I really loved Nicaragua and would come back here for sure when I’m more in the mood for travelling. I think towards the end of my time here I was just sort of fed up with living out of my backpack (never thought that would happen!) and sort of looking forward to New York. There’s a lot to explore though and I have a return ticket in mid October so we will see what happens.

Pros

• Affordable accommodation - The cheapest place I slept was in a hammock at a place called Little Morgan’s on Ometepe for $3 per night. It was the first time I have ever slept in a hammock and it was actually really comfy and really nice to see the sunrise without having to get out of bed. Hostel dorm beds go for around $6-8 which isn’t as cheap as in Asia (where this price would get you your own room) but it is pretty cheap and all of the places I stayed at were of a good quality.
• Cheap street and market eating - Street food can be had for under $2 for a decent sized feed. People will also sell chicken, salad and plantain chips in little bags on the buses and ferries for a buck. Markets are also a great place to shop as you will get fruit and veggies at a fraction of the price they are found at in supermarkets.
• Cheap and good transportation - Buses in Nicaragua are cheap. A two hour journey won’t cost much more than $2 and sometimes that’s on a nice bus with reclining seats. Even the so-called ‘chicken buses’ aren’t that bad. They’re old school buses and, while they can get crowded, they’re not bad at all. I wouldn’t want to be on one for ten hours, but for shorter journeys they’re fine. Getting to the Atlantic Coast by bus is a bit of a nightmare involving several days but if you plan on doing the usual stuff up and down the Pacific Coast then buses are a great choice. If you do want to head to the Atlantic, flights can be bought to the Corn Islands for about $60 one-way which is a fixed price.
• Interesting recent history - Nicaragua has been pretty much screwed over for years and fairly recently. Many people are passionate about politics and if you are able to communicate you will hear some interesting personal stories and opinions.
• Relatively safe - Statistically, Nicaragua is one of the safest countries in Central America and I remember reading somewhere that it is actually the safest, but I’m not sure on that one. What I do know is that I never felt unsafe while I was there. I walked alone at night in Managua (albeit in one of the better areas) and arrived at night into one of the bus stations and it wasn’t scary at all. I think the Nicaraguans were more scared for me which should maybe tell me something, but I never had any bad experiences. The worst thing I experienced was a chick fight on a bus on Ometepe which apparently was a long standing feud.
• Nice people - I can’t think of one time I had a bad encounter with a Nicaraguan besides the usual machismo sort of thing. Even the taxi drivers who were trying to rip me off were nice and bargaining with them was fun. People are more than happy to chat and, in my experience, they’re some of the friendliest and fun loving people I’ve come across.
• They speak Spanish - I want to learn Spanish so this was a huge advantage for me. Spanish courses are apparently not as cheap as in Guatemala, but they’re still affordable. The first course I took in Leon was $110 per week (living in a hostel) and the second attempt at learning Spanish cost me $130 per week to live with a family near Esteli. I can’t imagine it getting much cheaper than that. Few people outside of the tourist industry seem to speak English and are approachable and willing to chat with you.
• Decent internet connections - The internet in Nicaragua isn’t super fast, but it’s not terrible, either. Actually, it’s terrible on some places, but those were places where I was amazed to be getting it in the first place like the farm I worked on a side of a volcano.
• Variety of travel options - Within Nicaragua you can chill out on an island, hang out on the side of a volcano, learn to surf in a beach town, head up to the hills and check out the coffee plantations, go to the Atlantic Coast for a more Caribbean feel, head down the Rio Coco or Rio San Juan by canoe, or travel inland to visit minority villages. There is so much to do here. Plus if you get bored of Nicaragua, other Central American countries are easy and cheap to get to.
• Close to home - I’m from Canada and my family lives there and it was nice to be on the same side of the world for a change. It’s sort of reassuring in a way to know that home is only a shortish flight away.

Cons

• Supermarkets are expensive - If you decide you want to get away from street or market food and want to cook for yourself, be prepared to pay a lot more to stock up in the supermarkets. If you can manage to get your fruit and veggies in the markets and the rest at the supermarket you will save a bunch.
• Weather - I’m not one for the heat and Leon is one of the hottest places I’ve ever been and the other places aren’t much better. If you love the heat then you will love it here because it’s relentless.
• Mosquitoes - Nicaragua has the fastest, smartest mosquitoes I have ever come across and they enjoyed dining on my feet and ankles. Normally I wouldn’t put this as a con for a place but it was really bad. It drove me away from Ometepe because they were so bad. The first time I was there at the end of the dry season there was no problem but when I returned during the rainy season they were on the rampage.
• Boring parties - I have been to two Nicaraguan ‘parties’ and have heard the same thing from foreigners who have lived here for years. A Nica party usually consists of everyone sitting around, sipping pop, eating cake and not talking. It’s strange. If I were at a party like that I would be making excuses to leave but people just sit there for ages. Nobody really talks and nobody is making excuses to leave. I think when booze is thrown into the mix then things get a bit more interesting but for things like goodbye parties, children’s birthday parties and stuff like that, there isn’t usually booze involved. I would be curious to hear about other people’s experiences!

I had a pretty chilled time in Nicaragua. I wasn’t really in the mood for travelling and I was getting sort of bored of the usual backpacker conversations. I must be getting old. But I had a really good time working on the farm in Ometepe and met a few people who I will keep in touch with. My Spanish sucks but it went from non-existent to sucky which is a pretty big step up, I would say. It also got me interested in learning more and sticking with it. Overall I really loved Nicaragua and would recommend it to anyone.

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I’m about to leave Haiti for the second time after over four months living in Gonaives so it’s time for another country wrap up. Haiti doesn’t even rank as a tourist detination, let alone a place to come to hang out and work for awhile but, if you find yourself here for one reason or another, it is an interesting, dynamic place and not at all as bad as ‘they’ say it is.

Pros

• Cheap for eating - If you stick to a diet of things that are in season and in the markets (avacado, mango, eggplant, tomatoes, zuchinni, onion, plantain…) and are able to avoid the tempation of imported Western goodies then you will be able to eat very cheaply here. This is far easier said that done, though.
• Fascinating history and culture - Haiti was the first country to cast off the chains of slavery and establish itself as a republic and this is an important part of the country’s identity. The mix of Christianity and vodou is another really interesting aspect of Haiti and all of the festivities that go along with these things mean that the streets are often filled with revelers.
• Not as unsafe as you would think - I can’t speak for anywhere but Gonaives which is the second largest city in the country and possibly one of the more screwed up places but I felt totally safe there. People often shout at each other but I never saw a single fight and I never personally felt intimidated by anyone.
• Great people - Desperation will mean that many people and children will ask you for things and money but once you get past this and get to know individuals, you will meet some very inspiring people. I worked alongside about 30 young Haitian guys who were among the the hardest working, smartest, and most polite 20-ish year olds I’ve ever encountered. People in the streets were always happy to help and often led us all the way to our destinations if we were lost.
• Creole is relatively easy to learn - If you’re at all gifted with languages then Creole should be a pretty easy language for you to pick up. It’s similar to French but without all of the stuff that makes French really hard like masculine, feminine, and all those very conjugations. Plus people who speak even a small amount of English are keen to practice and also eager to teach you their language.
• Decent internet connections - Hotels in Port-au-Prince seem to be well equipped with wifi and other random signals seem to float around as well in the most unlikely of places. I was able to get online at our base in Gonaives and while it wasn’t always super fast, it was a decent connection. I never got a video to upload to You Tube but I did manage to stream some live video, download songs and upload using FTP with no problems.

Cons

• Very poor and desperate place - Poverty in Haiti can’t be avoided unless you live in a huge NGO compound and never leave. It’s all around you and people will ask you for things all the time. A favourite for young children is ‘give me one dollar’ and adults will often ask for items like your sunglasses and watch.
• Instability - While Haiti felt safe for me on a personal level, there is still a threat of uprisings and riots that are out of anyone’s control. Food riots occurred last April in Gonaives and, while we were there, some students were attacking schools because teachers stopped working since the government wasn’t paying them. There was also a gasoline shortage at the end of December. Kidnappings are something that get a lot of attention but the targets are almost always rich Haitians rather than your average visitor.
• Expensive accommodation - For some reason it is really difficult to find hotel accommodation in Haiti for under about $40 per night. Norm’s Place in Labadie is the exception at $25 per night but overall the accommodation prices seem to be out of whack with everyday living costs. I did have some friends who rented a concrete room for $60 per month but they definitely got what they paid for and it probably wouldn’t suit most working traveller types.
• Unreliable power supplies - Power in Port-au-Prince and Gonaives seems to die at the same time each day. In Gonaives it went off at around midnight and stayed off until about 10am the next day. Fortunately, we had an inverter to cover the downtime. If you don’t, access to the internet and other power hungry things will be restricted.

I really loved my time in Haiti mostly because I got to do some hard but fun work and built friendships with a lot of fantastic locals. It’s not an easy place to be and home will often seem very far away but for someone looking for an escape from the norm and a bit of a challenge, Haiti is certainly worth a look, even if you just pop over from the beaches of the Dominican Republic for awhile.

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I wasn’t going to bother writing one of these summaries for Myanmar because, to be honest, you wont find many places to get online and this doesn’t bode well for the mobile worker. I left my computer and my big backpack behind in Mandalay and spent most of my time exploring with only a small bag which was great. I didn’t get a thing done online but I managed todo a few things offline away from the distractions of the internet.

Pros

• Nicest people ever - I’ve never met people as nice as the ones I met in Myanmar. Except for the gross man that kept falling asleep on my shoulder on the bus and then wanted my phone number, I didn’t meet a single person I didn’t like.
• Lots of quiet time - There weren’t a lot of other travellers around when I was there and it’s not exactly a place known for crazy nightlife so if there is work you can get done offline then you will certainly have the time to do it.
• Very cheap to live - Myanmar is one of the cheapest places I’ve been to. You can survive on $10 per day if you don’t need to take long (and expensive) train and boat rides. I didn’t manage to pull that off but a friend of mine did, so I know it’s possible.

Cons

• Need to watch what you say - Government spies really are everywhere, according to the people I managed to sneak in conversations with. People are willing and eager to talk to you about all sorts of things but you have to be careful, mainly for their sake, about who might be listening. It sounds paranoid but it seems to be the reality in Myanmar.
• Very few decent internet cafes - There are a few internet cafes scattered around Yangon and Mandalay but I only managed to find one that wasn’t painfully slow that was able to sneak past the tight government controls and even this one was closed every few days because of server issues.
• Internet is monitored - Apparently the government here has ways of reading individual emails, and they do. It’s very creepy. I couldn’t even get proxy servers to work here (not that I know a lot about it though) so it seems like the government have more control than in China.
• No wifi anywhere - I didn’t come across a single wifi connection which wasn’t surprising given the lack of decent internet cafes. I wasn’t really expecting to find any though.
• Terrible food - I really didn’t like the food in Myanmar and was sustaining myself on a diet of apples. Oily curries, fish dishes and a cold soupy type dish were common and I didn’t like any of them. But I’m super picky so it could have just been me.
• People littering - I don’t know if students in Myanmar don’t get a lesson on the environment or what but everyone, young and old, chucks garbage around like crazy. Out of train windows, off the side of boats… plastic bottles, plastic bags… everything. It’s kind of sad to see.
• Difficult to get around - You have to fly into and out of Myanmar which is annoying to start with. Once you get there, travel on the ground is very slow and delays of multiple hours (I sat on a train for 10 extra hours!) are common. There are common tourist routes and buying tickets is easy but getting from place to place is slow going so give youself lots of time.

I ended up cutting my month long trip to Myanmar short by a couple of weeks and managed to miss out on all of the major sights so I will be back for sure at some point. You probably won’t get any work done online but, hey, we all need a vacation from it now and then and Myanmar is a great place to come to escape the net.

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Yikes! For some bizarre reason I didn’t write a country summary for China, the place I ended up spending most of my time. It probably has something to do with being caught up in the Olympic frenzy and spending the last weeks of my time there and first week away from there in a drunken stupor. I really enjoyed China though and think it’s worth a stop for mobile workers, so here’s my wee review.

Pros

• Cheap to live there - Sure, Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities are probably more expensive than they used to be and they’ll certainly be more expensive than small towns, but it’s still possible to live very cheaply in the big cities. The small towns are even better value for money and if you stick to villages you can live ridiculously cheaply.
• Friendly people - I have heard people say mixed things about their experiences with Chinese people but in my case I had nothing but a great time with them both at the Olympics and in my travels.
• Free wifi is common - Wifi is free in Starbucks and many cafes and restaurants in Beijing and I would assume other large cities as well. I was amazed at how common it was for places to have wifi and I don’t think I came across a single place that charged for it. Plus, guesthouses and hostels that don’t have wifi will often let you use their connected computer for free.
• Tasty food - I loved the food in China despite the occasional mystery meat or serving of 99% fat and bone. There’s a lot to sample and in Beijing there are lots of options if you want Western food. The street food in China that I sampled was always cheap, usually delicious and rarely resulted in emergency trips to the loo.
• Interesting business opportunities - I got the impression that China is a few years behind most of the rest of the world when it comes to the internet. People are still scared to use their creditcards online so, according to a local friend of mine, there aren’t many Chinese language ecommerce sites. I see this as an opportunity to be able to get in early with Chinese language sites if you have the necessery skills because I think its only a matter of time before online shopping becomes as huge in China as it is in the rest of the world.

Cons

• Slow internet connections - Internet use in China is monitored and this means that connections are slow. They’re pretty reliable and I never had problems with them disconnecting but they certainly weren’t fast.
• Blocked websites - The Great Firewall of China made sure that certain sites were off limits. While I was there I had problems viewing Blogger, You Tube and even Feedburner for some bizarre reason. I got around it when I needed to with proxy sites but it’s annoying and even slower than normal when you have to do this.
• Pollution - I didn’t notice it as much when I was travelling in Southern China but in Beijing it’s impossible not to be affected by the pollution. If I spent the day walking around Beijing I would always wake up the next morning with a sore throat. On the worst days, apartment buildings next to my own would be shrouded in smog and seeing a blue sky was a very rare thing.
• Difficult to get around the country - The transportation in China is good with cheap airlines and extensive train and bus networks but DAMN… its just so big. So getting anywhere can be costly and time consuming. I felt a bit stranded in Beijing and it didn’t help having to make visa runs all the way to Hong Kong.
• Visa issues - Speaking of visas… things seem to be business as usual these days now that the Olympics are over but things went haywire during the months leading up to the Games. Its sort of disconcerting knowing that the government can decide one day to make visa changes that could make your life miserable or even force you out of the country completely.
• Language barrier - Chinese is a hard language to learn and, in most cases, I got by just fine with a bit or miming and arm flailing. But because of the language barrier, accomplishing simple tasks can become very time consuming and frustrating. More people spoke English than I expected though and, if all else fails, there are always language students who would be happy to help you out in exchange for some conversation time.

There seem to be a lot of cons on this list but don’t let that scare you off because I loved my time in China. I would head back to Yangshuo to work in a second, although when I was there in July it was a bit too humid for me. I still havel lots of other places to explore and I have no doubt that I’ll be back there again at some point for several months or longer.

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Thailand is the kind of place that many people dream of when they attempt to create an online business. The idea of working from a hammock on the beach fits well with what Thailand has to offer. I only really spent time in Bangkok, Chang Mai and Pai with a couple of treks in between and never found my paradise but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there somewhere. Working in Thailand wasn’t as easy as I thought but I would be up for a second attempt for sure.

Pros

• Cheap - If you make an effort you can stay in Thailand for very cheap. Of course if you party all the time (which is tempting in some places) or do a lot of travelling then costs will add up but overall, Thailand is great value for money.
• Easy access to other parts of Asia - Thailand is as central as a place can be when you look at a map of Asia and it’s well connected. You can bus or train it to Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia and budget airlines like Air Asia make going a bit further really cheap and easy.
• Friendly people - In my experience I wouldn’t put Thais in the same category as Filipinos or people from Myanmar for friendliness but they come pretty close. It’s not known as ‘the land of smiles’ for nothing.
• Awesome food - I can’t resist Thai food. I love it. In Thailand, funnily enough, there’s loads of cheap and delicious Thai food to be had.
• Lots to see and do - Thailand seems to have something for everyone from diving to beaches to jungles to elephants to hill tribes etc etc. There always seems to be something fun to distract you if working gets to be too much.
• Cheap internet cafes - There are plenty of internet cafes with great connections that only charge 20 to 30 baht per hour. That’s about 60 to 90 cents and that’s super cheap. So if you like to work in internet cafes then you’ll be able to do it cheaply.

Cons

• Wifi rarely free - I expected Thailand to be well hooked up for wifi and was amazed to find that it was more common in China! When I did find it in hostels or cafes, there was almost always a charge to use it. A hotel I stayed at charged 600 (that’s about $17!) baht per day, Starbucks was 150 per hour, and most cafes were at least 50 baht per hour and often more… even if you bought food and drinks.
• Unreliable wifi - Thailand was the only country I consistently had problems with my wifi connections. If it wasn’t cutting out all the time it wasn’t connecting at all, despite the computer saying that the signal was strong. None of the staff ever seemed to know what was going on and it meant having to move from cafe to cafe in search of a working signal. A couple times in Chang Mai the entire block was having connections issues.
• Very touristy - I’m not a tourist hater type person so I don’t care much if a place I’m in is crowded with expats and travellers but if this bothers you then you might want to think twice about coming to Thailand. The tourist industry here is super developed and main destinations are crawling with backpackers so if you want to escape the crowds you’ll have to do some hunting to find the off the beaten path type places.

I was surprised at how crap wifi in Thailand was both from the having to pay for it angle and the unreliability aspect. Maybe I just never found the good places? I don’t know. If I could get a list of guesthouses and cafes with fast and free net connections then I would be back to check them out because I really did enjoy my time in Thailand.

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I’ve been in China over a couple weeks now (and still only know about five words in Chinese - oops) and thought now would be as good a time as any to give a little rundown on getting setup in Beijing and what life costs here.

• Apartment - I mentioned in a previous post that my apartment is costing 2,200RMB per month which is about $315 USD. Not bad at all especially since my budget was closer to $500 per month. For the cheaper price I have a flatmate but it’s actually pretty good because I can pick his brain about Beijing and he’s always up for a night out. I met him randomly in a bar but most people find their places on the That’s BJ website. There are places for stupidly cheap prices if you’re willing to share, live out of town and rent an older place. My apartment is pretty swish and is located right on the edge of the Central Business District so is relatively central. I had to pay three months plus a deposit up front which is a bit of a shocker but pretty common here I think. Oh and we both hate to clean so we’ve got a cleaner for 30RMB a go, twice a week. She even does the dishes!
• Phone - I already talked about my phone too but it cost 500RMB (about $70) including a SIM card. It was the cheapest, nastiest one they had on display and I didn’t attempt to bargain so I’m sure someone who’s a bit more savvy could have gotten it for less. Calls and texts seem pretty cheap and my pay as you go top ups last a long time.
• Transport - I’ve been taking taxis pretty much everywhere because the subway stop closest to me is about a 30 minute walk away. There’s a new line under construction that I’m hoping will be done in June, like they say. That’s just around the corner so hopefully that’ll increase my use of public transport. Taxi fares are really cheap though. I was in one for about 30 minutes the other day to go from my house to the complete opposite side of town and that only cost about $10. That’s the minimum fare for a five minute cab ride in London! Subway prices are hard to resist at only 2RMB per ride to anywhere. Buses are about a quarter of that price but I haven’t worked them out yet and they’re usually scary busy.
• Internet - The internet was always running in the place I moved into so I’m not sure if there are setup fees for new customers. To top it up for another five months cost 600RMB and my flatmate agreed to pay half. So for about $40 I’m covered for five months.
• Gym - I joined a Bally Total Fitness near my house for 1500RMB for three months (500 per month). I got them down from 1800RMB. I guess that’s around the same price as I’d pay in London and I think it’s meant to be a pretty fancy one. I think the more months you buy the cheaper the per month rate goes and I’m told you should always bargain.
• Food - I keep getting tempted by the Western food store next to my gym and keep buying expensive things like cheese. I haven’t really gotten into a steady routine yet so it’s hard to know what I spend on food monthly. It’s a lot more than it could/should be though especially since I keep ordering from an Italian place that delivers. Tasty but at about $10 a meal it adds up.
• Partying - I’m back into my old habits of late, boozy nights but am trying to exercise a bit of self control and keep it to two or three nights out a week. There are lots of fun places to go here and having a sociable housemate makes it tough. Beers can be bought for insanely cheap at the shop in my apartment. Only 2.50RMB (30 cents!) for a big bottle so drinking at home is cheap. Heading out, beer costs about 15RMB for a small bottle which is still reasonable. Taking cabs everywhere, eating out and drinking too much adds up though and if you’re the sociable type then factor this into your budget. But overall things are still affordable and you can have a meal, drinks and a taxi for around 200RMB (under $30). In London return cab fare alone would cost twice as much as that.

Assuming I spend 200RMB per month on phone top ups then my base costs including the phone, gym, apartment, cleaner and internet come to 3080RMB or about $440 USD. Assuming I keep my taxi rides, Western food and party time under control then I see no reason not to be able to live on $1000 per month which is what I was hoping for. Of course my ultimate goal is to spend less that I’m making each month so that gives me plenty of wiggle room if I decide I want to go a bit nuts with the spending now and then.

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Well I’ve been here for 5 days now, spent two of them in bed hungover (old habits die hard) and have still managed to accomplish a couple of things in the meantime.

I’ve bought a cell phone for 500RMB ($71) with a sim card. It is cheap and crappy looking and I’m sure I could have bargained them a bi tlower but I had an employee of the hostel helping me and I felt stupid bargaining through a translator.

I haven’t been out doing the tourist thing much but I have figured out the subway system after taking a trip out to Wudaokou, the university area. I had originally planned to live out there so wanted to scope it out a bit and see what connections into the city were like. The subway is pretty good but seems to be packed at all times and I’m starting to realise why foreigners tend to cab it everywhere.

As for the apartment hunt, this sounds dodgy, but I met some American dude in a bar the other night and got chatting to him. He needed a roomie sharpish, I needed a place to stay, we chatted some more, I went to look at it and now I’m sitting in the lounge room typing away. My room is huge, the apartment is massive, it’s nice, pretty central in the Guomao area and at 2,300RMB ($330) a month it’s a lot cheaper than what I was expecting to have to pay for my own place. Plus I can stay for six months, he’s ok with me having people stay for the Olympics, he’s been here a while and has lots of connections, speaks a bit of Chinese and is a generally laid back kind of guy. Should be good.

Today’s goal was to suss out the language school scene. There’s a place up the road from me that has a class starting next Monday for $530 for four weeks. I am pretty keen to get started somewhere but this place is four hours per day starting at an agonising 8:30am five days a week. Gadzooks. I’m not sure I want to put myself through that but it’s near to my house, the price seems ok, and if I don’t have a reason to get up in the mornings I can see myself wasting all my time here. Still thinking about it…

I’m also on the hunt for a gym to join and apperently there are quite a few in this area. It’s funny wandering around here because I have no decent maps, can’t read the street names even if there were any, and I don’t even know what to tell a taxi driver if I were to get lost and need to take a cab home. It’s pretty exciting but daunting at the same time.

I’m up for a challenge though so we’ll see how it goes!

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Malaysia doesn’t feel like Asia to me. What Asia is supposed to feel like, I do not know, but Malaysia seems too modern and organised to be a part of the chaos that can be found elsewhere on the continent. I’ve only been to three places this time around and from what I’ve seen so far, Malaysia is a very good spot for mobile working.

Pros

• Wireless internet widely available - Whenever I turn on my computer, wherever I am, there always seems to be at least a couple of wireless connections floating through the air. Hostels seem clued up to the fact that people are travelling with laptops these days and many have wifi, even outside of Kuala Lumpur.
• Internet everywhere - Anywhere without wireless will still have some kind ofnet connection available. I was on an island that only had electricity on for half the day and even they had the internet.
• Mobile connection of your own is possible - I don’t know the details because my crappy Bangladeshi phone busted just as I was leaving the country, but I think it’s possible to set something similar up in Malaysia where you can get a connection through a mobile phone. As mobile coverage here is excellent, that means a connection anywhere you may go.
• Great location for travelling in Asia - Malaysia is in a great spot if you want to get a lot of Asian travel in. KL is a hub for a few airlines including budget Air Asia and travelling from here is cheap and there are lots of great places nearby.
• Friendly people - I really like Malaysians! The ones I’ve met have been very fun loving and friendly on a level that seems more genuine to me than in other places in Asia.
• Access to perks from home - You can find pretty much anything you want from home in KL. It’s a big, modern city with all the perks that come with it so if you’re afraid of missing out on Western goodies while being in Asia then Malaysia will be a good choice.
• Lots of settings to choose from - If you want to work from the beach, you can. If you’d rather an apartment in KL, no problem. Or if you prefer a jungle setting then Malaysia has that as well. The country is varied enough to having something for everyone.

Cons

• Relatively more expensive that other Asian countries - This is me stretching to find a con because Malaysia is still a cheap place to live when compared to the UK (isn’t everywhere?) but it’s not quite as cheap as the Bangladesh and Cambodia’s of the world.
• Too much like home - I feel like KL could be any city in Canada or the UK and driving between towns in peninsular Malaysia feels the same as at home. It’s obviously a very culturally diverse place but if you’re wanting a challenge or a really big change from home then you might want to look elsewhere or try to get off the beaten path.

I’ve only spent about 10 days total in Malaysia visiting KL, the Cameron Highlands and the Perhentian Islands but I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far and could see myself spending some time kicking back on an island here getting some work done. It’s comfortable, connecting and well located and I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up back here in the future for longer than just a few days.

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When I think of earning a living online I imagine my work day will involve sitting on a beach with my laptop sipping strawberry daiquiris listening to waves crashing all around me. I don’t image being holed up in a hotel room drinking tea and listening to the call to prayer but that doesn’t mean it might not be an interesting way to work. I doubt Bangladesh makes anyone’s list as a dream destination for the mobile worker but if you’re up for something different then it might be worth a look.

Pros

• Low cost of living - Everything in Bangladesh is cheap. I think you could live comfortably in Dhaka on well under $500 and cheaper in smaller cities and ridiculously cheap (under $200) if you get away from the cities altogether.
• Internet is cheap and easy to set up - Setting up your internet connection is as easy as buying a mobile phone for about $100, a data cable, and heading into a Grameen store to set up a monthly connection. If you’ve already got a compatible phone, even better.
• Interesting setting - Anyone up for a cultural experience will love Bangladesh. Pretty much everything will be different to what you’re used to and you’ll be amazed by something new each day you spend here.
• Friendly people - The people I met in Bangladesh are among the kindest and most generous I’ve met anywhere. You will have an instant best friend forever in almost everyone you meet and you’ll never be lonely here. In fact i think it’s probably impossible.

Cons 

• Internet can be slow - The net connection, while cheap and reliable, can be pretty slow at times. I’m not sure of the technical stuff but things can slow down to a North American dial-up pace circa 1999 so if you have a need for speed then a cell phone connection probably won’t do it.
• Unpredictable weather - Bangladesh gets battered by cyclones and flooding so if you’re planning a stay in the country it might be a good idea to avoid the rainy season. If you want to stay longer term then you will probably have to weather a few serious storms.
• Constant staring - Bangladeshis have no shame about staring at you for long periods of time and in large groups. This takes some getting used to and, while for the mos t part harmless, it can get annoying constantly being the centre of attention anytime you venture outside.
• Few perks from home - If you arrive and find that you’re not a fan of the food and goods found in Bangladesh you will be in for a rough time because there are very few Western foods and goods around except in the Gulshan area of Dhaka.
• Those few perks are relatively expensive - When I said everything is cheap I meant everything except for Western goods so if you can’t live without Cadbury’s or KFC then your time here will end up costing a lot more.
• No alcohol - Muslims aren’t supposed to drink and since Bangladesh is a Muslim country, there’s no drinking. Well, there’s not supposed to be. It can be found if you know where to look but going down to the pub for a pint is out of the question.
• Women’s issues - Bangladesh is a conservative Muslim country and for women that means you have to dress modestly, can’t get into certain places (mosques at prayer time etc.) and probably lots of other things that didn’t really have an effect on me.

I really loved my time in Bangladesh. It’s a country that is totally outside of my comfort zone but I managed to adapt and feel like a learned a lot living there. Am I in any rush to return? Hell no. But I had a blast there and think that it has a lot to offer any mobile worker who wants a break from beach life and normality and wants to shake things up.

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