I imagine if you check the dos and don’ts for YouTube, one of the strongest don’ts would be don’t start your video in complete darkness. But if your life begins in complete darkness, well then it’s an accurate representation of what is going on. So I’m here in my hotel room in Dumai at the Ohana Coast Homestay and the power went out. So, the power’s been out for a couple hours now, so it’s getting pretty hot in here, and I have things to do out in the city. So, I’m heading out. And it occurs to me there’s a bunch of things you need to think about when you’re living this kind of life that maybe you don’t need to think about back in other places. Anyway, I’ll keep babbling about that as I try to navigate my way out of here. All right. Here we have some light from the outside world. And yeah, the one thing you need to think about is well, the power’s out, but is it you or your neighborhood or the whole city? Like how far does it extend? But I checked the fuses for my room. They’re still fine. I didn’t trip any fuses. So, I think the power blackout is at least hotel wide, but I hear some sound out here. So, who knows? You know, you have to figure out how big is the blackout. How far does it extend?
Yeah, I think these air conditioners are running, but I don’t know about these ones. So, I have to do some investigating. Maybe it’s just me. This is my room behind me. Those rooms over there, they have power. This room has power. So maybe, yeah, some sort of a dedicated fuse for my room blew. I did have my kettle plugged in and the air conditioner running. So I don’t know if that’s my little kettle doesn’t draw a whole lot of power. I’ll mention it to the guy at the front desk. I always hesitate to do that like the second something goes wrong like no water or no power. You don’t want to go running to the front desk and you know you’re being the foreigner who complains about everything but they may not know that the power is out. So I just inform them. Ah, generator. Yeah. Oh okay. Because in my room still no power. No power. No electricity. No. My room. Other room. Yeah. My room. No. Yeah. I don’t know why. But I did mention it to the guy at the front desk. They have a generator. I could hear a generator running. So that’s where the power is coming from. So there is a blackout for this neighborhood, but I don’t know why. I’m the only room that has no power from the generator. I don’t know. I mentioned it to him, but he clearly didn’t understand any English. I could have gotten out Google Translate, but I’m heading out into the city anyway. By the time I get back, the problem could have fixed itself. But what I was saying about how you have to think about things now, I have to think about I’m leaving my room, but while I’m gone, the power could suddenly come back. So, and you’re not there to monitor. So, you have to think about, okay, what’s plugged in? So, what I do, of course, is I make sure to turn off the kettle, unplug it. I unplug the air conditioner because if the power comes back on, the air conditioner is going to be running, but there’s no need because I’m not going to be there. Then, you have to think, okay, what you don’t want the kettle to turn on when you’re not around to monitor it, things like that. So, you have to kind of think about these things. You know, you always got to be on your toes mentally. My bicycle has been sitting here waiting patiently for me. Everything still seems to be okay. I just noticed there’s a big puddle here. That is something else you kind of have to think about. You often park your bike somewhere and there might be like a dripping water up above it and you come out and your bike is soaking wet even though it’s covered by a roof. But it looks like the water is just leaking from this pipe. My bike isn’t soaking wet. Heat. Heat.
Oh yeah.
All set to head out. I’m heading out into the city for two reasons. I have two errands to run basically. One is to go to the Indomal Fast Ferry office because I want to check on the schedule. I’m planning my return to Malaysia and I need to know when they have boats running and their online website for Indonesia, it doesn’t work. You can’t book tickets and you can’t even see the schedule. So, I just want to drop by. I’m not going to book a ticket today. I don’t need to do it so early. I don’t think I’m just not in the mood to do anything official today. I just want to go get information. And I’ve also been shooting another Touch ‘n Go e-wallet video using Touch ‘n Go here in Indonesia. And I have one last thing I need to test for that video. It’s pretty rough road leading out from my hotel. I have to test using my Touch ‘n Go Visa card to withdraw money directly from an ATM. So, I want to make sure that is still working and demonstrate it.
So, the first thing I’m going to do is ride to Indomal Fast Ferry, get that taken care of, and then that’s kind of like right downtown. So, in the downtown area, I should be able to find a bank with an ATM, convenient ATM where I can test my card.
It’s nice to be on my bike. I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately, walking around Dumai because I haven’t gone very far from this neighborhood. But even the smallest distance that you walk in this sun, it’s so hot. At least on a bicycle, you get places faster and you create your own breeze, which is really nice. Yeah. A little bit windy today, too, which is nice. Feels much cooler right now riding my bike than it did when I was walking.
A bit of a technology update. I’ve been having some problems recently, but everything seems to have cleared up. My GoPro Hero 9 was failing to save any videos recently. So, I would record video like this from both my Hero 12 and from this Hero 9 down here. And then it’s kind of nice to be able to switch back and forth from this perspective and then switch to the perspective looking forward.
So, I recorded all my video that way, but then when it was all done, the Hero 9 didn’t record any of the video, so I lost all that and I couldn’t use that perspective, but I think it was something to do with the memory card. I have a new memory card in there. I did a big test the other day and it worked fine. So, I hope that problem is fixed. And I was having trouble with my laptop copying files. Whenever I tried to copy video files, it would freeze. The copy speed would go down to zero and just get stuck there. And then I wouldn’t be able to even edit video or do anything else until I got it unstuck. There was something weird going on. But I updated all the I updated mainly the chipset drivers, fiddled around with a bunch of other things, I guess, and the problem seems to have gone away. So, I don’t know what the blockage was, but it’s gone now. So, that’s good.
One funny thing is that I’ve recently spent time in Banda Aceh and I got to know my neighborhoods there really well generally on foot though I didn’t have my bike with me but I got to know the layout of all the streets and everything quite well and spent a lot of time in Tanjung Balai, and I have those cities like burned into my brain and I spend a lot of time in Dubai in the past. But in the sort of instinctive part of my brain that just registers where I am and where I’m going, I’ve got all that street layout all mixed up in my head. So I keep thinking, “Oh, okay. I know where I am. I know where and there was, oh no, that’s in Tanjung Balai.” You know, I get the cities all mixed up in my head. Hello.
Hey. Yeah, it’s a high energy city. Dumai people are very high energy. Love to say hello.
And the traffic is pretty intense as well. The sidewalks. Yeah, you got to be on your toes here. It’s full on when you step out of your hotel room and come out here.
This is one of the main streets, but where I need to go is on if I have my cities straight in my head, I have to jump over one the next major street. That’s where Indomal is. Yeah, you get a lot of vehicles backing out here as well. Motorcycles going against traffic like this guy. Of course, trucks parked everywhere, unloading in front of all the shops. Doors opening.
You got to be on your toes cycling around here. I assume the same thing if you were on a scooter.
Yeah. I’m not quite sure when a guy like that is whistling. Oh, here’s another one backing up. When he’s whistling, is he whistling to the driver of his car saying keep going? Is he whistling to us saying make way? Like what exactly is the whistle indicating to who?
Yeah, I remember this intersection as well. Yeah, I remember this corner. There were always a lot of guys here doing something for money, you know, just asking for money or selling things. Or like this guy up ahead, he’s busking and I want to go around the roundabout here. So, I think I have to come out here and join the traffic out in the middle.
I was going to fling my arm out to give a turn signal on turning right, but there was a guy on a motorcycle right beside me and I was going to smack him right in the head. So, I gave this little this little T-Rex turn signal with my arm. Yeah. Nobody could see.
But the vast majority of people here don’t even show a turn signal anyway. So, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Here is a major BRI outlet. It might have a separate room for ATMs. That one might be a good one to use for my test. I did that one other time when I was in Banda Aceh, but I can’t remember which bank ATM I used to do my test. Worked perfectly fine.
And if I’m thinking about the right city, oh, there’s another sandal place. I should find Indomal right here on this street.
Hello. I’m from Canada. Yeah, Canada. Manchester United. Oh, yeah. Manchester United. My shirt. Okay. All right.
Wow. Two English schools right here. Yeah. A guy just pulled up on a motorcycle just to he realized I was wearing a Manchester United shirt.
I guess I dug it out of storage when I was back in Kuala Lumpur without really thinking about it and brought it here with me. But it’s all kind of worn out all the labels. So I stopped it. Oh, Ferry Dumai Line. And I think I see it up ahead there.
And in terms of technology, how are you? I’m fine, thank you. How are you? I’m happy to report that overheating has reduced a lot. I don’t know why. I’ve had the GoPro 12 and 9 running non-stop since I left from my hotel running 4K 25 frames per second. No overheating at all.
Oh yeah, I’ve been here before, too. There’s the sign up there for the Indomal, the fastest aluminum ferry from Dumai to Malacca and Port Dickson.
Yeah, there are two offices here. I figured that out. This is a different company. The one right behind me goes to uh yeah, Tanjung Balai and Batam, I guess. And then Indomal is a smaller office beside it. That’s the one I want. Yeah. And speaking of the power outage and all the things you have to think about, I was getting ready for this little errand run. Hello. Hello. Hello. I was getting ready in the dark and one thing I didn’t realize is my Hero 9, the battery compartment door was wide open and I never noticed. So, I mounted it on my bike with the battery door open. Hello. Hello. How are you? Hi, I’m on YouTube. YouTube. What is your name? What is your name? Fadil. Fadil. And your name? All right. My name is Douglas.
I don’t know.
You ate seven. Oh, seven. Ah, yeah.
Money. Yeah. Money. Hey, don’t hey, careful.
That’s you. Yeah. You and your friends. You make money? I don’t make money. No, I oh, I have to go in here. Okay.
This our schedule. Oh, there it is. Okay. It’s every day. Every day. Every day is 9:00 except on Friday, we only do 8:30. I see. So, every day 9:00. Yeah. Except on Friday. So, okay. Oh, these are the days sending except Friday 8:30. Oh, okay. Okay. Cool. Because it is not on public holiday. I think you can buy the ticket 2 hours before depart. Okay. I will buy it a few days before. Yes. Okay. Just come back here. We open about 7:00 until 6:00 p.m. Okay. All right. Yeah. I’ve taken this ferry one time before. Yes. But I think I went to Port Dickson. I didn’t go to Malacca. I don’t think Port Dickson is almost full to come here to Port Dickson. So you I suggest you to book your ticket one week before departure for that one. Okay. Yes. Or you can call us send us on WhatsApp. This our number. Okay. Just contact us to book your ticket. I suggest you to book your ticket one week before for Port Dickson. It’s almost full. Always full. Always full. Okay. But this one not so full. Yeah. Malacca is not. Okay. Still available every day. Okay. And the price one way, the one way to Malacca is 650,000 but this price is not including the tax port 75,000 and fuel charge for passenger is 70,000 rupiah more. Okay. And the VIP seat is available for you want to upgrade to VIP additional charge is 80,000 rupiah more. Okay. And I have a bicycle. Bicycle for your bicycle is you can at the port is maybe about 30,000 rupiah for one bicycle. Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I’ll see you again when I buy the ticket. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Oh yeah. How are you? I’m okay. Thank you. How are you? I’m from Canada. Very good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Where are you?
And there we go.
Oh, that was all excellent news. No trouble at all. They’re super organized there. The website doesn’t work for scheduling, but they have the schedule there. The ferry to Malacca every day 9:00 a.m. except Friday, I guess, at 8:30 or is it Saturday? I forget which day, but basically yeah, 8:30, 9:00 in the morning, 600,000 rupiah, basically the same price as going from Malacca to here.
And he was telling me that yeah, there’s generally a lot of seating available. You could even get same day tickets just 2 hours before departure. But if you want to go to Port Dickson, he says that one fills up. So you have to make sure you get a ticket a week in advance for that.
Yeah, that was very successful. Those little boys were a hoot, though. I never know how to handle young boys like that. They’re just too much for me. I just basically smile like a doofus and hang out and then they have so much more courage than I did as a kid. I would never engage with an adult like that when I was a kid. The one boy even I had my GoPro Hero 12 on my mount hooked on my pants pocket, which I do when I’m walking around sometimes and I want my hands free. And then that kid, he just sort of casually reached over and unhooked it, you know, just like, “All right, here we go. I got a camera now.” And I don’t think he was trying to steal it. He wasn’t going to run away. He just wanted to play with it. But I had the instinctive reaction like, “Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no. Don’t do that. Don’t do that.” Like, don’t. Because, you know, he could run away with it. There’s no way I’d be able to catch him. And then eventually I yeah actually when I was trying to leave as well they were talking to me pointing to the bicycle and they kept saying you know, “Bisa, bisa.” I knew they were asking me can can you do this, can we do this and I have no idea what they’re saying but then when as I tried to get on the bicycle I realized what they were saying is they just wanted to go for a ride so one boy was climbing on my front rack another one was climbing on the back rack and the third one was probably going to climb on the handlebars. Who knows? All four of them were probably going to try and climb on my bike and I was like, “No, no, no, no. I can’t do that. I can’t do that.” But eventually, a local man had to come rescue me. If it was up to me, I would have been a prisoner of that gang of four boys for the rest of my life. They’d never let me go. But then a local adult, a man came by and he got them under control and just, “Hey, leave him alone.” And then they all paid attention to him, but nobody would ever pay attention to me.
Yeah. I’m always impressed with the police stations here. That’s a police station over there. They’re huge. They take their policing very seriously. At least if the scale of the buildings is any indication, they’re always really big. All right. Kind of a roundabout intersection.
Almost everybody here is turning right, so I just follow the crowd.
I take a wide turn, leave a lot of room for the cars, and I think there’s a Mandiri bank up here. I think Mandiri will be the best one to do my Touch ‘n Go test. I’m familiar with Mandiri in the past. I remember being able to do things at Mandiri that I wasn’t able to do anywhere else. Like if I use my debit card from my Canadian bank to withdraw money, a lot of the local banks rejected my card. But then Mandiri was the only one that accepted it. So I have more confidence in Mandiri than other banks.
I think Mandiri is up here somewhere.
I have to say that I do worry about the Indonesian diet sometimes when I was staying. When I stay in these low budget hotels, you often see the garbage that is coming out of all the different rooms. They leave it out in the hallways for the staff to clean up. And I see people in the hotel rooms coming back to the hotel with a bag of stuff and they maybe it’s only when they’re staying in hotels on kind of a holiday or something, but they come back with huge bags just jammed with every variety of junk food you can imagine. So they basically go to Alfamart or Indomaret and just stock up with pounds like literally pounds and pounds of junk food and everything tends to be so sweet here. I’ve talked about all of the iced tea stalls like all along here. We passed a number of them. They’re very popular. Everybody gets their iced tea from these places, the green iced tea. But they’re super sweet. They’re just loaded with sugar. And if you’re drinking that every day, it yeah, it can be sort of like drinking Coke, you know, liters of Coke every day if you’re constantly filling up on iced tea.
And fried chicken. Just fried chicken everywhere. It’s the most popular restaurant I see. All right. So, there are some Mandiri ATM machines here. I’m going to do my test. Okay. Just leaving from the Mandiri Bank ATM as I filmed the whole thing for my Touch ‘n Go video, of course. But the conclusion was yeah, it worked beautifully. No issue at all. I just had to put my card into the ATM like a normal Whoa. Guy just lost a whole box of water. Fell off the back of his truck. Not much I can do to help him out. He’s going to come back and get it, I guess. I was going to run out and grab the box just to get it out of traffic, but the guy’s already here, I think. So, he’s going to grab it so there’s no accidents.
Now, I was just saying that yeah, I recorded the whole thing for my Touch ‘n Go video and the conclusion was that it worked. Just had to put in my card, enter the pin, choose how much I wanted to withdraw and that was it. But on the downside, there was a pretty hefty fee involved. I only withdrew 200,000 rupiah as a kind of experiment just to test it. But I ended up paying a fee of 100,000 rupiah total. So yeah, which is about 22 ringgit, over $5 US just on that one transaction. So, and it’s a per transaction. So, let’s say you all you needed was 100,000 rupiah just for an emergency. You can get your 100,000 rupiah, but they end up charging you 100,000 rupiah as a fee. So, basically the same amount they were withdrawing. But again, as I explained in the video, Touch ‘n Go has two versions of this card. I have the normal card, but you can also get the travel version. And the travel version gives you one free withdrawal per month. But now after this experience, I don’t know exactly what that means. Like maybe you get a free withdrawal from Touch ‘n Go because I think they charge 10 ringgit per withdrawal. So maybe that’s free. They cover the cost of that. But what about the local bank? Because in this case, it looked like I paid 10 ringgit to Touch ‘n Go as a fee, but then I paid 12 ringgit to Mandiri Bank because they charge a fee on top of it. So, and I think you’re on the hook for that no matter what whether you have the travel card or not. So, yeah. So, as I concluded in my Touch ‘n Go video, it’s very handy, very good for emergencies. You really need cash overseas. Touch ‘n Go Visa card to the rescue. Take money directly out of an ATM. That can really save you in a lot of situations, but it’s not something you would do all the time because the fee structure is pretty intense, pretty hefty fee.
I just passed by the shoe shop where I wanted to look for sandals, but as is often the case, the road here is divided. Unless I want to pick up my bicycle and carry it across, I have to keep going until I get to a U-turn.
Yeah, it’s just
Yeah, I don’t mind carrying my bike across, but there’s so much traffic on both sides. I think it’d be kind of a pain. I’ll just keep going until I get to a roundabout.
And here we are. U-turn.
And in a rare moment, there’s no traffic, so I can just go right around.
Here’s the shoe store.
I don’t plan on buying anything today. I do everything very slowly. I just want to take a look inside, see what the options are.
Yeah, they got some basic ones here, but they’re like flip-flops where you put your toe in there. Definitely don’t want that.
Similar style with a toe thing. Okay. Well, no luck there. So, I guess we’re in the middle of a classic Planet Doug shopping marathon. Hello. I’m fine, thank you. In which I’m never able to find what I’m looking for. Everyone else in the world, one-stop shopping. Whatever they want, they go out, they get it, they go home. On Planet Doug, it doesn’t work that way. Takes a long time to track down what I need or want.
Oh yeah, that’s the Bakso restaurant. I used to go there all the time on my other trip to do my
Another shoe store. Never noticed this one.
Hello.
Looking for sandals like that. Size size forty four.
They had some of the right style, which really surprised me. Some actually really nice looking sandals for the price. They were all hovering around 200,000 rupiah which incidentally is how much I withdrew from Touch ‘n Go. So, but the kicker was way too small. Like they didn’t have anything even close to a size that would fit me. Not even close. So,
Ooh, got a smoothies stand over there. Wonder what kind of smoothies he has. They actually had one type of sandal. I thought it was in terms of the sole how big it was. It was actually big enough and it had straps that came loose so you could adjust the size. But underneath the straps that you could loosen was a strap that was permanent. So it had like a maximum size. It was way too tight on my feet and way too small. It’s funny. I don’t think of myself as a particularly large human being. But when it comes to shoe sizes here, yeah, I’m too big.
And I think that kind of sandal, that kind of running shoe, they seem to be aiming at children. It seems almost to be like a children’s market. When men get older and start going to work, maybe they just don’t buy shoes like that anymore. Anyway, almost most of the shoes in there seem to be child sizes. Seem to be quite common.
And yeah, going around the circle. I guess I didn’t really have to. Could have done a U-turn, but
Ooh. Hello. You have a mango smoothie? Yeah. Yeah, just one. That two. So, yeah, he has a mango. Spotted it there.
That’s where I’m getting my smoothie from. Juragan smoothies, fresh and healthy.
And he’s got a lot of mango over there, pre-sliced, ready to go, which is good.
Oh, an ambulance.
Okay.
QR or cash? Cash. Cash for cash.
Much fancier smoothie than I was expecting. Look at the size of this thing. Filled all the way to the top and then some sort of yogurt or cream over the top and then a lot of sliced mango and a coconut.
It’s really good. If he were in my neighborhood by my hotel, I’d be back here every day. Ah, just doing a battery change on one of my GoPros. A neverending routine here on Planet Doug. Changing the battery on my Hero 9. But I get to enjoy the smoothie while I do it.
And he supplied a spoon as well for all the diced yogurt on top, a diced mango on top.
I absolutely devoured it. I mean, just devoured it. Was so good. 16,000 rupiah, by the way.
It’s my favorite thing these days about Sumatra. Cold drinks everywhere at the side of the road. All different types. This was a meal. That was a dessert in its own all by itself.
Just waiting at the intersection to turn onto the road that leads back to my hotel. Right turn here.
Still haven’t seen maybe it’s not banana season or something, but isn’t it always banana season? I’m just not seeing any pisang goreng for sale anywhere. I saw some fancy fried banana desserts with chocolate and all kinds of stuff, but just basic fried banana. Haven’t seen it anywhere. Lots of fried chicken, tofu, mango, mango smoothies. So, I’m not complaining, but still keeping my eyes open for my fried banana.
This is a pretty popular spot for people to be sorting through the garbage right here on my left.
Every time I’ve gone by, there’s been three or four people doing that. But man, middle of the day like this in this sun, that’s pretty hard. That’s hard work.
Well, we’ve jumped ahead in time. I’m just leaving from my hotel once more here in Dumai. It rained heavily last night, so we got a little bit of puddles on the road. This time I heard the rain. It has been raining a lot at night, but I generally sleep through it, I guess. But I was awake at the time. I heard this heavy downpour. But other than that, yeah, the sun has been out almost all the time. And the heat, oh man, that’s the story of the last 3 months of my life. Malaysia and here. The heat has been intense. It’s really something. My room happens to sit with a window and a door facing directly at the afternoon sun. And then inside my room, I’ve got the air conditioner on full pumping out cold air. It barely is able to keep up with the heat pouring in. And if you stand near the window, it’s just like radiating heat. It’s like a jet engine. You put your hand on the window and it’s burning hot. So now I understand why they covered that window. Like they didn’t just put a curtain over it. They layered like vinyl on the glass. And I think what they’re trying to do is just put some kind of a heat barrier in place in those rooms. Wow. Yeah, it’s really something. Maybe they could have solved it by putting some sort of a barrier along the railing, you know, the balcony, and then the sun could be hitting that and then not hitting the windows and the doors. But yeah, then the light doesn’t get in and it blocks the view out over the parking lot. Who knows? But man, yeah, I stepped outside of my room and just the heat slammed into me. It’s actually been a pretty big time jump since that video clip where I was enjoying that mango smoothie. And the reason for that is not a pleasant one. Got to navigate some traffic and an intersection here.
Yeah. I mean, I don’t know whether it was the smoothie. To be honest, when I stopped at the side of the road because I saw that smoothie stand, I was so excited. But I did hesitate a little bit. There was something about it that kind of bothered me. I think it was the number of flies. There were flies everywhere that I could see covering everything. And I got the feeling that and because that neighborhood is not exactly a kind of a high-end neighborhood. So I thought, I don’t know, maybe can I trust the cleanliness of this place? I wasn’t sure. But anyway, and then when he made the mango smoothie, I was expecting just mango ice blended, but he made something much more elaborate. And that made me a little bit nervous too because he had a big tub of some kind of whipped cream, like a milk product, and then he scooped that out and layered on a big thick layer of whipped cream and then some shavings that I think were coconut shavings. So, it was a much more elaborate smoothie than I was expecting. And that made me a little bit nervous. But yeah, I just devoured it. It was so good. Tasted so good.
And then almost immediately afterward, so I don’t know whether it was the smoothie. I mean, it could have been anything because I drink so many drinks from the side of the road. Every time I see one of these iced tea places, I pull over and grab myself a cold drink. I just drink, drink, drink, drink. So, it’s not necessarily the mango smoothie that did it, but anyway, I became so sick. It happens to me every time I come to Sumatra these days and it’s the exact same sickness, exact same symptoms and it just yeah it does me in. So I basically haven’t been able to go outside for the last week. I think I haven’t eaten again for 5 days, 6 days maybe. I’ve lost all track of time. Yeah, I’ve been really sick. There was one day early on where I did go out. I timed it very carefully because I was pretty much trapped in the bathroom. I couldn’t go more than 5 feet away from the bathroom. But I had to go out and get some medication because I knew from experience this particular it was a bacteria infection. It wasn’t just an upset stomach. This was an infection by a bacteria. I’ve had it before. Every time I come to Sumatra, I get it. So, I knew I was never going to recover without antibiotics. So, I had to leave the hotel at some point to try and track down some antibiotics. And I knew there was this antibiotic out there. It was new to me. I learned about it the last time I was here. And I got so sick and instead of using the old favorites like the ones we all know about like what is it ciprofloxacin and all these different floxacins you have to take them like three times a day for 7 days and it’s a long involved sort of thing. But then I read about this new more effective antibiotic called azithromycin and it’s a totally different style. And anyway for me it’s much more effective and a full treatment can be as little as three pills, one 500 milligram tablet per day for 3 days and that’s the full course because this particular antibiotic gets absorbed into your system and then lodges there. So it has this incredibly long lifespan. So it keeps being effective for a long time. So after, you know, after 3 days of taking the medicine, it’s still in your system doing its job for many days after that. Anyway, I wanted to go out and get some azithromycin and then I had my usual Planet Doug adventure because in the past I’ve never had issues. I just walk to the nearest pharmacy. Like even back in the days when I was getting ciprofloxacin or the other antibiotics, I just walk in, tell them what I want, they hand it over, I pay for it, and we’re done. So I just walked to my nearest, you know, neighborhood pharmacy, walked in and said, “Oh, by the way, you know, azithromycin, ada, you know, do you have azithromycin?” And they said, “Well, yeah, we do, but do you have a doctor’s prescription?” And I was like, “No, I don’t.” She says, “Well, then we can’t give it to you. Can’t sell it to you.” I was like, “What? Of course, that would be how it is in a lot of countries, but I’ve never come across that in Indonesia before. Nobody ever asked for a prescription for anything. You can just ask for what you want.” And so I thought, oh well, I’ll just go to the next pharmacy. I’m monitoring my stomach because I know I’m going to need a bathroom badly on this outing. So, you know, this can’t take a long time. So, then I start walking down the street and of course it turns out that all the pharmacies I come across are closed. I look at them on Google Maps. I walk down the street, closed, closed, closed. I finally get to one that’s open and they Hello. And they said the same thing. Do you have a receipt? Do you have a prescription from a doctor? And I said no, sorry I don’t and they said well come back when you do. So I ended up on this I knew there was a pharmacy out there where they’re not being as strict. So, I just had to find one. And that led to me walking this entire city from pharmacy to pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find that magical combination. A they had azithromycin because most of them didn’t. I guess it’s a more modern hard to get antibiotic. Most of them didn’t have it. And the ones that did have it, most of them were saying, you know, you need a doctor’s prescription. So, I walked and I walked and I walked and man, the stomach cramps started to hit. I was in so much pain. Doubled over at the side of the road just practically crawling to the next pharmacy. It was pretty bad. And yeah, I think I’m right here where I got the mango smoothie. I think it was at this intersection. But anyway, at long last, I found a pharmacy that had azithromycin and they didn’t demand a prescription. So, I managed to get the antibiotic and then I just stumbled and crawled back to my hotel, back to safety. And I’m emerging back into the real world once more.
Hello. How are you? I’m fine. It’s nice. I’m fine, too. Thank you.
Yeah. So, that is the story of the last week basically. And now I’m able to get back out into the world again. I still haven’t eaten. Just doing everything on a flat empty stomach because I’m just too scared to eat. Luckily, I seem to be a bit of a camel. I can go long time without food and water. Doesn’t seem to affect me that much.
So, what I need to do is book my ferry ticket back to Malaysia. And that’s what I’m doing right now. So, my last video clip a week ago was finding where the Indomal Fast Ferry office is. Not Indomaret, Indomal Fast Ferry. And now we jump ahead in time and I’m going back. Hello. Going back to the same place. Oh, look at all these cold drinks everywhere. Iced tea. Hijau. But I’m too nervous now for now. I don’t want to get sick again.
I wish I knew which particular bacterium it is. There’s one of them that circulates in the water here that has my number. It just gets into my system and it’s like, “Oh boy, we’re going to have a party in here.” It yeah, it makes itself at home in my digestive tract. It’s hard to get rid of it. Oh, look at all this good food, all the snacks at the side of the road. Maybe by tomorrow I can start at least snacking and drinking a little bit again.
I just definitely don’t want to be sick when I’m taking the ferry. So, I’m trying to be very careful.
Yeah, my original plan was to return to Malaysia way back. I wasn’t going to be here this long, but I’ve extended my stay by this week because I got sick. And now I’m going to add another week of staying here just to make sure. So, I’m going to end up maxing out my 30-day visa, more or less. So, here we are at the Indomal Fast Ferry office.
And yeah, they’re open, so that’s good news.
Yeah, when I was here last time, a group of local boys had a lot of fun with me.
I just heard someone calling out to me and I thought, “Oh no, it’s the same group of boys.” We’ll see what happens.
Yes sir. Could I buy one ticket? You can go to Dumai to Malacca. When? Tomorrow. No. Tuesday, May 5th. And a VIP ticket if possible.
No. There’s no ferry. But no seat. Oh, I see. I see. I see. Oh, okay. So, different days is a different ferry. Yeah. What about Monday? Monday. The same ferry. Sunday different. Sunday is different. Okay. I guess. Yeah. Just Sunday. This one. Oh, okay. So, that one is on Sunday. I think Tuesday is okay. Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah. So, no VIP. Okay. Yeah, it’s not.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 700. And this boat on Tuesday is okay. Yeah, it’s okay. Okay, this is your seat number and before 7:30 you must be there or 8. Yeah, I always go early so okay, don’t worry. This your ticket. Okay, that’s awesome. Thank you very much. Yeah. And don’t forget we fill out MDC. Yep.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
So that could not possibly have been easier or more pleasant. They’re really nice. All the staff that run the Indomal fast, very engaging, very warm, friendly. This woman spoke excellent English. And the only wrinkle you maybe you heard it on the video is that on the day that I wanted to go, the boat is a smaller one. So it doesn’t have a lower deck and an upper VIP deck. So if I wanted to go on that day on that date, there is no VIP seating. There’s just one class. So yeah, I tried to find out whether the day before there was like a bigger boat with the VIP up top and they said, “No, it’s the same one the day before.” So you have to keep going back and back and back before you finally get to the bigger boat that I like. But in this case, it’s fine. It’s not a long journey. So, and even the ordinary economy class, it’s basically it’s more comfortable than sitting on an AirAsia flight in economy, right? So, yeah, you can’t complain at all.
I’m down near the shoreline now. Heading back to my hotel now that I have my ticket taken care of. That was my one big errand for today. The ferry terminal is behind me on this road back there a couple of kilometers.
All along here on my right, you see all of that industry I was talking about. There’s a huge Palindo operation.
And what’s interesting is that when I first arrived here on my bicycle and I was riding along here, I was talking about all of the oil and gas refineries and pipelines and drilling and pumping for oil and gas, petrochemical. And then that’s what I was talking about. But then I was reading later on that a lot of these tanks that you see, the storage tanks, they’re not necessarily petrochemical. They could also be palm oil because they look very similar. And then one way you can tell is by the aroma. And I’m smelling something right now. And it doesn’t smell like chemicals, you know, like petrochemical gas and oil. It smells lighter than that, like more vegetable.
Maybe the power of suggestion is making me think that. But what I’m smelling does feel more like palm oil.
And when I stepped out of my room to come run this errand, I did have that thought about, yeah, what a foreigner thing it is to do to wait until 1:00 to go outside. You know, the hottest part of the day, the absolute worst time to do anything. That’s always the time when I go out to do things.
It’s just such an ingrained habit. I guess. Yeah, check out all these trucks. Dumai, man, it’s a rough and tumble place.
Yeah, I keep passing by more and more food stalls. There’s a Kopi Susu stall, but yeah, I can’t do it right now. Maybe tomorrow I get back on eating normally or at least snacking a little bit. Ease myself back into the world of having food. I have been drinking a lot just to sort of make up for the lack of food. So, that’s what I’m going to do right now. I’m going to stop off at an Indomaret, fill my knapsack up with a big variety of drinks, and just spend the whole night. Every time I feel hungry, I just open another bottle of orange juice and throw it back. Oh, there’s a nice looking place. Savory coffee and eatery.
And the base fare, by the way, for one way to Malacca is 600,000 rupiah. I’ll put up on the screen what that is in US dollars.
And then there’s a port tax, a few other taxes. It ends up being 670,000. And then at the dock, I have to pay for my bicycle and my luggage.
I remember ending up on this road when I was out on my epic pharmacy expedition clutching my stomach and stumbling from apotek to apotek and I ended up all the way out here. I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know how I made it this far and back to my hotel, but I didn’t have a choice.
Hello.
Luckily, today I’m on the mend, so not so difficult.
All right, Mr. Truck, what are you trying to do up here? Oh, it’s a big traffic snarl.
Hey.
Oh, yeah. Okay. Gas station. I wonder if what I’m seeing here is a direct result of the ongoing conflict in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz being closed. Maybe there’s a fuel shortage here in Indonesia as well.
Big lineup everybody. Hello.
There’s the Indomaret I have my eye on right beside an apotek.
Luckily I already had my antibiotics by the time I got here.
Yeah, I’m definitely feeling a bit weak. I’m not my usual self.
Woo! Look at that. I’m still rocking two kickstands. Makes my bike so much more solid.
Yeah, Dumai still has an ongoing milk shortage. I don’t think milk is related to the Strait of Hormuz, but who knows? There’s no milk here. I’ve been subsisting on orange juice and fruit juices.
Yeah, we’ll see what I can pick up on the inside.
I’m all stocked up with cold drinks to get me through the rest of the day and the night. And what shall I have while I sit here? I have to there’s so much strategy in my life because right now I bought a variety of things. I even bought some Coke Zero, some orange juice, some other fruit juice. They had a couple of cartons of like flavored milk, like strawberry milk. It’s not pure milk, but I got those anyway. So, I have to decide which of those is best ice cold, and which ones can I wait until later? And they’re in my room. Of course, they’re going to warm up to room temperature. So, right now, what do I want to drink? What will I enjoy the most if it’s ice cold? I think the Coke because orange juice and other fruit juice that will all taste fine room temperature. But a medium sized bottle of Coke Zero. I think that tastes better when it’s cold.
Huh? No fizz.
Yeah, it’s flat. Yeah, there must have been a leak in the lid. The whole thing has gone flat. It’s old and gone flat. Should I drink it?
I don’t know.
Still tastes good. It’s just it lost its carbonation. So, yeah, somebody must have cracked it. I didn’t notice when I opened it whether it was sealed or not. Yeah. Pro tip, you should always check the seal.
But I guess when you buy this many drinks, you forget.
And if I can go all Planet Doug on you for a minute. I have so many Wow, loud birds. Where are you? Oh, yeah. Caged bird. Like a song. An actual songbird. Wow. Such a tiny bird to make that loud a sound combined with the noise of the traffic. It’s very, very loud in here.
But I always run into trouble every time I go into a store because I don’t have the local instincts. I have Canadian instincts and I just make everything more difficult for myself.
Hello. Your camera screen is off. Oh, it’s okay because if I touch it, see everything’s okay.
Look at that. The Indomaret clerk here, she knows I shoot video for YouTube. And from where she was sitting, the rear screen of my GoPro, it turned off because I have it on a timer. And she came out to tell me, “Oh, your camera is not on.” So, very kind of her, but of course, it is on. But from her perspective, it doesn’t look like it’s on. But anyway, I always cause trouble for myself. I went to an Indomaret, not an Alfamart the other night, buying drinks like this. I go in there and it’s pretty busy, but all the local people, they have their strategies so that they get to the front of the line. So, one woman had already gone around the store, grabbed a bunch of stuff, brought it to the cash register, put it on the counter as a pile to reserve her spot, and then she went back out into the store to get more stuff. Right. Very clever. Meanwhile, I bought like 10 cold drinks and I’m holding them all in my arm because Alfamart is not a good store. This one they don’t even have any baskets. So, I’ve got them all in my arms and of course they keep slipping and falling out. I’m trying to hold on to these things and they’re falling and I’m picking them up and I’m dropping another one. And the whole time that I’m standing there holding them, I have this feeling like I’m warming them up because I’m holding them against my body and I’m like, “Oh, my drinks are my cold drinks are getting warm. Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry.” You know? So there I am. And then other people, they come in, they see that someone has piled up their stuff there, but they’re like, “There’s nobody here.” So, they just go in front of me and then they get their order taken care of and I figure, okay, I’m going to do that next, but I got a lot of things. And then this guy, young guy, comes up behind me and he has one cup of soup. That’s all he’s buying. And I know my transaction is going to take longer. So, instinctively, I just turn to him. Oh, you go ahead. Go ahead. You only have one item, cash only, quick in and out. You go ahead. So, I let him go ahead of me. And then now that he’s ahead of me, the woman who made the big pile, she comes back with more things, pushes past me, piles them on the counter. She leaves again, and it turns out she’s with the whole family. So, she’s got a sister or sister-in-law with her. They’ve got children, and they’re all shopping and bringing things. Anyway, this went on and on and on and no matter what I did, I could not get to the front of the line. Every time I made progress, someone else came in in front of me and I’m like, you know, I’m not going to get into a shouting match at Alfamart. So, I just wait my turn because I don’t have all the strategies. Yeah. And that happens to me all the time.
Yeah, I hope I’m not poisoning myself with 20 year old Coke Zero.
Oh, the life of a YouTuber on Planet Doug. Battery died on the GoPro. So, as always, as I’ve done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, I dismantled the whole media mod to pull the camera out so that I can change the battery. And of course, the lever that closes the door, like the battery door of the media mod, snapped off. Another media mod down. Ah, that’s kind of an unintended consequence of this poor media mod design that I’ve been raving, ranting, and raving about for years is that because of its poor design, every time you change the battery, you have to dismantle the whole thing, which means you have to open the media mod door all day long again and again and again and again and again. Every time you change the memory card, every time you change the battery, got to open the media mod door. And that door, the hinge is just made out of plastic. It’s not built strong enough to handle that much abuse. So, it’s inevitable. You break it. It’s like if you only opened that door like once a month because you didn’t have to do that to take the battery out. Like if you could just change the battery without opening that door, then things would be fine because you wouldn’t open the door all day every single day. But it’s what you have to do. And it’s not designed to be opened and closed that often. And broken. They’re too expensive to break like that.
The electronics still work, but now the door won’t stay closed. So, if I mount it on my bicycle like that and it’s vibrating, it’s just going to fall off the GoPro because there’s nothing holding it together. You need to close that door.
Anyway, with that rant out of the way, I’m going to have to come up with some sort of a gizmo on there where I can hook on a rubber band. That helps a little bit. Get a nice thick rubber band and just add to my GoPro construction. Anyway, I think I’ll end the video here because yeah, winding down for today. Very simple video, running a few errands. That’s all. Interrupted by a week of illness, but still probably a pretty long video. And if you’re still watching, you know that makes you a member of the Planet Doug Crunch Club. Put CC in the comments to let me know. I always love to see that. Oh, I got to go back to my hotel. I’m getting lightheaded out here in the heat. It’s just too hot to be out here. But yeah, also a shout out to everyone out there supporting me through Patreon, supporting me through Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go extremely helpful to keep the Planet Doug world in orbit and support through buy me a coffee very much appreciated and of course through PayPal. All of the Planet Doug supporters out there. Thank you very much. And yeah, basically I’m winding down here on my way back to Malaysia, picking up where I left off in Malacca. Spend a few days there, seeing a lot more of Malacca and then beginning the bicycle ride around Malaysia. And I’m really looking forward to that. So that’s it. See you next time. Back to my flat Coke Zero.