VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
After a disastrous start to my Malaysia cycling tour—including a blown tire, a bent derailleur, and snapped spokes—my bike is finally rebuilt and ready to go! But instead of heading straight for the mountains, I have a surprise detour. A generous supporter of the channel has booked me a two-night stay at the luxurious Royale Chulan Hotel in Seremban.
Join me as I cycle from the town of Rembau, testing out my newly rebuilt bike on a busy highway. The ride is a mix of beautiful countryside, heavy traffic, and roadside found treasure. But just as I arrive at the hotel, my bike throws me one final curveball—a broken chain!
In this video, I also chat about my first impressions of the amazing Malaysian YouTuber, Bryson Lew, and his incredible filmmaking style, and take you along for the chaotic (but welcome) experience of checking into a hotel that’s far fancier than my usual low budget places.
In this video:
A pre-dawn start in Rembau
The bike repairs explained
The surprise hotel plan revealed
A search for the missing trailer hitch
A roadside treasure and a chat about karma
Thoughts on Malaysian YouTuber Bryson Lew
Arriving at the Royale Chulan Hotel
The chain breaks! (And a chance meeting)
Checking into a “million-star” hotel
A tour of the room and my welcome drink
A massive thank you to my mystery benefactor for this incredible break. It was a great chance to shake down the bike in a short ride, which revealed the chain issue while I was still close to a bike shop—perfect timing!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Good morning and welcome back to Planet Doug. It’s about 5:00 in the morning. Quite dark out here in the city of Rembau, Malaysia. Just thought I’d show you a little bit of what’s going on out there. Sun rises until about 7 or 7:30, so it’s still pretty dark, but I think the weather is pretty nice out there. And I’m standing out on the balcony of my hotel room at the Rembau Hotel. I’ve been staying here a couple of days because if you’ve been following my story so far, you know that I’m in the middle of a bicycle ride that is taking me up the interior of Malaysia alongside the Titiwangsa mountain range and I’m heading for the border of Thailand trying to get there before my Malaysian visa expires. So, there’s a little bit of a ticking clock happening right now. And I was just starting my cycling journey heading into the mountains a couple of days ago and I ran into a cascading series of bicycle failures. Started with my rear tire sidewall blowing out like the entire the rear the rear tire just exploded and it was instantly obvious I needed to buy two new tires. I didn’t realize how bad condition my tires were in. I guess I never bothered to look or I didn’t know that sidewalls could wear out long before the tread does, but apparently that’s a thing. So, my rear tire exploded and it was an incredibly windy day. There was kind of a windstorm happening in this part of Malaysia and it blew over my bicycle, landed right on its rear derailleur and it bent the derailleur. That’s also something I’m not able to fix on my own. And then I was working on my bike doing a kind of emergency repair and I forgot kind of about the bent derailleur and I changed the gears. And because the derailleur was bent, it overshot the cassette and went straight into the spokes, jammed the wheel instantly, and then just cut through my spokes like they were spaghetti. Just so blown out tire, bent derailleur, multiple broken, bent, damaged spokes. And so I had to stop here in Rembau for a few days to get my bike rebuilt and repaired. Luckily, there’s a train station here, and I’ve been going in and out of the city of Seremban, bringing my bike to an amazing bike shop there, and the shop mechanics rebuilt and redesigned my bicycle. And yeah, it’s like it’s in better condition now than it’s been in for years. So that’s pretty exciting. And you would think now that my bike is ready to go, I’m all set to just head back into those mountains. But I have a surprise. I mentioned at the end of the last video that I did have a surprise, and I thought here at 5:00 in the morning in the dark, I would tell you about it. The surprise is that a Planet Doug supporter reached out and said, “Oh, Doug, you’ve been dealing with a lot right at the beginning of your bicycle tour and I’d like to treat you to a little bit of a break, a little bit of a holiday just to rest up before you go on.” and the Planet Doug supporter booked me two nights at the Royale Chulan Seremban Hotel. On Google Maps, it’s listed as a four-star hotel and he booked me two nights there at the Royale Chulan. When I look at the photos of this hotel and look at all the facilities, to me, you might as well call it a million star hotel because it’s so far out of my normal lifestyle. Swimming pool, beautiful park setting. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m very excited about that. So, instead of hopping on the bike and heading into the mountains, I’m hopping on the bike and I’m riding back into the city of Seremban this time, not to go to a bike shop, but to check into a really nice hotel. So, I’m very excited about that. Back inside my room. Let’s shed a little light on the situation. There we are. So, yeah, in all the the last few days that I’ve had to work on my bike, I brought it up to my room and there it is, ready to go. The biggest changes are new tires. These are not expensive, high-end touring tires. They’re very basic, the most basic tires you can get, but they were the only ones that I could find like for 26-in wheels. And but they should get me down the road. And I put on new brake pads. And at the bike shop, they fixed my rear derailleur, which is this gizmo back here. So, this was completely They had to use special tools to do that to fix my derailleur. And they cleaned my chain, cleaned the cassette, cleaned the front derailleur, adjusted my brakes. They did all kinds of work on the bike, so it’s in really good condition now. Oh, and the most important thing, of course, six spokes. They replaced six spokes on the rear wheel that had broken and then they had to rebuild the wheel and set the tension and make sure it’s true. And now everything is good to go. I bought another bottle of Wonda Gold Class coffee, instant coffee. It’s a kind of freeze-dried instant coffee. The jar is empty right now because yeah, I can’t carry around a glass bottle on my bicycle. I just pour the coffee out into a plastic bag and go from there. But that is the coffee I’m drinking right now. I find it to be pretty good. And a centerpiece of my life these days is this Mr. DIY electric kettle. I always love to have my own kettle, especially having an electric one is convenient. So anyway, I turn that on to boil water while I take a shower.
Wonda instant coffee.
Ah, yeah. It’s nice. Nice and smooth. Smooth Wonda coffee. Time to say goodbye to my eclectic room here at the Rembau Hotel. Everything is all cleaned up. There’s my coffee station. I always have to check the room, make sure I didn’t put anything on a shelf or plug anything in or put anything on a hook. I’ve already checked the bathroom. The room totally clear. My bike is downstairs. My trailer is downstairs. I just have to bring my two pet bags down and go get my deposit from the front desk when I check out. And it’s a little bit earlier than I had planned. I was chatting with my mystery benefactor who sponsored my stay at the Royale Chulan Hotel in Seremban. And I was talking about the 3:00 p.m. check-in time and I was going to leave later cuz I don’t want to get there too early. But he pointed out, wise man that he is, that Yeah. Well, I mean, if you show up early, maybe they’ll let you check in early, but if not, go hang out by the pool. Just drop off your bags at the front desk and then go enjoy poolside life. And I went, “Aha, that’s smart, man.” Yeah, I got that one brain cell working up here and it can handle everything. So, I need advice like that. Yeah, very good advice. So, it’s actually 10:00 as opposed to I was thinking of leaving at 11 or even 12 cuz check-in technically is at 3:00, but yeah. No, it’s 10:00 now. I’m ready to go. So, I’m just going to head in and yeah, see what happens when I get to this lovely hotel. When I originally arrived at this hotel, I was a little bit worried about service because you have to ring the bell at the front desk, but turns out it works out really well. Everybody here, there’s always someone around and they respond to the bell right away.
So, and right through this barred window looks right into their home. So, there’s always somebody around.
Check out please. Yes.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
I was hoping to see the man again because I feel like we’ve developed a little bit of a relationship over my days here getting my bike repaired, but I think he may have gone back to bed. I was outside on my balcony at 5:00 this morning, 5 or 5:30, something like that. And when I looked outside here in the parking lot, he was walking by and he was doing kind of a jogging walking pace. So, I guess every morning 5:00 a.m. he’s up and he’s doing loop. He’s doing circles like walking around and around this giant strip mall getting his morning exercise. And then maybe he went back to bed. It’s going to take me a couple of minutes to remount my GoPro cameras. One up here on the broomstick, one down here at the bottom of the broomstick, and then I have a handlebar mount here, and then I have a rear like pointing to the back mount down here.
Oh,
I completely forgot I hadn’t put my trailer hitch back on yet. Now, where the heck is it? I think I know where it is.
I better know where it is or I’m not getting very far. Out of all of my many pockets, I’m hoping it’s in here. It isn’t unfortunately. Oh, I think I know where it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I put it in the yesterday. Yeah. One weird thing about traveling on a bicycle for me is that like when you’re off the bicycle, you still want to be able to walk around. And these P bags are a little bit awkward. They’re a little bit heavy. They’re not really designed to be a knapsack. So, even though it adds weight and bulk to my trailer, I also carry around a knapsack. So, I put these on the bike, but I also have a knapsack, and that’s what I was using when I was taking the train, going in and out of town. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Crossing my fingers that in this part particular pocket it’s not there yet.
Good grief. This could be a
this could be a bit of an issue. There’s my my knapsack.
Not in there. Yeah, it’s a pretty heavy piece of steel, so I think I would feel it if it was in there. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think I’m So, the funny thing is,
yeah, and I don’t know if other people are like me, but I often plan ahead and I put things in appropriate places, but then I forget that I planned ahead. You see what I mean? It’s like I I’ll know I’m going to an office, a bank or something, and I know I need a photocopy of something. I’ll make the photocopy weeks in advance, set it aside, so I know I’m ready, but when the day comes to go to the bank, I forget that I already made the copy. So, I planned ahead, but I forgot I planned ahead. And I think I put it here in my It better be over here on my bicycle.
It’s not there.
This is my tool kit. And again, you know, I don’t remember doing it, but it makes perfect sense, right? Because I took this off my bike using my tool kit. So, it makes sense. Oh, spare part. I got to put it back on the bike eventually and I keep it in my tool kit. But I I just forgot.
There we go.
There we go. And voila.
What a way to start the day. And in case anyone out there is interested in all the technical details, what I normally do is I start the Hero 12. I can see myself on the LCD front screen. I think I’m lined up. Okay. Then I start the Hero 9 and it beeps.
So once I have the Hero 12 running, then I start the Hero 9. I have both of them on quick capture. So you just press the record button and it turns on and starts recording automatically. But now I need to sync the two of them together. So I do couple of claps
and that allows that helps me for syncing this video with this video. You line up the audio spikes and everything lines up perfectly. And now I’m all set to go. So I can think of this ride into Seremban. I’m not really going to be going up and down any big hills just sticking along a main highway actually. So there’s going to be a lot of traffic today. But I can think of this as a test run for my rear wheel with all the the new spokes. Hopefully it is been put together nicely so it’s nice and strong. and my derailleur front and back and brakes. Basically shaking out the bike to make sure that everything is tiptop. And in fact, I just realized as I go into Seremban, I’ll be
going right by the bicycle shop where I had all the work done. This road I’ll be staying on number one the entire way. and it will go into Seremban and take me right past the the bicycle shop. So I can just pop in as I go by.
And there’s the road sign 25 km.
With all the adventures that I’ve had to get to this point, it feels like I’ve gone a great distance. Like I’m very very far away. But according to that sign, it’s only like 89 kilometers back to Kuala Lumpur. So I’ve I’ve barely left the big city. Yeah. When my bicycle fell over and bent the derailleur, it also broke my mirror. My rear view mirror snapped off, but I was able to repair it a little bit. So, I’m very happy to have that rear view mirror. It drives me crazy if I have no mirrors at all.
I’d like to be able to monitor what’s coming up behind me. You can’t look at the mirror all the time, but if I hear a loud noise, a roar of an engine, I can look and say, “Oh, okay. Here comes a big truck or a bus or something. Or if I’m coming up on an intersection,
right before I get to the intersection or the corner, I’ll look at the mirror, make sure nobody’s coming up behind me and wants to make a left-hand turn. It’s just um
I find it to be essential to have at least one rearview mirror. I’d like to have two of them, but I only have one right now. I was really annoyed that I didn’t pay attention and I let my bike fall over and broke the one mirror that I had. So, here’s a corner and I’ll look in my mirror. Yeah, nobody’s coming up behind me.
Stopped at this side of the road. Found treasure. All right, bike. Stay where you are. Don’t fall over. Oh. Oh.
One ringgit, but it’s torn.
I wonder how many other people stopped to pick it up and they and they threw it back on the ground. I did not. I’ll put it in my pocket so nobody else thinks they found treasure.
Yeah, you might think that one ringgit isn’t worth stopping for, but you’d be surprised how many times you’re just sort of in a situation and you’re going into your wallet and h if I just had one extra ringgit or you need a single one ringgit bill or something. So, and it’s also kind of a psychological thing. It’s like here I am riding my bicycle and and if I see one ringgit and then I go, “Ah, one ringgit, who cares?” And I leave it there, I sort of feel like the universe is going to remember that moment and is going karma is going to get me. And the the universe will say, “Huh, you can’t even be bothered to stop for one ringgit. Well, I guess you must be a millionaire then. So, and then I’m going to end up in all kinds of trouble where I need money and I don’t have it unless I see you should have picked up that one ringgit. And we have the expression in English kind of a a phrase, see a penny, pick it up, and then all day long you’ll have good luck. So like even if you see one penny on the ground, you pick it up and you’ll get good luck and you get good karma from picking up one penny. Even though you can’t really buy very much with one penny anymore, you still should pick it up. get that good luck.
Just pulled over to the side of the road to take a picture of this mosque. I like that. The bright yellow and red against the green and the blue sky, the blue rooftop. Very lush looking place. Especially with my sunglasses on, I get that polarized deep colors. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what the road does ahead. You can see that there are some hills directly ahead of me. I don’t think this road goes up or down. So,
I think eventually as you approach those hills, the road is going to turn to the left or to the right
and we’re going to go around them. I think it’s going to swing to the left, but we’ll see what happens.
Yeah, the road hasn’t been that bad at all. It’s a very busy road. Of course, a lot of traffic, but sometimes, like right now, there’s a wide shoulder.
The traffic just hasn’t felt like too much of a hasn’t been too stressful.
Sometimes I like it better than an empty country road. As I said at the beginning of this trip, I deliberately chose to go through the interior of Malaysia because I wanted to avoid the heavily populated West Coast and all the traffic and busy highways and things. But I guess it depends on your personality because when I do find myself on a an empty countryside road, you kind of start to feel a bit lonely. You know what I mean? It’s like there’s nobody out there, not much traffic going by. And then you kind of miss the bustling nature of a road like this cuz there’s lots of stuff to look at. You get to look at all the cars and trucks going by, the motorcycles. People here are always doing something interesting with their vehicles, farmers going by with on a scooter,
carrying the tools of their trade, lot of interesting houses, beautiful mosques.
So, I don’t know. Just keeps your keeps your brain occupied even if the level of traffic can start to get to you after a while. The other day, my friend Daryl, who runs the Wander Eats YouTube channel, he sent me a link to a really interesting video, was just posted just a few days ago, I think, by quite a well-known, a famous Malaysian YouTuber. I was never aware of this YouTuber because I think he’s been making videos for about 9 years, ever since he was a little kid. but they were all in Chinese. So, yeah, I wouldn’t have come across his videos before. And this video is also in Chinese, his latest one, but it’s a road trip video. And he added English captions. So, I watched the whole video from beginning to end. Really well done, amazingly well done, very professional. And the amazing thing is is that this guy, his name is Bryson Lew, L E W.
So, the name of his channel is Bryson Lew. And he’s just a young he’s almost he’s like a kid, a young kid, but he’s a like a professional filmmaker.
By comparison, I guess I am more of a diarist. I just sort of document daily life like a documentarian. But he is a true filmmaker
and one of the ways that he can do that is that he narrates his videos. So he does film in real time all the time with a variety of cameras.
But then when it’s time to edit the video, he goes back and he builds a story. He doesn’t just put in the video clips that he shot. He actually builds the whole story in his mind and he tells the story using all the video that he shot as material for the story. And lots of music, lots of professional graphics, transitions. He’s also a musician. I think that’s how he got his start on YouTube was as a kind of a vlogger but a singer as well. And he’s quite successful. Over a million subscribers.
His videos get hundreds of thousands of views, if not a million views, half a million views. And I noticed when I was going through his history, there’s one video had the title, I bought my parents a house. So he made so much money from YouTube and social media in general that he actually bought his mother and father a new a new house.
Whoa. That was like being back in Canada. Uh when you’re cycling in Canada on the highways, you get a lot of transport trucks and they go very, very fast and when they go by, they they have a they’re pushing a wave of air ahead of them. And that blast of wind can like blow you right off the road. And that that that truck hit me with a blast of wind.
Oh yeah. One thing about cycling in this climate in this temperature. Well, same doesn’t really matter. The same thing happened in Canada too. I get sweat pouring down my forehead and goes into my eyes and your your sweat is very salty.
So your eyes start burning.
And normally when I’m starting a a new bike ride, I start every day I put on a little bit of sunscreen. Like on my forehead, my nose, my ears, the back of my neck, and my forearms, I put on a sunscreen. And then the sunscreen drips from my forehead into my eyes. So I have to stop from time to time just to dry out my eyes cuz my eyes start burning.
Yeah, it’s another hot day. In one of my videos, I was talking about that and how on my very first day on this bike ride, I was referring to the sun as like a a death star.
this death star that was trying to light me on fire. So strong that sun up there. So the video that I saw from Bryson Lew, I’ve watched a couple of his videos now. He has 194 videos on his channel. uh been shooting for 9 years and his latest video was a special project where he and a friend they decided to walk from KLCC all the way to Port Dickson.
And that’s why Daryl sent me a link to the video because he knows I’m I’m pretty familiar with Port Dickson. But I was so impressed with that video and there were so many interesting things about it for me. Partially because Bryson is, you know, he’s a young guy and he’s got a very young, energetic, very happy personality. He’s excited about life. He’s seeing things for the first time. He’s always got a big smile on his face. And for him, walking to Port Dickson is like a huge adventure, something big and new in his life. And of course, I’m at this point in my life, I’m way beyond that stage. You know, the first times that I did something big, you know, the equivalent of walking 150 kilometers to Port Dickson, that was uh five decades ago, you know, I don’t know, call it four decades ago. So, I’m I’m way past the brighteyed, wow, this is so amazing. This is so exciting point of view in my lifetime. So, it was a lot of fun to watch his video and kind of absorb his excitement. And he and his friend were so excited about the trip that they they documented practically every kilometer as an achievement. So like every five kilometers they would stop take out this uh like piece of board that you can write on and then he would write down you know 5 kilometers and they do a dance and they celebrate and he and his friend give each other a high five and then 10 kilometers another big celebration they write 10 and they did that for the entire trip just up and they had a really good sense of humor, a lot of funny jokes. And I was joking with Daryl that on their in one day of their trip, it took them six days to get to Port Dickson. And in on just one of their days, they gave more high fives to each other than I’ve given in my entire lifetime, right?
One day of high-fiving for Bryson is like a lifetime of high fives for me. I just don’t have that outgoing sort of personality.
Woo. Not much of a shoulder right now. So, truck like that cuts uh pretty close.
What I also found fascinating about his video is that he was walking through the Malaysian countryside, going through Malaysian small towns, walking along Malaysian highways to get to Port Dickson. And he was born in Malaysia. He’s a Malaysian from Kuala Lumpur. And yet it was almost like he had gone to a completely new country. Most of the things that he saw along the way, it seemed like he had never seen them before.
So, it was almost like an exciting experience to come across a bunch of cows, like a a farm with cows.
And he was quite nervous around the cows, you know, like he he was kind of afraid of them. And then he would come across a bunch of village dogs, you know, barking at him. And it was like that was a new experience for him. And he talked about being quite frightened of the dogs and uh developing a strategy of showing no fear so the dogs don’t attack him.
But everything seemed so new to him. It was almost like a foreigner like me coming to Malaysia for the first time and going, “Whoa, look at all those macaques.
Look at the cows.” You know, look at this u kampung this village. It was like he was seeing all these things almost for the first time. I found that really interesting.
Little bit of an uphill climb here. Time to wipe off the sweat. Starting to go into my eyes.
And of course, as much as possible, I’m trying to keep drinking.
I also really admired Bryson’s attention to detail, the planning that went into his trip, his gear, the route, the filming, everything was so well well put together with a a very strong emphasis on safety, which again I found interesting. So, I’m pretty sure like on his nat on his backpack on the strap there was like an emergency radio of some kind. Of course, he had smartphones. He and his friend both had smartphones, but I think this radio right here was for emergencies. And then uh later on in the video, a third person showed up out of nowhere and I was wondering, well, who the heck is this guy? He wasn’t walking with them. And it turns out they had a third person, but he was a he was driving a support car. So as they were walking, they had a third friend, going behind them or around them or near them, driving a car and keeping an eye on them and being there just in case they got into trouble of some kind. So, emergency radio, support car, high visibility vest, you know,
and their gear was really well organized. They didn’t have to carry any camping gear because they had a series of hotels booked.
So that allowed them to keep their backpack relatively light.
But what I admired even more was the the filming that he did. He had a perfect set of gear. He was using a Insta 360 X5 camera. That was kind of his main camera. He likes using 360 cameras mainly because you don’t have to aim it anywhere and then he can edit later on. But he also had an Insta 360 uh Go Ultra. This is the kind of camera where it has a small camera lens and you disconnect it from the camera body and it has a magnet and you can stick it onto fence posts, anything m anything metal.
And he had a super super long selfie stick
for the 360 camera so he could hold the 360 camera high in the air. It looked a little bit like they had a drone following them, but he also had a drone.
So, he would fly the drone all the time as well. So, and and the way he had mounting apparatus all over his body and had a had a a a bag on his belt and that’s where he kept the 360 camera so he could just sort of it was like handsfree all the time and every time he wanted to film it was just like film. Put it away. Other camera out. He was so so super organized. I’ve never seen anything like it.
But at the same time, when I was watching the video and I was so aware of all the filming techniques
and all of the storytelling techniques,
it was pretty obvious like 90% of his brain power and his energy and his time went into making the video. If you see what I mean? Like right from the beginning, it it really wasn’t I want to walk to Port Dickson and have that experience. I mean, that was part of it, but from the very beginning, it was more about, okay, how can I do this and make a really good video about it? like making an entertaining video was the goal, not really going to Port Dickson, if you see what I mean. There’s a hillside over here has been uh replanted with a palm oil. I can tell I’ve seen this before. They’ve cut down all the oil palm trees, the mature trees reached the end of their life cycle. So, they’ve all been cut down
and now they’re replanting young trees. And this is going to look like uh well, it’s going to look like that side of the road.
It’s nice to have the confidence in my bicycle to just coast downhill. I don’t have to worry about the tires, the spokes, the wheels, the derailleur, the brakes. I have a lot more confidence in my bicycle now.
That that was a shades of Sumatra having a big truck like that coming up behind you and getting so close.
That would happen like 50 times an hour in Sumatra.
Yeah. I’m trying to stay as close to the left edge of the road as possible. Not a lot of room on this road.
I drifted a little bit there. I got too close to that truck. Truck full of chickens. Yeah, I guess uh
this is why I chose the inland route originally to stay away from busy roads like this. Yeah, this is what the uh that
that field that I just stopped to look at where they cut down all the trees. This is what it’s going to look like eventually. These are much older oil palm trees.
There’s a sign down there. Do you see it? That red sign? It basically says no entrance, like no trespassing,
but the sign, it looks like it shows a man shooting another man in the head. So, they’re serious about their oil palm.
Yeah, I think that’s what that sign shows. It looks like the second man is actually being shot. like he’s actually been shot in the head and he’s falling over. So
when they sat down to make their trespassing, no trespassing sign, they said, “Yeah, we’re not going to mess around. You trespass in our oil palm and we are we will shoot you.
Turns out to be a good thing that I left a little bit earlier than my plans. I probably should have left at an even earlier time because I’m living up to the name of the turtle moving very slowly
and I took a nice long nap in that bus stop bus stop shelter there. That was really nice.
So, it’s already Yeah, it’s almost 1:00 in the afternoon already,
and I’ve only gone about half of the short distance to Seremban. Yeah, I’ve also been playing around with my cameras quite a bit, stopping to make adjustments and try things out. And right now, I’m actually shooting with my 360 camera.
I have a Insta 360 X3, I guess. Yeah, it’s the X3. Since then, they’ve come out with the X4 and then the uh the far superior X5, but the X3 still works absolutely fine. As long as you’ve got bright, sunny days like this, then the X5 is great. I mean, the X3 is great. The only problem is audio.
Audio is always the issue because action cameras were never designed for vlogging. Most people use a 360 camera just to record action and then they might do a voice over narration over top of it later on.
But the uh the X5 is a big improvement because now you can record audio directly to the X5 with a wireless microphone.
For me to do that, I have to mount a receiver on the X on the X3. That’s a lot of hassle. So, what I’m doing right now is I’m still shooting with two cameras. I’m shooting with the X3 up here on the top of the broomstick,
but now I have the the GoPro Hero 12 down here.
And I have my Road Wireless Go microphone connected to the GoPro 12 like I always do.
So, I’ll end up uh inserting the video from the X3, but using the audio from the GoPro gets a little bit complicated, but such is life.
There’s something unusual over there on the right. Big construction project.
barbed wire fence.
Looks almost like a guard tower for a prison complex.
Wonder what they’re building here.
It looks like they’re going to wide they’re widening the road, but they haven’t finished that yet. So, it’s quite narrow here.
Uh big truck coming up behind me,
but he’ll be able to go around me. There’s no oncoming traffic.
Oh, another big truck coming up behind me. There it comes.
Good timing again. There was no oncoming traffic at the time.
Uh, a lot of trucks coming towards me, but no traffic coming up behind, so we’re okay. This looks like the end of the main construction anyway.
Something big coming up.
Big truck.
I think there’s a gas station up ahead. If it’s a big convenient one, if it’s on my side of the highway, I might pull over. Oh, it’s right here. Use the bathroom, get a cold coffee. What do you think?
Hopefully they have a nice store here where I can get a cold drink. That would be nice.
Hello.
Okay.
It’s okay. Thank you.
I went for a couple of cartons of milk instead of my iced coffee.
And I have a little project while I’m sitting here. I use this Velcro strap to lock my uh brakes, my front brakes. But since I got my uh brakes adjusted, the strap isn’t long enough. I bent it over and made it shorter. But now it’s actually too short. So I have to cut through all this thread and make it longer.
So I lengthened my strap. And this is where I’m not quite sure how it’ll work out now that it’s uh so much longer, but it just wraps around the uh brake handle. And then I should be able to velcro it back. Okay, that works well. Okay, cuz then if you uh park the bicycle like this, it uh prevents the front wheel from spinning out underneath. So, the bike is more uh steady when you have it uh parked on the kickstand or something. So, that comes in quite handy.
And then when I’m not using it, it’s a little bit annoying cuz I have to wrap it all around here and then underneath my hand, you know, kind of creates a bulge on the handlebar. But yeah, it’s okay. If I’m wearing riding gloves, that that helps a lot.
Okay. Well,
that was a nice little uh pit stop and time to get back out onto the road with all that traffic. While I was sitting there having my milk and cutting away all the threading on that Velcro strap, a delivery guy on a scooter stopped to chat with me. He wanted to know, you know, on the bicycle, where had I come from, where was I going, where was I from, you know, what country was I from, that sort of thing. Gave me a fist bump. But when that happens, I feel a bit like a like an impostor because I haven’t gone very far. You know, he’d probably want to hear that I’ve come 10,000 miles or something, but if I’ve only come from Port Dickson, that’s not very impressive. So, I always wish I had a better story for people.
Well, now here I’ve got a little bit of a
a road quandary.
My road number one is branching off, but I I don’t know if that means it turns into a uh expressway. I don’t know if I’m allowed to ride a bicycle on it after this point.
Well, I don’t know for sure, but
it’s the it’s the direct road
leading into Seremban.
It turns into a divided highway
and it looks like the speed limit goes up. But I don’t see any reason why you can’t ride a bicycle along the shoulder. So, I’m going to try to do it and see how it goes. Cuz this is the road that turns into the city street inside Seremban that goes by the bicycle shop. So, I think it’s still considered a normal road, not a toll road or anything like that. Well, let’s uh move along to the side here and see what happens if a police car goes by and uh I’m not supposed to be up here. I’m sure they’ll tell me. Yeah, I’m par I’m going parallel to the uh train tracks. So, that would have been the train that goes from Seremban to Rembau.
This part of the highway might be a good test to see how uh easily my tires get punctured. Cuz you normally you find a lot of glass, a lot of nails, a lot of wire at the side of a highway like this.
It all just gathers here. We’ll see if I can make it to Seremban without a flat tire of any kind.
Well, I picked up a hat as you can see. Found treasure on the highway. I don’t usually wear hats. I figure my hair is my hair is there. It does a good job of uh insulating my head. But I got to say the heat lately here in Malaysia has really been doing me in. I’m really been feeling the heat. So when I saw this uh cap just lying out there on the highway, thought, hey, you know, give it a try. So, I picked it up and uh it’s it’s pretty small. Small size baseball cap. I think this is like the first time in my life that I’ve actually put on a baseball cap intending to wear it. You know, I put one on before in my life just for fun, but I never worn baseball caps. Like they’re very popular in Canada. A lot of guys grow up their entire life and they wear a baseball cap right from childhood, teenage years, adult, elderly years. They wear a baseball cap their entire life in Canada. But I I just never got into the habit.
But I don’t know. It could be just uh imagining things. But since I put it on, my head does feel cooler, I think.
Yeah, we’re just a a few kilometers outside of Seremban.
I think I might uh sit down at the side of the road here just for a few minutes.
I’m not uh
I’m not trying to break any speed records. So, I think I’ll sit in the shade here for a few minutes and uh relax in the shade for the final few kilometers into town.
Ah, there we go.
Baseball cap.
I took a picture of myself wearing the baseball cap and I couldn’t really see the picture that clearly, but I think it made me look like a little boy, like a little kid or something. I look so different. I’ve just never been a baseball cap guy. But hey, who knows?
could be the new me.
I’m just waiting for the light to turn green. It’s always better to stay in the shade when you’re at a traffic light.
Never waited so long in my life for a for a light to turn green, man. Oh man.
and I’m going straight. Everybody else is turning left. So, to be careful going through that intersection.
Yeah, this number one road keeps changing. Sometimes it feels like a relatively small road, then it turns into like a major divided highway. It’s got a lot of other highways merging with it. It’s not been an easy road to ride along.
It’s been surprisingly hilly, too. It’s really just a flat piece of land, but I feel like I’m going up and down all the time.
Partly because it’s constantly going up and down overpasses, goes over a highway, down the other side, over the railroad tracks, down the other side. And each overpass is like a big hill. This is just This is a Hero 12 and the Hero 9 recording, by the way. No 360 camera.
Traffic is all backed up again. Must be a intersection with traffic lights up ahead.
And we still have the 4-day holiday weekend coming up. I’m already starting to see newspaper articles predicting just how many millions of cars are going to be on the road.
I might find myself doing this, riding beside Backed up traffic. Yeah, I can’t go any farther. Just not enough room. No shoulder here. Well, here I am pretty much in downtown Seremban.
And the bike shop should be just 100 m up from me, not too far away. Aha, I see the bicycles on the street. marking the uh location of the bike shop.
So, I’m just going to stop here, say hello for just a minute,
and here we are.
Hello Just thought I would say stop and say hello. Oh, you have to be. Yeah, my trailer. Trying to find my strap here.
Yeah, I have all the uh camping equipment and Oh, okay. Yeah, everything. If you have those camping things. This is all my camera gear. And that’s my laptop. Heavy. Very heavy. Yeah. You can’t go fast. No, I don’t go fast. Yeah. You have a handbrake. What’s that? The brake. Well, that’s for the brake. Yeah.
So, emergency brake. Good. Otherwise, if I park it, it goes backwards. Handbrake. Car handbrake. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really important to have that. I see some people they they’re riding their bicycle and they have such small bags. Looks very light. Looks really nice. But they usually they they have a house. Normally they will stay more like that and they will stay one place. Well, I don’t I think they you know maybe they have an apartment they keep everything there then they go traveling for 1 month and then they go back home. I have no home so I have to carry everything with me all the time. That means you are staying normally you will stay outside. No, it depends what country like uh I did some cycling in Canada in the United States and then I would camp every night because Canada is so expensive. I can’t afford a hotel. But here in well Malaysia for me is expensive but in Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, $5 per night. $10. So then I can stay in a hotel every night. The cheapest I think you can get maybe 50 ringgit. Cheapest. Cheapest. That’s difficult. 50. Yeah. And then for me as a foreigner there’s 10 ringgit tax. Yes. Tourism tax. So the cheapest like my hotel in Rembau was 70 ringgit per night. And uh but I’m coming here tonight because for my YouTube channel, one of my followers, he paid for my hotel. He pay you how much? Two nights. And he he paid for a really nice hotel so I can go check in. You know the uh Royale Chulan? Yeah, this one is very good hotel. Yeah, I think it’s four star, I think. Four star only. Nearby only. Yeah, very close. Go up some hills here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can do it. You around. Since you fixed my bike, I have I have first gear. Yeah, I can go uphill. Yeah. Yeah. I’m already tired. I only from Rembau to here I’m tired. Yeah. Was so hot. Yeah. the weather this few days like quite uh yeah and sometimes for my video I’m talking and when I’m talking I become out of breath since I’m here and the three of us are together can I take a picture the three of us together
that looks all Right. Yeah. Countdown. One, two. Try one more just in case. Yep. Okay. Excellent. Thank you.
Asian restaurant. Small and short. Yeah. My family is from uh Netherlands. My mother and father. Everybody in Netherlands is tall. So I’m tall. My brother is really really tall. Then to Canada. Yes. Second generation. I’m first generation Canada. I was born in Canada. Your parents or Netherlands? My my mother and father were like Yeah. immigrants to Canada. I’m was born in Canada. So I’m first generation I guess. So you can speak natural language. No. No. Well, my mother and father when they came to Canada, they were young. So they learned English right away. They never spoke Dutch at home. Dutch electric bike. Electric bike. Yeah. Think about electric bike. You can better electric. That would be better. Well, to be honest, if if I had more money, I would take a scooter. Electric scooter. Oh, gas. I think just gas scooter. Yeah. Yeah. Uh that would be but I don’t know when when you are driving a scooter and drive riding a bicycle the way you think changes. It’s a different mood. So sometimes this is better. You can go slow around you see things. Yeah. Yeah. You go so fast.
All right. Thanks again for all your help yesterday. Everything seems working working good again. So, I’m going to head to the hotel.
Yeah, two nights. Yep. All right. I’ll see you again.
I just saw my old tires. They’re over here all tied up in that bundle for recycling. So there’s the there’s where my two tires ended up. The end of their life over there.
And it’s about 1 kilometer from here to the uh Royale Chulan Hotel.
It’s in a kind of a hilly area. I got to cl I think I have to climb up a hill near some parks kind of forested. I’ve never seen the hotel so I don’t know what it uh I don’t know what it looks like.
I feel like I’ve been here half my lifetime. Been waiting for so long to get across this one road. There’s just never a break in the traffic.
And my hotel is just right across the road.
Okay, this looks promising. Come on, let’s go. Let’s go. But then you got people coming out from the side roads. I think I’m going to make my way across. There we go. I can’t tell you how long I was stuck over there. Turning right.
I think the main mosque is up here as well
and a park.
Oh, for Pete’s sake.
Huh?
Believe it or not, my chain broke.
So, I guess it’s a very good thing that I came to Seremban.
My bicycle is sending me signals, man. I’m not a chain expert, but it looks like part of the master link snapped right off. So, it’s back to the bike shop for me tomorrow at least.
So, I’m just going to walk down the road a little bit. Just curious whether the uh the part of the master link is just like sitting there on the road.
There it is right there. That is crazy.
Yeah, it’s the whole thing is a It’s a little bit bent.
Broke my chain. Yeah. you go now? Well, I’m staying at this hotel here. So, I can just walk my bike and there’s a bicycle shop right over here. Bicycle shop. Yeah. Yeah. I was there yesterday. So, shop? Yeah. Right over there on the main road. About 1 kilometer down. 1 km down. Yeah.
So, you uh from Canada?
Well, I I flew here, of course. So, you bring this all together? Yeah, this is all Yeah, bicycles from Canada. From Canada. How long you been here? Well, I’ve been in on this cycling trip. Very short time. Only like one week. But I’ve been in Malaysia before, like many times here. So,
you want to break the chain? Yeah. either get a new chain. It was It was the master link that broke. So maybe I can just fix it easily. But you got the two everything. I have Yeah. All my parts, spare parts. I have five of everything. So normally boat travel should have Yeah. The weather here is very hot. I know. That’s the biggest problem right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Use What’s that? You come alone. Yeah. Alone. Yeah. Just by myself. Yeah. It’s okay. Not worried. Yeah. Not really. Not really. Oh, yeah. Not worry about Oh, no. I don’t worry. I’ve been I’ve been living by myself. I travel my whole life, so it’s normal for me. Yeah.
All right. Well, you go back to the hotel. Yeah. I haven’t checked in yet. I’m going to check in now. Oh, not not check in yet? No, I just arrived in here just now. Yeah, good timing. Yeah. All right. Push my bike anyway. Nice to see you. Okay.
Good.
Don’t know if you can see it on the Hero 9, but over there, that tall white building, that’s my hotel. So,
I don’t have very far to go, luckily.
So, I just made it.
The uh hotel is right there across the road from me. Very imposing looking building way up there.
12 stories maybe something like that. Royale Chulan.
Just going to roll my bike directly across from it so I can take a picture.
I hardly know how to behave at a place like this.
What does one do?
Just stroll up to the front door with your bicycle and they welcome you.
Something I’ve have discovered around the world in general when it comes to like security guards and officials, oddly enough, they don’t like bicycles. They really don’t. Like if you try and go up to the front entrance of a hotel or something, they I don’t know, they get very nervous for some reason. They they just don’t know what to do. I remember when I went to Guinea in West Africa on a bike trip and I I just got the impression that everybody there thought bicycles were the most suspicious things. They regarded them with the utmost suspicion. I think I remember writing that down in my journal a couple of times. Doug in a baseball cap feels very strange.
All right.
I was exaggerating when I was I was talking to this man down by the road when I realized that my chain broke.
And then uh he pointed to my trailer, my big trailer, and indicated, “Oh, you must you must have a spare.” And I said, “Oh, I have five of everything.” And he was like, “Oh, yeah. Well, that’s a good idea, you know.” And I don’t I do have a spare two master links, I think. But I don’t have five of them. I was uh exaggerating.
Hello.
Just to uh check in. Yeah. Yeah. Can I put my bicycle here to check in? Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Just when I was coming up the hill. Yeah. The chain broke. Chain. Yeah. No. No chain. That’s why I was pushing. Oh, I have to fix the chain.
No chain. Nothing at all. But uh I can fix it. And there’s a bicycle shop here. I know. So So I am here. Just uh leave my uh bicycle out front. bring my passport and uh check in. I don’t know about the tourism tax since I I didn’t pay for the room. My uh mystery benefactor did and I don’t know whether the uh tourism tax was uh covered or not. Ah, nicely air conditioned. Took off my cap.
And here’s the uh front lobby. They have a nice display here. Royale Chulan. Oh yeah. A traditional Minangkabau communal home. A community home. So far so good. And uh look at this over here. A welcome drink. After I check in, I am going straight for here.
Do not stop. Do not pass. Go. Go straight there. Well, I’m in my room 414. Oh, I don’t know how I ended up here. I was totally out of control during the check-in process. I really Yeah, it totally blindsided me because I don’t generally stay in a hotel like this. So, I don’t know the system. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what the procedure is. So, I’m just sort of and arriving at a hotel like this with your with my bicycle and the trailer and the bags and this and that. It’s really complicated. Um, and they have staff here who want to help you, right? Concierges and parking attendants and they’re all doing things for you, but they can’t really do anything for me because I need to keep everything under my control because it’s so complicated. It’s sort of like where do I put my bicycle? And then I I I my preference would be to bring it up to my room. It’s like, well, can I just bring it to the room? But of course, you can’t do that in a hotel like this. Oh, no. We have a very safe place. We can put it there for you. So then, but now the guy, the concierge comes with me out to my bike and he thinks we’re just going to roll the bike. And I’m like, well, it’s covered in gear. You know, I’ve got to unhook the trailer. I’ve got to take off the pannier bags. I got to take off the GoPro mounts. I got to take off the GoPro cameras. And I’ve got the speedometer. And how do I now got all my water on there, my extra water in the water? I can’t carry all this stuff. And then all I can do is take all these bags, everything, and just dump it on the pavement outside the hotel because they’re taking away my bike. And I’m like, well, do I just leave everything here? So, I just left all of my luggage out in the open just out there because there’s nothing else I could do with it. Anyway, so I go with the guy and I’m trying to explain to the guy that I’m not storing the bike. I want to park it just like how you park a car so that I can go get my bike anytime I want. Hop on the bike, ride into town, you know, come back, park it, ride, you know, I need access to the bike all the time. And he’s like, “Yeah, oh, no problem. You can get it, you know, get it.” And then they take me inside the hotel down a hallway to a room that he has to unlock. And now he’s filling out a big form. You know, he needs to write down my name and room number and phone number, checkout date, like how long are you going to leave your and when are you going to retrieve your bicycle? Oh, you check out on this date. Oh, so you can get it when you check out. And I no, no, no, no, no. I I need the bike to to to ride around. I’m trying so hard to explain. Nobody’s understanding what I’m talking about. And in the end, there was really nothing else to do. So now my bicycle is locked up in a room downstairs and I have no access to it. and he says, “Oh, it’s okay. Just come, go talk to somebody.” And they But every time I leave the bike there, we’ve got to fill out another set of forms and lock the door and I got to make sure I keep my check. And anyway, that was I was not prepared for that at all. And then checking in was fine. There was nothing wrong with the check-in procedure, but it is an official check-in. Like at the Rembau Hotel, checking in means giving them money. As soon as you’ve handed over your money, they give you the key. You’re all done. You’re ready to go, you know, and then you’re free to go do whatever it is you want. But here, of course, it’s a very official hotel. So, they’ve got to fill out everything on the computer. And they need my full name and email address and phone number here, phone number in Canada, address in Canada, and then all of that has to be entered into the computer system. And then I had to sign six different documents. One I had to sign was a privacy protection data act. I don’t know why I had to sign it because they’re the ones saying we will protect your data but I had to sign the form as well and then I had to give them a 100 ringgit 100 ringgit deposit. So, we had to do a whole bunch of computer stuff for that. And they printed out a form and then I had to sign that at the top and the bottom and initial here, initial there. And then there were four different pieces of paper that I had to sign. I don’t know what they were. Oh, sign here, sign here, sign here, sign here, and I’m signing and I’m signing. Am I buying a house? What am I doing here? Anyway, I wasn’t ready for that at all. And uh then then the concierge wanted to help me bring my luggage and my trailer up to my room. And again, I’m I I don’t know how to do that. I’m like, I usually do everything myself. So now he’s uh you know, grabbing my bags and I’m like, “No, I can’t I have to put this away first. I got to take this and I have to make sure I got to attach that at here and I got to put this GoPro in here and I got to make sure the B, you know, I got all kinds of stuff I need to do before I can take, you know, these bags up to my room. And of course with the trailer, I have to move the wheels to the back so that it becomes luggage and I can roll it along. And um anyway, then he put my he put these two bags on a little trolley and then he had to come up on a separate elevator and I came up on one with the trailer. Meanwhile, I’m losing everything. I’m dropping it. I’m assuming this is my receipt for the deposit. I had that in my hand and the, you know, my room key. I had that in my hand and I kept dropping things and it’s like, okay, where’s my Did I get my passport back? Where’s my passport? Where did I It was totally chaotic. I didn’t because of me. I’m just not accustomed to the multilevel stages to checking into a hotel like this. So, I’m checked in. All done. What What else to say? Yeah, I’m going to go down and get a welcome drink. But yeah, here’s the room. Very exciting. As you can see, it is gigantic. Lots of room for a bicycle. I really wish I could have brought it up here. Nice chair over here. Beautiful uh table and chair and phone and TV. And I thought the something about a mini bar, but that’s actually a safe. No, that’s a fridge. Sorry, a fridge. So, you can buy your own cold drinks and put them in there. Complimentary coffee and tea and sugar kettle luggage. And then uh I’m assuming there’s no uh mini fridge. Okay. A little safe there.
Lights turn on when you open the door. If I had clothing to hang up, I could do that.
And the pièce de résistance, the bathroom bathtub. Can you believe that? Bathtub. Oh, who does not belong here? I mean, look at me. What am I doing in a room like this? You know, it doesn’t make any sense at all. And uh lots of uh toiletries, soaps, and toothbrush, and all that kind of stuff. I was hoping there would be a couple of bottles of cold water right here. Like, I would just drink them right now. I didn’t have a chance to bring my own water off the bicycle. Everything was happening uh way too fast. But uh yeah, and uh no balcony, I don’t think, but there is a nice view. Check that out. That is gorgeous. Lots of trees and hills. To my surprise and delight, they actually have filtered drinking water in the bathroom. So, I was looking in the hallway, but I didn’t see any water filter thingy, but I was reading this, and it’s stay hydrated and save the planet eco tap drinking water. So, I guess this is uh drinking water. Nice and cold. So, I do have access to all kinds of uh drinking water. And uh there’s a shower who’s hiding behind the door. I didn’t realize it, but yeah, there’s a uh a shower, which is good. All right. So, let’s go get that welcome drink. Uh, that’s what I need more than anything else. I need to be welcomed with a welcome drink.
Oh, okay. This is all on the main floor. Very large dining area and a bunch of restaurants and cafes and things. I don’t know. when these places might be open. I was just talking to the chef here, the main chef, and he was telling me that if I wanted to get a really nice video or photos, I should come later in the evening. They’re expecting like 400 people. They made reservations for Ramadan dinner, right? The iftar dinner. They have a big buffet laid out here. And he says, “Yeah, most evenings,” they said they have like 800 people come here every night for a big meal. Used to be a Hilton, he said. This used to be originally was built when it opened was a uh Hilton hotel. And now that uh I’ve gone through the the madness of checking in, I can kind of relax and take in the setting a bit more. That’s the entrance where you come up. Little bit outside of like the busy downtown streets. So you got to climb up the hill to get here.
It is syrup selasih syrup with holy basil seeds.
You could uh put in a pipeline directly from this down my throat and I could probably uh finish the whole thing off nice and cold. And the drink is got all kinds of floaties in it. Little holy basil seeds, I guess. Telling you, I barely did anything today really. I mean, I woke up early. I woke up at 5 and I was busy in Planet Doug Studios for a while. Didn’t leave from Rembau until 10:30, I guess. Probably 10:30 I started cycling. Only rode like 30 km to get here. But in that under that sun, it did me in. I’m exhausted. I’m really burned out.
I was having a hard time finding the pool area, but I finally found it. Swimming pool area exclusively for guests. Yeah, kind of an odd arrangement. You have to walk through the restaurant to get to the pool. I I I I thought this whole area was closed, but you walk through all the tables and then and on the other side there’s a door and out here you can get to the pool.
Yeah. Yeah, I’m not really sure how it all works for food. Whether you have to buy a ticket for the whole buffet in order to eat here or whether you can nibble or get little order individual meals. I have no idea. And here’s the swimming area. No diving.
There’s one more thing I want to explore here and this is the selfservice unmanned smart store. I assume you still have to pay for things so that will be the adventure. So, yeah. I was hoping they would have some kind of a shop like a 7-Eleven style. And I’m assuming this is how you do it. You’re going to have to uh start and then you scan barcodes and then a total comes up. And they do have a Touch ‘n Go code here, which is how I would want to pay for something. So, well, okay. Let’s read through this and we can figure this out. Ooh, vanilla Coke. It’s uh 329.
And I guess it has a barcode here. So, let’s see what we do. Scan barcode. Where? Here.
I don’t know what to do. Scan product barcode below here. So, somebody is
here. Here. Ah, there’s the There it is. 329. All right. Look at that. Things are working. Um, check out. And then over here e-wallets initiating payment device scan the QR code of your e-wallet. So I have to get a QR code of my ewallet.
Okay. And I assume I show it in the same area.
No, that didn’t seem to work. Press check out. Maybe here.
Oh, there we go. Transaction in progress.
Oh, I have to um Oh, done. I thought I had to do something. Look at that. Transaction successful. Okay. It’s weird with a lot of this tech. Like, you look at this. First glance, I have no clue what to do. Like, it’s just not intuitive in the slightest to me. But now that I know the system, it’s perfectly easy. You basically start here. And then this is where you put all your products that you want to buy. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then it gives you the total. You say, “Okay.” And then with this device, you scan the QR code from your e-wallet. So scan barcode here, but scan e-wallet QR code here. And that’s not perfectly obvious to me, but now that I know how it works, it uh is fine. I I don’t know why this would have this here. Anyway, I have my vanilla Coke and I can come down here and get more if I want.
Oh, I haven’t unpacked yet. I’m just uh relaxing in the big chair with I’m going to open my can of vanilla Coke. Yeah, that welcome drink. Man, that was nice. I had four four cups, I think.
And in a drawer, I found the book. I always forget that these fancy hotels have books that tell you everything you want to know about what’s here. And if I want to talk to the front desk, I dial zero. I remember somebody told me that. It never occurs to me that phones actually work because the hotels I stay in, they often have a phone in the room, but none of them work anymore. So, what have we got here? I guess there’s a bunch of them. Okay. Royale Chulan Seremban. There’s one in Penang, one in Cherating, Hyde Park in London. Kuala Lumpur has one Damansara. The curve in Damansara. I guess this is room service. Char kway teow, Chinese porridge, buffalo wings, curly fries, French fries. I have no idea if I I don’t even know if I’ve ever ordered room service like in my entire life. I must have done it once, but I have no memory of ever doing it. Maybe I have, but I don’t I don’t really remember doing it.
Breakfast is included in my reservation, by the way. So, that’s going to keep me going. I’m going to have a good breakfast tomorrow morning. I’d probably end up spending the entire day at the hotel just because now that I’m here, I’m enjoying this room, right? But I have to go I have to fix my bike and I I’ll go back to the same bicycle shop. I’ll walk. I could work on it myself, but I’ll get my hands so greasy, hot, and sweaty. And yeah, maybe it’s a better idea to bring it back to the shop and get the experts to take a look at the master link cuz that master link has never been opened before. I mean, I put that chain on and I’ve never had a reason to take it off. They they took it off at the bike shop because they they wanted to clean the chain and work on the derailleur. So, they used their tool to uh disconnect the master link and they removed the chain. But now, because they disconnected it, I guess it was either not put back together properly or disconnecting it now weakened it and it doesn’t hold as well anymore. I don’t know. I’ll go back there tomorrow, but I kind of wish I didn’t have to do that. That’s going to turn into a it’s going to dominate my day. And with that, I think that takes me to the end of the day, at least as far as this video is concerned. Yeah, I’m pretty tired. I I don’t see myself going out on the town tonight. It’ll be all I can do just to find something to eat. If I manage to do that, that’ll be that’ll be a success for me. It might just save my appetite for breakfast in the morning. We’ll see. On the agenda right now, of course, is uh taking a shower, cooling down, unpacking, making a cup of coffee, and uh yeah, settling into my room. So, I hope you enjoyed that day. It was quite an adventurous day in a way, going all the way back to the beginning, waking up early and then cycling here. Not a bad bike ride. Some really beautiful countryside that we passed through. And then uh the road got busy from time to time, heavy traffic, a lot of big trucks, but it was a nice mixture. There was some really nice countryside almost like a country lane with overhanging trees. That was very nice. I got my my hat, my cap, roadside treasure, my cap. That was pretty exciting. And then the chain breaking. I’m not too happy about that. But I mean, the chain itself didn’t break. As I said, it’s just the master link that let go for some reason. So, I’ll just have to get get that looked at. Maybe I can just put on a new master link. And I hope that does not turn into a recurring problem. Nothing worse than being stuck at the side of the road trying to fix your chain. Uh would not want to do that on a regular basis. I’ve never had to do that. Like I I don’t think I’ve ever had a chain break to be honest. So, this is a kind of a brand new experience for me as well. Good karma and bad karma. So, that’s it. Shutting down. If you made it all the way to the end of this video, congratulations. That makes you a member of the Planet Doug Crunch Club. Reserved for people who get all the way to the end of the video. put CC in the comments to let me know you are a Crunch Club member. And uh yeah, pop over to uh Patreon if you looking for a way to uh support the channel, support what I’m doing. And of course, I now have the Touch ‘n Go QR code at the end of the video. So, it’s there as well. Yeah, big fan of Touch ‘n Go in my life. Uh I love using Touch ‘n Go. It’s so amazing. So, that’s it. Uh, thank you very much to my mystery benefactor for setting me up in this room. This is really, really nice. And it’s turned out very well because if I didn’t have this room, I probably would have ridden my bike back into the hills. Like where my tire exploded on that road going up the hill. That’s probably the direction I would have gone and I probably would have gotten over the hill down the other side and then my chain would have broken and I would have been out in the middle of nowhere. But my mystery benefactor suggested, “Hey, why don’t you take a little bit of a break, relax, enjoy yourself in this luxurious luxurious room?” And yeah, that seemed like a very good idea to me. But it wasn’t until after we made the arrangements that I thought, you know, it’s actually probably a good idea because it gives me a chance to ride my bike for a full day, see if there’s still a problem. And if there is a problem, I’ll be in Seremban and I can fix it. And if I went the other way and there was a problem, I’d be way out in the middle of nowhere. So this turned out to be a very uh beneficial choice, you know, to head to Seremban and uh stay in this place. Yeah, it worked out really well. So thank you very much, mystery benefactor out there on planet Doug. That’s it. Shutting down. See you in the next video.