After Heikki’s post, I have to write out my take too – here goes:

We’ve been offered a chance to run a small dive operation in the north of Bali. The dive centre is owned by the Company, and accompanied by a hotel resort. The customer volumes have been low throughout the year for the last two years or so, and the Company would like to see the business grow. That’s what they’re hoping to achieve by sending us up there.

There are positives and negatives to the offer, as always. Negatives first: It’s up there, far away from everything. It takes three hours in a car up the winding roads over the mountain range and through the jungle to get there, and the facilities are not that up-to-date. Only one of us would have the actual work visa with real pay to boot, the other one would have to get by with commissions and sales, which means quite a meager wage for one of us, and not a massive amount for the other one either. (I do have to say though that we’ve been living off one budget for quite a while now, so that wouldn’t be anything new.) The local religion (Balinese hinduism) has a habit of sounding off very lound prayer calls in the morning as well as in the evening, which has proven irritating in the past. And we’d have to do supplying trips down south (read: Sanur/Denpasar area) pretty much weekly to keep the shop and the resort stocked.

On the positive side, it would be an unparalleled chance to show what we can do. We would get to design the dive shop interior, run the daily operations, deal with customers and answer their emails. We’d also have to manage a little staff, learn the nooks and crannies of accounting a small business and do all the marketing both online and offline. There is an opportunity to be one’s own boss without actually bearing the financial burden of becoming an entrepeneur. We’d have the freedom of making the best of the business as we can, creating our own best practices and ways of working. Also we’d improve on the web pages, try to get them higher in the search results and also do some translating.

Moreover, it’s not every day that fresh diving instructors get the opportunity to run a business to the best of their abilities with this amount of history in the field. It will look very good in both our diving and non-diving CVs, not to mention the mass of experience we’d gain from the trip. Plus, we’d be diving easily the best sites in Bali pretty much daily. Just because of the remoteness, not too many divers actually make it all the way up there which makes the sites absolutely pristine and teeming with marine life.

Adding to that, we’d finally have a real apartment, with a real kitchen and bedrooms and air conditioning and stuff, all paid for by the company. That is to say, yours truly has been suffering from home sickness in the sense of longing for a home anywhere for a while now, and having a place to call home is extremely fetching for me indeed. Even if it wouldn’t be for much more than a year or so, it would still beat moving every four months. And, did I mention the steady pay for one of us already? That’s something freelancing instructors down in southern parts of the island don’t get. That would mean we wouldn’t have to dip into our savings any longer, even if we wouldn’t be generating much income either. And we’d still get the commissions and provisions on diving days and equipment sold, as well as courses taught.

Many of the actual details of the agreement are still open, but we’ll do our best in negotiating them. We haven’t been discussing the actual whens of the deal either, but we do know that we could do our trip back to Finland in September and continue the work in October.

But, as always, it’s not as cut-and-dry as one would hope. As Heikki wrote, there’s the option of Finnish summer, our loved ones and probably the best food in the world. With the unemployment benefits and summer cottages to take care of, we’d be happy as pigs in mud there. Need a good, hard think on this.

Tags: accommodation, diving, money, moving, oh bugger, planning, religion, work

Our assignment in Bali is only a few days short of coming to an end. The future is a complete mystery right now, but finding a good job here has proved to be a bit challenging. Being a freelancer might prove feasible with very modest accommodation and tight budget, and even after that we wouldn’t have anything to put aside. Taking the other offer we currently have on the table has the same problem, since it is originally a one-person position and pays accordingly. After devouring my savings for four months and a bit I would like to get back to supporting myself.

Now, I know this isn’t the industry to get rich in, and I’m not planning to: that’s a project for another time. Right now I’m looking for a job that can support my accommodation, food and other running costs without having to count every single penny. So far I haven’t found it, but I know they’re out there. We’ll have to keep on looking.

And while looking for it, there’s two options: we can either stay in Bali and hope that there’s some work to do, or we can go back to Finland for a while. I know there’s a lot of stuff to do back there, and we would get a living out of it. Both options have their sides.

Staying in Bali would allow us to do some work and gain experience, but also requires a lot of compromises. We’ve been staying in the Bedroom for four months now, listening to a crappy live band next door six nights a week, and that’s something we need an upgrade on. Higher rental costs, food, everyday items and transportation will be tough to pay on freelancer salary, even if we worked full time and a bit.

Now don’t be fooled by the small paradise island image Bali gives out – the rent for proper accommodation can be as high as in Oulu. Throw in professional insurance, instructor fees, clothing plus other expenses and we’re again facing a situation where we need the savings to stay in balance. Not good.

So what’s the alternative like? My last ties with the Corporation will be cut in mid June,  after which I’m a free agent on the employment market, with full benefits. Even without doing anything I would earn way more than I could dream of in Bali, would have plenty of time to watch for job openings and could attend one or two happenings I have been hoping to go to. Apart from the risk of getting stuck in Oulu and not getting a teaching routine running, it seems like our best bet right now. Even with the flight costs around 1300 euros one way, we’re better off financially after spending a few months in Finland.

And we would have moose on the table,  chainsaws in our hands, a proper motorbike to ride on, and a lot of dear friends around us. Goddammit, how hard can it be?

Tags: instructor internship, money, motorbikes, prices, work

I’ve been out of the dive roster for a few days now due to a cold. I’m getting better now, but I guess it will take a day or two before I can jump in the water again. Better to go through it properly in the first place instead of delaying recovery by rushing in too early.

If a couple of the coming days are a bit uncertain, so is the big picture. We have less than two weeks left in the homestay we currently live in, and no one seems to know if it’s feasible for us to stay here or not. It depends on the job description and amount of customers, but that’s not all. We’ve been looking around for alternatives, and surprisingly there’s a host of things in favour of returning to Finland for summer. More about those some other time.

Now don’t get me wrong, working and living in Bali is excellent. The most pressing reason to leave is a financial one, since at least the first three months here would be without base pay or other benefits. Paying the rent, transport, food and other mandatory things  on commission only would require us to work around the clock without a day off, to cut down on accommodation and food, or most probably both. The alternative is to supplement income from our savings, but that’s neither sustainable nor good for other future plans. Money is not going to multiply by itself, so we need to find a way to support ourselves. On the side it would be nice to accumulate the savings a bit instead of devouring all of them.

We’ll keep you guys posted on where we are. There should be something to tell in a few days.

Tags: diving, flu, money, planning, work

Yeah, I’m still here too. I’ve had some ear troubles, so it’s been dry days for a while. Finally the ears started to feel better, and I got a call asking if I’d be willing to do two nights in Tulamben (diving during the day of course). I said sure, so here I am, waiting for the guest to turn up. Chances are there’s going to be at least the wreck and the Drop-off, needless to say I’ll want to know what the guest wants to do.

Otherwise it’s been quite quiet and relaxing, I’m still on the internship (i.e. not getting paid but getting to dive a lot) whereas Heikki signed off from the internship (guiding & teaching for money, but when there are no guests, he’s not diving either).  As Heikki already wrote, we’re looking for a place to move into, as our rent for the Bedroom is only paid  until May 17 or 18. The little room has served us well, but I’m most definitely looking forward to not having to use earplugs six nights a week thanks to the less-than-brilliant band playing across the street. Some of the places we’ve seen have been absolutely beautiful, some less so, but all the same they’ve been pretty much in the top end of our price range. Looks like we need to do some more searching, which requires a lot more footwork than back home.

Most of the rentals are not in newspapers or online, but simply advertise their availability on the street they’re located. The closer you get to the beach, the steeper the prices (obviously). Luckily we have the scooter, which gives us a pretty nice range too. Keeping our fingers crossed.

Tags: accommodation, diving, oh bugger, practical stuff, prices, Tulamben