Working Nomad

Inspired by a comment on another website message board I am going to write a little about comfort zone. The comment went something along the lines on if your life is not making you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat then you are not pushing your boundaries.

I am currently well within my comfort zone. I am surrounded by a familiar environment, with familiar people doing familiar things.

So what I am going to do about this? Well I am off to Singapore on Thursday to meet a friend from home who is working there for short while. Hardly pushing the boundaries of travel in Southeast Asia!

Well after that I am heading to Thailand to meet another friend for a few weeks. Still not pushing my boundaries I admit! Later in November I am travelling through Cambodia and Vietnam which should, in theory, take me out of the comfort zone.

Dont’t be fooled into thinking this little boy on Kuta beach tonight is a lonely soul. Behind him was about 50000 people, mainly from Java on their holidays!

So I am meant to be a working nomad. Well at the moment I am more nomad than working. There are plenty of distractions here in Bali, not least the daytime activities of surfing and sunbathing.

I am doing a little at night but it’s more catching up with email and checking stats than actually being productive.

This is turning into a passive income which sounds great but over time my earnings will slowly erode away. I am not having a bad month earnings wise but no where near as good as September.

So I need to motivate myself again. If there was one big challenge in this way of working and living its getting off my butt and working!

Indonesia is in holiday mode now celebrating the end of the Muslim festival of Ramadan. The usual tourists beating a path in Bali are the less mortals of budget travellers and Aussies on their cheap package holidays.

The island is heaving with folk mainly from Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia) and mainly of Chinese descent. They are the nouveau riche of Southeast Asia.

What is does show is the massive gap between rich and poor in Asia! Talking of those less well off remember my friend from Sumatra who wanted desperately to go to Australia to start a new life?

Well, he went for one month and was n’t impressed. He didn’t like the food, the people and most importantly (in his opinion) the fact that sea temperature is a long way short of what he is used to. He should try surfing in England! Brrr.

15 hours flying through 8 timezones and I feel as rough as a badger’s arse so I am not going to write much.

Does anyone else find they suffer more when they fly West to East?

This will be my last post from a temperate climate for a while as I head back towards the equator. The summer in the UK has officially been the longest on record. Despte this people still claim there is no climate change happening!

I do believe there is such a condition as seasonal affective disorder (or SAD as it’s known here) and I think I may have suffered mildly from it in the past. Those gloomy short winter days definitely made me slightly depressed!

So it will be a few days before I am back online. My priority will be the waves of the Indian ocean.