Working Nomad

Had an email the other regarding free wi-fi in Asia. For anyone who is n’t familiar with the term ‘wi-fi’ it is basically wireless broadband and can be found at various places such as airports, coffee bars etc.

You basically rock up and logon to the network and you have free broadband speed Internet connection from your own laptop! (Your laptop must have a wi-fi card plugged in or have one built in)

Well the person who emailed me mentioned an excellent web site called <a href="http://www.wififreespot.com/asia.html">Wifi Free Spot</a> which is a database of free spots around the globe and importantly for me Asia too.

Free Internet is a dream for a working nomad. While the Internet cafes in Southeast Asia are pretty cheap anyway it all adds up. There are times when I could really do with a 3 or 4 hour session from my laptop rather than downloading files onto my USB memory stick and plugging it into an Internet cafe PC.

Sometimes while surfing the Internet I spot something and would really like to tweak my site there and then but I can’t at the moment.

Alas there is no free wifi here in Bali but I am heading to Kuala Lumpur on the 12th of November and should be able to find some free wifi.

Well after a few hard nights of excess I have settled down into a steady Monday to Friday routine now.

9am – Normally I get up and go to my favourite café for breakfast and then onto an air-conditioned coffee bar (Starbucks at the moment here in Kuta) for 2 hours or so work.

1pm – Get back to my guesthouse and freshen up. Go and get some lunch and then head down the beach around 3pm for a couple of hours surfing until sunset.

7pm – I either go shopping / wandering or head to the Internet café to upload any new work and catch up with emails, news etc.

9pm – Meet friends for dinner and maybe head off to a bar for some beers.

This is the version if I end up going out late drinking the local Arak!

3am - Stagger back to the guesthouse avoiding numerous working ladies on motorbikes.

3pm – Finally get up feeling very sorry for myself (usually accompanied with a sore head).

3:30pm – Go down to the guesthouse pool and back to sleep.

6pm - Finally get out in search of comfort food.

9pm - Back in bed asleep.

Getting back to business, Google are in the process of a major update which is having some positive impact on my newer sites but not so on my more established sites! Hopefully things will calm down soon but it is the talk of the web geek community presently.

I will be posting an earning’s update soon for October. It is hard to tell at the moment how I have done overall but it will not be a record month.

Thankfully my living expenses are now very minimal. My guesthouse is about GBP 4.00 a night and most meals are coming in at under GBP 1.50. If only I did n’t like beer!

Just a quick update to say that I have n’t done too much work yet since I arrived last Tuesday. This is largely due to meeting some people I know and drinking too much of the local brew Arak!

It is such a nice change to be somewhere where the pace of life is slow. I am so use to seeing people charging around all day. Unfortunately my laptop has also decided to take things a bit slower as well! I am giving it week or so to acclimatise.

The Working Nomad adventure has begun. Well it is actually on hold for a few days. I will be neither working nor will I be nomadic as I will be have a bit of a holiday, catch a few waves and generally chill out.

The Bali tourist industry has obviously felt the impact of the recent bombing. I saw my first hint of this at the departure gate for my flight from Kuala Lumpur to Dempasar. The Malaysian airlines plane wasn’t even half full. The other two times I have flown into Bali the planes were full both times (and at similar times of year).

I guess this could be down to the fact we are just about to enter the wet season as well. While the place seemed deserted this morning it is certainly more lively tonight with lots of tourists shuffling about being hassled for things they don’t want to buy.

All I can say again is that if you have a holiday planned for Bali then still come along. Natural and man-made disasters can happen anywhere at anytime. The folks here certainly need you.

There is definetly more security about. My small rucksack was checked today as I entered a busy shopping mall in Tuban which is reassuring. It is probably as safe as anywhere in terms of global terrorism.

As I mentioned above I am not going to be doing much work over the next few days. Despite a quiet start to the month things have picked up a bit on the web earnings front which is good news and I am back on target to at least match September’s performance.

I am about to leave for London now and will be flying off in the morning for Kuala Lumpur. I have a 5 hour wait at KL and will arrive in Bali at 6pm on Tuesday, local time.

Might be a day or two before I update the blog.