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WTF Are We Going to Do About Wifi?

Issues faced when working from abroad (Candace)

When we decided to rent a traditional Balinese house on the north end of Bali, we had no idea what to expect or to prepare for. Maybe we shouldn’t have scheduled Andrew’s first day at his new job for the same day we arrived. Poor planning perhaps.

First, the house is absolutely beautiful. The owner, Dayu, is a 3D artist at a local architecture firm who has spent the last three years taking full-time care of her stroke-ridden mother. And she has put so much thought and planning into our little palace, from the plants to the lighting. Offering two bedrooms, this home has an outdoor traditional Balinese shower and a kitchen that has large sliding doors that open to an outdoor dining and seating area. Even the private swimming pool is complete with a gazebo for meditation and playing a traditional Balinese xylophone. We couldn’t have dreamed of a better place to live for a month.

But there is one small problem.

No. Working. Wifi.

Well, that’s not true. The wifi works beautifully between the hours of 12am and 6am, but for the remainder of the day, it’s intermittent at best. And while the lack of consistent wifi has been maddening for me as I’m undergoing job interviews, it is simply killing Andrew since he has to work every day now.

As a first attempt to remedy the problem, we headed across the street to Shanti, a beautiful, lush hotel, to eat dinner and mooch their wifi. No go. It was so slow that Andrew couldn’t download the files he needed. Strike one.

Then I went into the town of Singaraja with Dayu yesterday to purchase a data SIM card and USB stick for manual wifi. No go. Andrew’s laptop is Windows 10 and doesn’t accept 3G SIM cards, which are all that is sold in Bali. Strike two.

So today, in a near panic, we first began to think through a “Plan B.” If we cancel our stay at the house, we are still responsible for 50% of the cost, plus the cost of wherever we stay. Fine. We eat the cost. But we’ve now also invited five separate friends, including Andrew’s mom, to stay with us throughout the month, so now we also have to find accommodations for up to four people at a time and pay for that, since we promised our guests a free place to stay.

Shit’s about to get expensive.

So we tried one last effort today to take the laptop to the store where we bought the USB to see if they could help us figure something out. Two hours and 5 USB drives later, we think we might have a fix, but the verdict is still out.

Universe, we could really use a solid right now.

Help a sister/brother out?