Welcome to Dumai, Sumatra – a city I wasn’t expecting to love quite this much.
I stumbled across a cafe called Monochrome just down the street from my hotel, and it turned out to be exactly what I needed. Great coffee, fried bananas covered in cheese and chocolate (courtesy of a mystery benefactor!), and enough Wi-Fi to actually get some work done.
Then I found Louna Cafe, and everything changed. Fast uploading speeds, a gourmet burger, air conditioning (sort of), and a garden full of power outlets. I uploaded three videos in about two hours. For a YouTuber, that’s basically pure joy.
This video is a bit of a hybrid – cafe tours, behind-the-scenes tech chat, some thoughts on modern travel (e-wallets, GoPros, camper vans), and a few updates on YouTubers I’ve been following. It’s a slow, honest, unpolished look at what my life actually looks like on the road.
No disasters. Just a guy with a laptop, a GoPro, and a very nice cup of local coffee.
If you enjoy long-form, conversational, travel-adjacent content about the small details of life as a digital nomad in Southeast Asia, you’ll probably like this one.
Places mentioned:
– Monochrome Cafe and Roastery
– Louna Coffee and Space
– Wisma Cemara Hotel
Tech things I ramble about:
– GoPro Hero 9 / Hero 12 / Hero 13
– The new GoPro Mission series
– DJI Pocket 4
– Media Mod frustrations (old vs. new)
– Touch ‘n Go e-wallet magic
– Gojek, GoCar, and QRIS payments
As always, thank you for watching and for supporting the channel – especially my Patreon members, Touch ‘n Go supporters, and the Crunch Club who make it all the way to the end.
See you in the next one.
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📸 GEAR LIST 📸
🎥 Action Cam: GoPro Hero 12 Black
🎥 Action Cam: GoPro Hero 9 Black
🎥 360 Cam: Insta360 X3
🎤Microphone #1: Rode Wireless Go
🎤Microphone #2: Rode Wireless Go II
📱Smartphone 1: Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus
📱Smartphone 2: Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus
Laptop: Asus TUF A16 Gaming Edition
Editing Program: DaVinci Resolve
Tablet: Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e
Editing App: Kinemaster for Android (Version 6)
Music Source: YouTube Audio Library
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Heartfelt THANK YOU to Planet Doug Patreon members! Your support through Patreon means more than you know!
OCEAN PLANET
Habibullah K.
Dominik S.
Gilles D.
Armando B.
CITY PLANET
Daniel B.
THTan
Kwan K.
STL
FOREST PLANET
Khairulyadi M.
Koo Keng K.
Robert M.
Siv
Paul S.
LK Ting
Special thanks to KY for all his essential help with my day-to-day struggles, to Habibullah K. for his amazing generosity, to Andy T. for great meals and much-appreciated donations, and to Mohd Zin bin A. for his awesome regular support.
CHAPTERS
00:00 – Monochrome Coffee & Roastery
06:04 – Upload Experience & Milk
11:02 – Teh Hijau & Bakso Street Food
16:51 – Sampling Snacks at Hotel
24:07 – Uploading at Louna Cafe
30:17 – BTS Louna Cafe WiFi
37:50 – GoJek, GoCar, & TNG
56:45 – Changing Hotels
01:00:50 – Laptop Glitch
01:07:26 – New GoPro Cameras
01:29:52 – New GoPro Accessories
01:41:29 – What GoPro SHOULD Do
01:44:29 – Rise of Micro 4/3
01:50:07 – New DJI Pocket 4
02:04:25 – Tread the Globe – YouTuber
02:18:56 – American Hobo – YouTuber
02:32:05 – Nick K – YouTuber
02:40:54 – Conclusion & End Credits
15 Comments
Way to go, Doug. More power to your Asus TUF!
With regards to uploading from your laptop via a phone hotspot, why not try a USB cable connection and use tethering instead? That may overcome hotspot restrictions by the cell co.
Doug I know you talk a lot about your many problems with technology but anyone who edits with Resolve deserves respect. I've often thought of switching from Final Cut to Resolve but the learning curve seems like a real challenge.
Original in short is Ori.
Ori = Original – just sweet ice green tea, no additional flavor 😃
sound fun!
I try to buy powdered milk1kg bags from Australia or New Zealand and keep it sealed or tinned whenever I travel to countries where fresh milk isn’t popular. It hydrates fine, and whitens coffee without cooling it down. It keeps for months if kept cool and sealed. Local milk usually is sweetened or flavored in some way.
Oh Doug….😆
Just when I thought planet Doug's gravitational pull to luck is going your way since you arrived in Dumai everything seems to go seamlessly the universe decided to say: "uh oh doug… Not this time…" just when you decided to change hotels… 😅
Nice vid Doug, a mix of daily footage and bts… On the tech side, although the internal audio of your hero 9 is alright (20:50) i think it still is way inferior (quality and clarity wise) to the 3 or 6 that Daniel is using… At least you found a planet Doug outdoor studio to replace solong… 😊
its gonna take me 3 days to go thru this video 😀
300 usd start up equipment and 100 bucks a month for starlink, i dont know if thats too much of a price for your convenience.
Talking about YouTubers, you might like to know "Pro Life traveler" named Siim, an Estonian national hit 100k subscribers after getting deported from the Philippines! Fancy That!
Great video, I'm starting to think Indonesia is a great place to visit especially that area.
CC
Nice food there. Your working position at 1:24 is very much better than placing laptop on lap. Clean tables are always the best, you will be surprised on the amount of dirt inside laptops sucked in by the vent fans and the accumulated microdust seriously impedes laptop performance among other things
CC, wow, that was a long one!
CC. I am glad you managed to fix your laptop.