’s like 2:00 p.m. Like that’s check-in time. Why did everyone suddenly go on break? But anyway, that is the Hall and they have rooms here. I have stayed in this building in the past, but they also own these two lots, these two units right here. So, when you book a room there, you never quite know where you’re going to end up. And this time, I ended up over here. And you never really know what kind of room you’re going to get. Like I keep booking whatever is the cheapest room, like a standard queen or a budget twin or whatever happens to be the cheapest. But no matter what I pick, like if I pick a standard queen, I may end up with a twin. I might book a twin but end up with a single queen. You know, you just Yeah. That’s just the way these low-budget hotels operate. You can’t be 100% sure of what you’re going to get. And that’s what happened this time. I actually booked the cheapest room was a queen. Just a standard queen.
Yeah, they have two different doors here. So they have this door and this one. You just have to remember which one is yours. Take your little fob.
It’s funny how there are advantages and disadvantages all the time. This room I got number two turned out to be a big advantage because it’s on the ground floor. Like I don’t have to walk up five flights of stairs. But the ground floor rooms here are really noisy. Like this door, it doesn’t have like a soft hinge on it. People just swing it open and then it slams shut with like an explosion or sometimes it doesn’t close at all and because of the magnet didn’t click into place, it starts beeping. An alarm goes off and it just goes off forever. You know, beep beep beep beep beep. So the door slams, makes loud beeping sounds. And these rooms, I think number one and number three are their biggest rooms. So they’re family rooms. So when people move in and out, it’s like an army on the move. It’s just like a huge amount of noise. People shouting and yelling and banging and crashing. So my room number two is right in between. I don’t know for sure that’s a family room, but I think it is. I know for sure this one is because I actually stayed in that room once before.
But here is my current home.
Shed some light on the matter. So there it is. Yeah, like I said, I booked a queen like one a single bed a queen-size bed. I don’t care myself which one I get. I actually prefer twins because then, as you see, I can put all of my gear on one bed, have it all nicely organized, easy to access everything, and then I sleep and work on the other bed. It’s a pretty good pretty good room. Air conditioner is in good condition, works fine. You’ve even got a little table here, a mirror, which is very rare in the low budget level of accommodation. Even have my own chair. I moved the chair from the desk to here cuz I need it as a bedside table. That’s where the Planet Doug cup of coffee goes. And your own bathroom, of course. Nice big bathroom. Hot water heater up there. So yeah, this is my new room. I had to move one more time and so far it’s worked out really well. Had a great night. My first night here. Slept really well. And that is it for this video. Just a little bit of a jumble of little video clips that I shot here and there, and I just stuck them all together and called it another Planet Doug video. Kind of a almost like a behind the scenes video. A rare meal of mine and some drinks that a Planet Doug subscriber ordered for me. A pickup meal. That was kind of cool. And just moving from the hostel, Discovery Hostel to the Paradise at M Candy and then Paradise over here as well. Yeah, everything worked out really well. So that’s it. Shutting down. See you in the next video.