A few days ago I arrived to Hong Kong. It’s my first time here, and I’ve always wanted to go ever since I watched Rush Hour 2 – one of my favorite movies of all time. (side note: have there actually been any good comedy movies release over the last decade? I honestly don’t remember any)
Canggu, Bali review
Prior to coming here I was in Canggu, Bali for the last 3 weeks. Loved it there. Endless supply of nice cafes to work out of, good food, and beautiful sunsets on the beach. Tons of foreigners, so I wouldn’t recommend Canggu specifically if you’re looking for culture, but for working remotely it’s great.
Pros of Canggu
- Beautiful sunsets on the beach
- Endless supply of nice cafes to work out of. Lots of coworking spaces as well
- Lots of foreigners (if you’re looking for local culture that’s a con, but then you shouldn’t be in Canggu)
- Good food
- People are super warm, positive, and smile a lot (even moreso than even Thailand I think). I really love this, and it’s a stark contrast to cities like NYC
- Very good prices if you know where to look. For example I was going to this tiny gym where a day pass was 20k rupiah (~$1.34)
Downsides of Canggu
- Hotels/guesthouses/AirBnBs weren’t actually as cheap as I expected. Most hotel rooms don’t have desks, and the quality of the accommodation wasn’t as high as I expected – specifically if you want to be within walking distance to everything. It seems most hotels in the $40-60/night range tend to be basic deskless rooms facing an inner courtyard where you have little privacy. I finally ended up finding a room I really liked with two windows facing the jungle that cost me $50/night. But I easily had the best room in the hotel, and the rest of the rooms there were not special. The unfortunate side effect of this was that it made me reluctant to venture out of Canggu for fear of losing this room, which in hindsight I regret.
Anyways if you’re looking for long-term housing then your money will go significantly farther, guessing 2-3x. But for hotels the value was not as good as I expected, though of course still a hell of a lot better than the west
- Not really any sidewalks, bad traffic. The streets are narrow and filled mostly with motorbikes so you don’t feel in danger, but it could be more pleasant to walk around.
- Canggu is fairly small and doesn’t have too much of a walking area. If you prefer big cities and aren’t so much into nature, then you might get bored.
- Most co-working spaces are actually pretty expensive. A couple that I saw were charging around 240k rupiah ($16) for a day pass. Again this is still cheap by western standards, but more than I expected here.
- Indonesian government can be…authoritarian. For example they banned marriage outside sex, nonmarried couples staying in the same room, websites like Reddit, and if you watch a movie in theaters then the sex scenes will probably be cut. On the bright side Bali has claimed that they won’t be enforcing this new marriage outside of sex law.
- Despite Bali and particularly Canggu being a digital nomad hub, it’s still a fairly transient place, and most people you see there are either tourists or people staying max 1-3 months.
- Lots of influencers, new age yoga / spirituality types. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and of course I’m stereotyping here, but Bali definitely attracts a specific type of person. That being said I think there’s enough people to where anyone can find their community.
Overall I really enjoyed Bali. Admittedly I didn’t make much of a community there, but I didn’t put effort into that either because I was pretty focused on work. At some point I felt like I was doing the same routine over and over again, and Hong Kong was on my list, so I decided to book the flight out.
Hong Kong
I like Hong Kong. I’ve been to most of the big Asian capitals (Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei), and Hong Kong is still different enough to be interesting. It’s an island with mountains that make for a nice backdrop. The hike and view from Victoria Peak is beautiful, one of the best skylines I’ve seen especially at night. The architecture in the city is fascinating with a lot of contrasts between the old residential skyscrapers with the window A/C units, and the modern. This is an awesome city for photography with all the architectural contrasts, gritty alleyways, and local life. The food is delicious.
Downsides are that housing here is very expensive, and if you save money there you’ll probably end up somewhere tiny and low quality. I originally checked into a hostel that turned out to be the tiniest and worst hostel I’ve ever seen, other than the beautiful view from the 15th floor. I checked out early and booked a decent hotel with a desk, but it’s $100/night.
Despite Hong Kong being pretty modern with nice malls, it’s work cafe selection is actually very weak. Honestly I haven’t found any really solid work cafes yet (unlike Seoul where you’ve got one every block). Fortunately I found a nice coworking space on the 18th floor with a beautiful view for 128/day (~$16). The desk could be higher, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.
Some thoughts
Being a solo digital nomad is an interesting life, and there are moments where I’ll feel lonely and wonder wtf I’m doing, and others where I’m loving life and feel my life is awesome.
Right now I feel like my life is awesome. I mean it’s not like I’ve even done anything particularly special here since I’ve mostly just been walking around alone – but how cool is it that I’m walking around Hong Kong of all places in the world, and still getting work done, when I could be crammed in some cubicle doing the same sh*t everyday.
I think some people prefer routine, while others find routine boring. For example I met a couple in Bali where the guy liked having his routine and working from the same space, while his girlfriend was more like me and preferred to constantly work in different cafes and coworking spaces.
For people like me who hate routine and love variety, remote work is a godsend, and nomadic life is potentially a good fit.
Office life definitely punished those of us who aren’t so routine-oriented, and also those of us who are night owls. We were like the “hyperactive” kids in grade school scolded by our teachers for not wanting to sit still like prisoners all day, or the intellectually curious kid at church scolded by the ministry for questioning the existence of God.
I think the traditionalists still aren’t convinced that one can be productive while traveling. I hope to prove that wrong.
Here’s a bullet point list of some random thoughts:
- When someone feels like crap, it’s probably because they’re not living authentically and true to themselves. This is generally how people feel when they stay in their comfort zone, not taking a risk and going after their dreams out of fear or laziness.
- There’s a golden opportunity in tech right now because AI has just enabled a ton of opportunity, but most people and companies are still not aware or have not seized the opportunity. Eventually this window will close as the opportunity gets arbitraged away, after which I believe many peoples’ livelihoods will be fcked since they’ll be replaced by AI. Basically those who seize the opportunity now can make a killing, before sht hits the fan (of course sh*t wouldn’t have to hit the fan if we just implemented a UBI, but the rich people + corporations who run the world don’t want to give up any of their wealth/power so they’ll try to convince us that AI will actually empower the wagie class)
- The biggest challenge is not putting in the work, it’s prioritization, or working on the right things. The best entrepreneurs don’t merely work hard, they know how to focus on the right things, and allocate their time where it has the highest ROI. I think there’s been a lot of hustle porn, which of course is useful if you’re lazy, but there’s not enough emphasis on working on the right things. This has definitely been a weakness of mine as I’ve historically had an OCD-like tendency to dive into every rabbit hole thrown at me, but recently I’ve been making a conscious effort to avoid that trap and try to ensure that I’m always working on the highest ROI tasks.
- For men (I can’t speak for women), I’ve been thinking recently that sex and love might have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and might even be antithetical to one another. How many men are bored of banging their wives despite loving them dearly, yet would get rock hard in a second for some pretty young thing despite the fact they obviously have zero love for that object of lust, and may even despise their personality. When a man rubs one out, is he fantasizing that this pornstar is his wife and that they’re deeply in love and making love to each other? No, he’s probably fantasizing that she’s some random girl he just met and is boning for the first time like an animal in an alleyway or grocery store. Again I can’t speak for women because I’m not one, but I know also that many women have rape fantasies, and that women actually crave more variety when it comes to sex than men – even if women aren’t as stimulated by the novelty of multiple partners.
Ok this post has gone a bit off the rails so I’m going to end it here.
J. Savage 