VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
Welcome back to Planet Doug. Sometimes the best adventures don’t start with a plane ticket — they start with a ferry, a half-packed bicycle, and a little bit of faith.
In this video, I leave most of my gear behind in Melaka, Malaysia, and hop on the Indomal Fast Ferry across the Malacca Strait to Dumai, Sumatra. Getting ready took more time than I expected — sorting through tools, separating essentials from what stays behind, re-packing everything twice — but that’s just part of the romance of overland travel.
Once I was on the move, everything clicked. The ferry terminal in Melaka was surprisingly calm. The Indomal Kingdom crew was welcoming. And out on the strait, with storm clouds gathering over Sumatra and the Indonesian flag fluttering in the wind, I felt like I was actually going somewhere — not just being shuffled through another airport.
And then Sumatra welcomed me like an old friend.
From the visa officer who gave me a 3,000 rupiah discount just because, to the hotel staff who had the air conditioning already running in my room, to the endless hellos from kids, scooter riders, and food stall owners — Dumai reminded me why I love this island so much. It’s high-energy, friendly, a little bit industrial, and absolutely full of iced tea stalls and sate Padang.
The trip was smooth. The people were warm. And for a few days, I get to just relax, drink jumbo iced tea, and enjoy being back in one of my favorite places on earth.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back. Another morning on Planet Doug. Actually midday and it’s a bit of a special midday because yeah I’ve got some bags on the bike but I don’t have my trailer with all my gear because my trailer I’m leaving it behind here at this hotel in Melaka. So all my camping equipment and stuff like that, I’m just leaving it behind because I’m hopping on a ferry for what will hopefully be a quick trip across the Malacca Strait to Sumatra. So I’m going from Melaka to a city called Dumai on an Indomal fast ferry.
And I think the theme of this trip, if I had to pick a theme, would be that most things in life are not as easy as you would think. And then you make that decision like, huh, I’ll just hop on the ferry. Oh, it’ll be great. But at the time, it seems like it’s, God, that’ll be so easy. The ferry terminal is right here. Just grab a ticket, hop on the ferry, and across you go. But by the time you finish preparing for even a small trip like that, all the little things you have to do, get the ticket, change money, you’ve got to do the online registration for the arrival card, you know, when you get to Indonesia, find a place to stay there, sort of book it in advance. All that official stuff you have to do. It actually takes a lot more time than you would expect.
And then there’s the physical side of it because I’m not going to Sumatra to keep traveling, right? So I’m not bringing all of my possessions. So now I’m faced with the task of separating it. I’m bringing the essentials to Sumatra. Only the things that I cannot possibly live without are going with me. Everything else is staying here. So then I have to go through all of my stuff and kind of sort it. And when you sort it into two piles, now you have to kind of repack it because you don’t normally pack it that way. So that is a complexity you weren’t anticipating.
And then suddenly I’m getting on a boat or a plane, in this case a boat, and then you have to separate your luggage again. What will you check in the hold of the boat? And what are the most important things to carry with you? Because you have to assume any bag you check, you may never see it again. There’s always that risk. It’s going to get lost. So, you can’t put valuable things into your check bag. Everything of value has to go in your carry-on. So, now you’re dividing everything up again where, okay, what do I need? What can I absolutely not live without? And that gets down to, you know, my laptop and then all my GoPro gear and smartphones and all the really essential items, they all go in this knapsack. And now this knapsack is really, really heavy. And I’m not used to it anyway, you see what I mean? The complexity piles on top of the complexity.
And then of course you’ve got checking out of your hotel and then you’ve got to go to the dock and now you’ve got to go through customs and immigration, luggage check-in. And not only that, I have to prepare the bicycle. I use this patented Planet Doug broomstick to mount my GoPro cameras, but that stick kind of points off in an awkward direction. So, to put this bicycle onto a ferry, I can’t have that stick going off because it’s going to be in the way. People are going to run into it. People are going to gouge out their eyes or something. So now I have to remove the broomstick, put it on the bike frame. I had to do all this yesterday preparing things and then yeah anyway I think you get my drift. What started as a very simple casual decision I’ll hop on the ferry to Sumatra turns into quite a big project much bigger than you anticipated.
Anyway, my ferry is in a couple of hours and I had to check out of my hotel room, of course, at noon and I’m just going to head straight to the dock and see if I can get rid of the bike, check in, pay for the luggage. Yeah, we’ll talk about that when I get to the dock. Even bicycle tools have to be considered because I’m hopefully only going to Sumatra for a short time. So, I don’t need all of my spare parts. I don’t need all of my tools. So, I have to go through all of my kit for my bicycle, sort through it. I should bring this tool with me because I am bringing my bicycle. So, I need to be able to fix a flat tire. I need to be able to fix little things and even bring spare spokes in case a spoke breaks, my spoke tools, all this kind of stuff. But then I don’t need other tools. So, I have to sort through that as well. Yeah, it’s a pretty big job, I suppose. I mean, I could have brought everything with me, but then yeah, then you have the extra expense of bringing a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t need when you get there.
And all of that is just the physical effort of going on a short trip like this with all the changes, but there’s also quite a bit more stress and mental fatigue than you would imagine. Again, I start from the perspective of, “Oh, this will be so cool. It’ll be so easy, so fun, just hop on the ferry to Sumatra.” But whenever you’re going from one country to another, well, you’re dealing with stuff. Visas in particular, customs, immigration, and it all kind of is always there in the back of your mind. Again, more stress than you bargain for.
There’s the ferry terminal over there. It’s on an island in the middle of the Malacca River. It’s quite a big terminal. The building is much bigger than I expected. I came here the other day on my bicycle just to buy the ticket and the base price one way is 160 ringgit and the city I’m going to Dumai. They offer a visa on arrival. So I don’t have a visa for Indonesia. My plan is to buy the visa when I get to the dock. And to do that, you have to make sure you have cash because there are no ATMs, no banks, no money changers, anything like that at the dock in Dumai. So if you tell the Indomal ferry staff that you plan to get your visa on arrival, they’ll probably ask you to show them or they’ll at least ask you, okay, you have money. Because if you don’t have money, then it’s going to be a problem when you get there. But I of course made sure that I have money. Yeah, look how quickly I got to the ferry terminal. It’s already here.
And the boat is scheduled to leave at 2:30. It’s noon right now, so I still have two and a half hours before the boat is even scheduled to depart. But because I checked out of my hotel at noon. Yeah, I just came straight here. Anyway, it is hot today as always this time of year in Malaysia. Blisteringly hot. Sun is just beating down. And as I said, the base price is 160 ringgit, but then you can get a VIP seating, which I did. That’s an extra 20 ringgit. And then I’m going to be paying 20 ringgit to bring my bicycle. And then you have to pay for luggage on top of that. And now because of what’s going on in the Middle East, rising fuel costs, they put on like a 16 ringgit fuel surcharge to cover the cost of the fuel. And I think there’s some taxes, port fees, all those things that they add on.
And here we are. Almost on instinct. I was going to go park my bicycle and lock it up, but no, I’m bringing my bicycle with me.
Yeah, thank you. So, this is the ferry terminal. A lot of people here now. Not a lot, but more when I bought my ticket the other day, it was late in the afternoon or maybe early in the morning and then there was nobody here. You have I have ticket already. Yeah, nice. Yep. Stay. Ticket. Yeah, it’s pretty early. Your bike must take your bag. Yeah, I’ll take the bag off. And yeah, these come off easy. Just pop off. Oh, thank you. Oh, there’s one piece I should take. Like that for my camera. GoPro. Yeah. 20 ringgit for one bicycle. How old are you? 62. 62. Yeah, it’s my hobby. Very soft. Thank you, sir. Yeah, it’s my YouTube channel. Planet Doug. And for the luggage, thank you.
Your luggage, you must carry it. Oh, really? You don’t pay? If you want to wait, you must pay 1 kilo one ringgit. Yeah, it’s okay. Right. One weight. No, I can check it in if this is okay. You want it? No, I have this one to take. Yeah. To check in. Is that okay? 13 ringgit. Subscribe. Subscribe. Yeah. Subscribe. Subscribe. How you what you do for living? I used to be an English editor like in a magazine writing editing writer. Yeah. Kind of a writer. You speak? No, it’s like making books. Magazine. No, it’s a magazine but for teaching English. Yeah. So it’s 13 ringgit. Yes. I just have I don’t have the change. The seat number seat you’re under your name. Yeah, I think it’s right. I saw it there. Oh, it’s B9. Yeah, B9. Cool. Yeah, I took Indomal ferry before, but from Port Dickson. Oh, you can hear Port Dickson. Port Dickson to Tanjung Balai. Oh, yeah. At Melaka Dumai. I never did it before, so it’s his first time. How many hours on the boat? Two and a half hours? Two and a half hours. Two hours. Okay.
Back to so far so good. That absolutely could not have been easier. So much easier than anything I’ve done in Port Dickson when I’ve gotten on the Indomal Fast Ferry in Port Dickson, particularly with my bicycle. Yeah, it’s an adventure, put it that way. The crowding, sort of a level of confusion. No, there’s not much space for anything. Yeah, it’s stressful and kind of tiring here. I don’t know. It was just so easy. I just rolled my bike in. There’s so much space. And then I just rolled my bike up to the counter there. As you saw, the guy rolled it away. I almost forgot my GoPro mount. I had it attached to the handlebars, but I grabbed it at the last second and then I paid 20 ringgit for the bike and we were done. It was totally stress-free. And then yeah, they were going to let me just carry my two pet bags onto the boat. They assumed I was just going to carry them on. But I don’t really want to deal with them. It’s too much luggage to carry around. I just want to bring my knapsack. So then I told them, “Well, yeah, I wouldn’t mind checking in these pet bags, and it’s one ringgit per kilogram.” So they weighed my two pet bags. They came to 13 kg, like 6 and a half each. I weighed them beforehand. And so yeah, it’s like 13 ringgit to pay for my luggage to check it in. And again, I could have gotten away without paying it, but then I’d have to carry it around, carry it through immigration, find a place for it on the boat, and yeah, I don’t want to deal with that. So I paid the 13 ringgit.
Yeah. As I was preparing for this trip, I actually brought along ropes and straps and all kinds of things cuz I thought maybe they would say I can only have one bag and then I was going to put straps around my two pet bags and strap together the handles, turn it into one bag basically. But they were like, “Yeah, you can have two bags, no problem at all.” So you just pay by weight, not by bag. And now I have to wait 45 minutes until they start boarding. And even boarding ought to be pretty casual because it’s reserved seating up on the VIP. I don’t know about economy, but for the Port Dickson boat, I never had a seat, like an assigned seat. Yeah, I guess it would be better if you could just pick your own seat because then I would pick a window seat or I would pick the most comfortable one, but I have B9. I have no idea what kind of seat that is. Feels like it’s going to be in the middle somewhere, but it’s a two and a half hour trip at the most, so things should be comfortable enough. And I would normally for the Port Dickson ride to Tanjung Balai, I would make sure to wear long pants and a thicker shirt and I would even bring my sleeping sheet with me because it gets so cold. Takes 6 or 7 hours and you freeze to death. So, but for this trip, I just didn’t bother with any of that. So, it may be pretty cold on there, but I’m only going to freeze for like 2 hours, 2 and a half hours. So, I guess I’ll survive.
Getting closer to boarding time. Got a lot busier in the terminal cuz they had a lot of people arriving. There’s a departure hall and of course there’s also an arrival hall. And I don’t know exactly how many different types of boats come here from how many places. I’m only familiar with the Indomal from Sumatra, but yeah, a lot of people coming in, big tour groups from China. And I’m sitting in there and as always happens to me, it’s like my feet were suddenly on fire. It’s like both feet were just like burning hot. And I’m like, “What the heck is going on?” And then I’m looking down. I’m looking at my feet thinking, “Oh, am I having an allergic reaction to something? What’s going on?” I ignore it for a long, long time. And my feet are just burning more and more and more. And then I finally see a mosquito. It’s like every time I forget about that. Like in a big open hall like that, you get these tiny mosquitoes like right at ground level. They’re just down there floating around. And then I have a powerful allergic reaction to mosquito bites. And I should recognize the symptoms by now that as soon as my feet are like on fire, I should click, oh, mosquitoes. But it takes me a long time to figure that out.
Yeah, they don’t have any public toilets in the building itself, which is weird. I had to go on a long walk about to find some bathrooms. From here, you can see how close we are to downtown to Dutch Square. There’s the museum Samudera, the ship museum, and there’s the tower with the observation platform that goes up and down. Yeah, downtown is right across the river right there. So yeah, very convenient departure point if you want to go to Sumatra and you want to go to Dumai. Yeah, it’s very different atmosphere from Port Dickson and Tanjung Balai. I noticed in the Indonesian people returning to Tanjung Balai, they have immense amounts of luggage. Like there seem to be a lot of people like doing a little bit of buying and selling. It’s like they are carrying huge amounts of baggage back and forth here. Everything everybody just seems to have like a single bag. Like I don’t see giant piles of luggage anywhere. Huge suitcases. Nothing commercial at all. So yeah, it’s much more laidback here. Though, as I said, the terminal building is filling up now with all the arrivals and the departure time getting closer. So, it’s getting quite a bit busier, but nothing like Port Dickson atmosphere. Yeah, you can see these tour groups, all big tour groups arriving, and then they wait here in a group for their tour bus to show up. I’ve also noticed a surprising number of people in wheelchairs and it’s surprising until you consider that they’re probably coming to Malaysia for medical treatment from Indonesia and then they go back again. So I think a lot of the people that you see in wheelchairs, they have health problems and they’re coming to the hospitals here in Malaysia. That’s the ticket counter for Indomal right there.
Formalities are done. Went through immigration. They always have questions for me and it feels like they were testing me to make sure that I really was a Hello. There you are. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So yeah, he looked at Am I supposed to go out this way? This way. Looked at my passport. Oh, you’re from Canada. You’re Canadian. Yeah. And then he said, “What is the most famous lake in Canada?” He was like testing my knowledge of Canada. And I was like, “Well, for me, Lake Huron, cuz that’s the lake I grew up on, you know, one of the great lakes.” And then I started rattling off the Great Lakes, you know, Lake Superior, Lake Ontario. It’s like, “Yeah, quiz me on Canada. I’ll be able to answer all of your questions.” And I think that’s what he was doing. Just trying to prove and there was a glitch. I tried to board and they wouldn’t let me board. They said my boarding pass was no good. So I had to go back to Indomal. And they said, “Oh, the boat changed. It was the Indomal Regal previously. That was what my boarding pass was for.” And they says, “No, we changed it to a different boat, which I guess is the Indomal Kingdom.” So, they actually had a new boarding pass waiting for me at the Indomal ticket counter and but I didn’t know. I guess everybody else knew and they all exchanged their boarding passes or most people they buy their tickets same day but anyway this is the Indomal Kingdom new boat. I’ve never been on the Kingdom. Yes, sir. Hello. Hello. All ready to board. Yes. This is your boarding pass. There is the seat number. Okay. B07. Yeah. Upstairs. Okay. VIP. Thank you. Thank you very much. Welcome. Hello. How are you? Oh, yeah. Hello. Welcome. Indomal staff. Indomal Kingdom. Indomal Kingdom. I never saw this one before. It’s new to me. Okay. Welcome. Thank you. Hello.
Okay. Thank you. So, here is the lower deck. And I don’t see my bicycle anywhere, but I just have to assume they put it somewhere. Yeah. A lot of young kids, too. So, a lot of the people here have strollers and huge baby bags and all kinds of things. And with the new boarding pass, new seat as well, B7. So, I have no idea where I’ll be sitting. Hello. 07. You’re right there. Okay. Thank you. So, there’s my seat. And then I guess this is the VIP section up here. Yeah. For me anyway, it’s definitely a step down. The other ones like Indomal Regal, these other boats, much bigger up here, more room, better seats. So, step down to get down to the kingdom. But anyway, hello.
Scheduled to leave at 2:30. And right on the dot, we’re leaving from the dock at 2:30. Yeah, this boat isn’t fully booked, so actually have some empty seats here, which is kind of nice. But I don’t have a window seat or anything, so can’t show you the outside world, but there’s Melaka out there. We’re just leaving heading up the river. Bringing water. Thank you. You’re welcome. Yeah, I’d like to go outside on the deck as we leave, but I know from experience they don’t let you when you’re leaving from the port. You’re not allowed to be out on deck. So they’ll come out there and tell me to come back inside the outer deck of the Indomal Kingdom.
Really feels like I’m going somewhere interesting just because of the sky. The last couple of months in Malaysia, just sun, sun, sun, hot sun. And now that I’m heading towards Sumatra, stormy clouds. And like I said at the beginning, I’ve never been on this boat before. So, this is the first time I’ve seen the upper deck. So, this is the deck, the like sort of the smoking area, the outdoor area for VIP passengers like me. And then there’s a smaller deck down below for the economy class. But, there’s our wake, the Malacca Strait. Bunch of ships. According to the Straa app that I have running, we’re traveling at 45 kilometers per hour. So, in terms of road travel, we’re actually moving pretty slowly. In a car, 45 km an hour doesn’t feel like anything at all. But out here, it feels really fast. Yeah. Moving through the water at 45 is a whole different feeling. There’s the Indonesian flag.
That’s kind of nice up here. Some of the other boats I’ve been on, you don’t really get much protection from the wind that the boat creates. And even standing back here at the back railing, even all the way back here away from the roof structure, there’s not much wind. Yeah, it’s about 10 after 4 Malaysia time. So, we’ve been on the move for an hour and 40 minutes, I guess. Yeah, hour 40 minutes. We’re probably 30 minutes, 40 minutes away from Dumai. So, I guess it depends on how much we slow down cuz quite often the ferry when it gets close to where we need to go, get in between the islands or going up a river, then they go much slower.
We’re actually going to be going on the left side of Rupat Island. It’s a big island off the coast of Dumai. Much bigger than Dumai itself, actually the island. But I’ve never gone out to Rupat Island. I don’t know how you get there. But yeah, here we are on the deck. I guess there’s Yeah, we can see land already right over there. Just a thin Yeah, there’s rain over there. Boat was just turning. I can feel it turning. I don’t know if you can see anything on my smartphone screen. Probably can’t, but the blue dot of course is the boat. And we’re just heading up on Rupat Island. Yeah, Dumai is not that far away.
On the boat from Port Dickson to Tanjung Balai, like I said, it’s a much longer journey, 7 hours maybe. And then they serve you a meal like rice and fish. Not always the best kind of meal, but they do give you like a box breakfast or box lunch, whatever you want to call it. This is like a I guess it’s going to be like a two and a half hour three hour trip. And when I first sat down, they brought us a one small bottle of water, but then they gave us a bunch of cookies, some Oreo cookies and like some wafers and a little chocolate cake. Snack time. That was pretty nice. And on the Port Dickson boat, sometimes they would come around with a big tray of snacks. You could actually buy bits of food from them or even order coffee, but there’s been nothing like that on this boat so far.
Yeah, being out on the water is so deceptive. Like when I look at Google Maps, it looks like we’re right beside Rupat Island. I mean, it looks like we should see the land and we can. So that’s over there. There you can just sort of see that gray line. Maybe that’s Rupat Island. But out here in the real world, it’s so far away on Google Maps, you feel like you’re like right beside it. Rain is starting to hit. I got to go get undercover.
I think I’ve experienced that in the past. Now that I think of it, even though Sumatra and Malaysia are so close geographically, the weather pattern is completely different. I’ll be over in Sumatra pouring rain. You come over the strait to Malaysia and it’s nice and sunny and vice versa. It’ll be pouring rain every day in Kuala Lumpur. You fly over to Medan and sunny weather every day. The Malacca Strait seems to really change the weather pattern or something. Or I could be just imagining it.
So, I don’t think I’ll be coming back out here again. So, the next time you see any video, I’ll be getting off the boat or already outside of the ferry terminal, assuming I get through immigration. I still have to buy my visa on arrival when I land there, or when the boat docks, I should say. It’s okay. Love auntie. Love auntie. And there it is. Yeah, I don’t know the system, but I guess you just grab your luggage yourself before anything, you know, before immigration or anything. So, there we go.
Yeah, it always struck me as a weird system because it’s hard to go through the narrow lineups and go to immigration when everybody has all their luggage already. There we go. Rolling my bike off the boat across the mud flats. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Nope. Heat. Yeah. Here I am. To get a visa on arrival. Yeah. Do you have arrival card? Yes. Okay. Can you put bicycle right there? Yeah, of course. Thank you. Just over down this way. Okay. Thank you. EVO visa on arrival. Do you have No, not yet. I need to buy one. You should buy first. Okay. Yeah. Follow me first. Okay. How many people can meet with you? Just one. And I left my bicycle there, so I have to go back. Pick up later. Okay. Do you bring your Yes, I have Indonesian rupiah. Ah. Visa on arrival. Visa. You should back to line. Okay. And just bring my bicycle through the line. Is okay. After immigration, you can take your bicycle. Okay. Go through immigration then go back. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You should. Yes. Rupiah 503. So I have one, two, three, four, there’s five Lima and Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Is your camera recorded? Actually, yeah, I forgot. I’m sorry. See you.
So, I’ve arrived. Such a good feeling arriving in Sumatra. And gone through all the formalities. There’s the terminal building right there. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been I arrived here once before with a bicycle. So, I have some memories of doing this before and as I mentioned when I was getting my bike, you know, on after the boat, it’s yeah, it’s kind of confusing because you’re accustomed to going through immigration and you go through immigration without your bags, then you pick them up and then go through customs, right? That’s the normal procedure. But when you get off this boat here at this dock, you get your bags yourself right off the boat. And if you have too many bags and you can’t carry them all, then you have to get a porter. But now you’re, you know, you’re kind of encumbered with all of your bags and your bicycle. And then you might have a porter with you and then trying to get through immigration. Yeah. It’s like, whoa, what do I do? What do I do? But they were very well organized this time. Very friendly.
I told the guy I needed to buy a visa on arrival and then he just said, “Yeah, okay. Leave your bicycle right here.” And then he walked me to the visa on arrival office. Let’s get another angle on the terminal building right there. I need to take a picture of it for my mapping and just memories. So yeah, he just told me to leave my bike there and then he walked me over to the visa on arrival office, a little window which was open and it’s oddly enough 53,000 rupiah if you’re paying in Indonesian rupiah. And I planned ahead with small change. Like I even got small change to the point of getting some tens and 20s, things like that. Oh, this woman ahead of me there, she’s got that burgundy backpack on the motorcycle. She also got a visa on arrival, but I don’t know what her nationality is. She seemed a little bit upset in the lineup, so I didn’t start up any small talk with her. But yeah, so I had 500,000 ready to go and then I gave him a 10,000. I’m very proud of myself that I even have that much small change. And he kind of looked at it and went, “Oh, I don’t have change for that.” So he’s like, “Don’t you have two or 3,000?” Ah, I’m organized and prepared, but I’m not that organized and prepared. No, this is as small as I’ve got the 10,000. And he handed it back to me. He says, “Ah, don’t worry about it.” So, I ended up getting a 3,000 rupiah discount for my visa on arrival. Got to love Sumatra. You really do.
Dumai by the way is a very different experience from my usual hangout of Tanjung Balai. Tanjung Balai is a much more country town, a fishing village in a way, a large fishing town. Dumai is right beside a major oil field. A high percentage of all the oil produced in Indonesia comes out of this area. So there’s a lot of industry here. It’s a much more industrial kind of place. You can probably tell just by this road here from Tanjung Balai. When you leave the dock, you’re riding through fish markets and a very bustling place with people everywhere. Dumai is Yeah, it’s not quite the same industrial. And I was going to mount my patented Planet Doug broomstick right at the dock and put my GoPros, but I’m just not bothering. So, this view from my neck mount is as good as it’s going to get.
And my hotel, unfortunately, is a little bit on the outskirts of town. It would have been nicer to stay downtown, but the downtown low budget hotels, I couldn’t reserve a room at any of them. They have nice hotels downtown, like more expensive ones. So, I ended up at a low budget hotel kind of like 4 kilometers away from here. Yeah. See all those big tanks over there? Oil and gas. You can really smell it, too, that you’re in an industrial town. Hello. All right. Yeah, everything went pretty smooth. Yeah, this is like home sweet home to me. It’s sort of like my hometown in Canada is also very oil and gas centric. Smells like this sometimes depending what part of town you go to.
And I could have gotten to my hotel a different direction. If I turned left, I could have taken sort of a back road route, but since I just arrived, I thought I would go this way and kind of go through the heart of the city. You can see what Dumai looks like. As I said, I’ve seen it before. Spend some time here. And I’m just going to go straight to my hotel while there’s still daylight. Very easy trip on the ferry. Didn’t feel like I needed blankets or jackets or anything. It was air conditioned and pretty cold, but trip was only about 3 hours at the most. And everything was pretty well organized at the dock, too. I said, even though I had to get my bike in my bags right away, they grouped them together. They remembered that my two pet bags went with my bicycle, so I didn’t have to go track them down. Here we are pretty much downtown Dumai. Hello. Hello. Hello. And there’s a hotel right over there. Hotel City Dumai. I don’t know that one at all.
Yeah, I love the atmosphere of these local towns in Sumatra. I feel at home here for some reason. Maybe that explains why I’m always so eager to come back. Hello. Right away I’m seeing cold drinks at the side of the road. Lots of food stalls. Sate Padang right there. Boxo. Iced tea jumbo. One of my favorites. Another iced tea stand on the left. You don’t go thirsty in Sumatra or hungry. Heat up here. I think I’m getting close to my hotel. There’s a point on the map where the road hits a Y intersection, splits to the left and right, and there’s a park, and my hotel, I think, is on the left of this park area. Yeah, it’s not as far away as I had feared. Especially if you have a bike being out here, it’s very easy to get into town. And then here’s a good landmark for my location. Hello. It’s quite a large Yeah. Beautiful mosque. Love the deep green of the dome. Yeah, another roundabout. And then down here to my hotel, that yellow building off to the right. And if my lucky streak continues, they should have my reservation and everything should be fine. Wisma Cemara. Heat. Heat. Hello. Canada. Canada. Canada. Why? White. Yeah.
Hi. Hello. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Okay. I have a booking for Douglas. Yep. Fourth day, I think. So, yes. Yeah. Hi. Hi, my friend. How are you? Fine. And you? Very good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What’s that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. YouTuber. Yeah. A little bit. Thank you. Ah, excellent. Is there Wi-Fi? Yes. Yeah, Wi-Fi. Oh, and that’s the password. Yeah, she looked already. Yeah, she already took it. Okay, so yeah, I’m going to go outside and get my bicycle and bring it inside since there’s lots of room. But yeah, here’s home. Home sweet home. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Oh, okay. I can take this. Okay. Thank you. You’re welcome.
Yeah. Checking in was so didn’t have to do anything. I was going to say it was smooth and seamless, but it was actually just oh, we’re waiting for you. Like they saw my reservation in advance and they wouldn’t get too many foreign guests like me. So they saw my name on the booking and so that all day long they’ve been waiting for me to show up. So as soon as I showed up, they’re like, “Ah, here he is. The foreigner is here.” You know, they’re all the foreigners here. They were expecting me and then checking in was just they took a picture of my passport and the guy walked me down to the room with the key and then put the key in the power slot and the room was already nice and cold so they’d run the air conditioner. Maybe they did that in advance for me just to make it more welcoming. I don’t know. But yeah, it’s a pretty basic hotel. There’s the bed. It’s got some kind of a window over here. I haven’t looked out the window. Just looks out onto a fence with the barbed wire. And yeah, bedside table. What more do you want, right? You got a bedside table. They even have some water here for me and a couple of yeah, couple little packages of instant coffee. So, I brought my own kettle. So, I’m going to Oh, I mentioned that on the ferry they gave us some snacks and the guy who was sitting in my row beside me, he ate his cake, but he didn’t eat his Oreos or his wafers and he left those on the seat. So, as soon as he got up to get off the ferry, I snagged them. So, I’m going to make a cup of coffee and I’m going to enjoy those. Yeah. Bathroom. Haven’t really looked at it yet. Just it’s going to be pretty basic. Yeah. There you are. They do have a screen over that window. The bathroom like ventilation. So, if it has a mosquito screen, that’s always a good sign. And, do we have any water at all? Yep, there is water. And that’s all you really need. You need a mosquito net, air con or fan. I can go either way, but we’ve got air con and some drinking water, some bathing water. Look at that. Even got some hangers. I really I mean, this is a very low budget place. Obviously, very basic, but someone here is thinking ahead and actually picks up some cheap hangers. Planet Doug approved. And I don’t think I’m going to do anything else. I think that’s the end of the day for me and that’s the end of the video. I mean, I might pop outside to grab something to eat. I probably will, but we’ll just set that aside for now in terms of this video. So, yeah, just a very simple video. I don’t know how long it is. Imagine it is a shorter video, just a quick ferry ride across to Sumatra. Though. But still, if you watch the video all the way to this point, that makes you a member of the crunch club. Put CC in the comments to let me know if you think of it. Oh, there are some mosquitoes in here, though. Yeah, that is one thing now that I’m I mentioned I think I mentioned at the beginning of the day that I only brought essential items. So, for example, I don’t have my mosquito net with me. I normally have my own mosquito net. And then now I suddenly find myself in a room that’s probably filled with mosquitoes, but yeah, mosquito net is really hard to set up in a room like this. Actually, I could do it. They don’t have any wood, you know, to put in screws or anything. It’s all just cement, so there’s nothing to tie your mosquito net to. But anyway, I don’t have it with me. Little things like that. And yeah, shout out to everyone out there supporting Planet Doug through Patreon. Love you guys, my Patreon members. I really appreciate the support flowing through Patreon. Helps me out a great deal. And through buy me a coffee. I’ve got a little posse of buy me a coffee. People supporting me and I really appreciate that as well. And of course through Malaysia’s touch and go e-wallet system. And yeah, everyone out there who supports me in my small adventures. And with that, it is time to bring this video to a close. I don’t think there’s any details that I left out, any important details. It’s just my arrival here. I always enjoy it so much because Sumatra is such a casual, laidback, friendly place. I mean, I about I don’t know 30 people at least shouted hello to me in between the dock and here, you know, kids, adults, teenagers going by on their scooters. Hello, Mr. What is your name? Where are you from? It’s just such a friendly place, Sumatra. I really enjoy my time here. And then I plan on drinking a lot of iced tea everywhere every time I go outside the whole side of the road. Iced tea, iced tea, iced tea. And I just drink it. And if I can find my papaya, my avocado smoothie fruit stand and all that kind of stuff. So I’m looking forward to spending a few days here just relaxing and enjoying the laidback quality of Sumatra. I like it here a lot. So that’s it. Thanks for coming along with me on this small adventure. Popping over the Malacca Strait. Very easy day. Very, very easy day. Nothing went wrong. Yeah. Knock on wood. All right, that’s it. Shutting down. I’ll see you next time.