Working remotely from Bir

The internet

Better than you would expect and worse than a city. Most guest houses in Chougan run fibre and it is generally fine for calls; it degrades in heavy rain and during the evening peak. Jio and Airtel both have usable 4G in Chougan as a fallback, which is the actual answer — carry a hotspot and you will never lose a meeting.

Power cuts happen, more in the monsoon. They are usually short. An hour of laptop battery covers most of them.

Where to actually work

The cafés are pleasant and mostly not built for a full working day — small tables, few plugs, and by eleven in the morning in season there is nowhere to sit. They are excellent for two hours and frustrating for eight.

A room with a real desk is worth more than any café. Every room here has one, with a chair you can sit in all day, which is a specific and deliberate thing rather than a decorative table.

The rhythm

The reason Bir works is the shape of the day. Flying happens late morning to afternoon and everything social happens after five, which leaves the early morning genuinely quiet — the best working hours most people get anywhere. Work from seven to one, fly or walk in the afternoon, eat in the colony.

What a month costs

Considerably less than a city. Long-stay rates on a private room, food in the colony rather than the tourist cafés, and almost no transport cost because you can walk everywhere in Chougan. Ask any guest house directly about monthly rates — nobody publishes them and everybody offers them.

Things people get wrong

• Booking a room without checking there is a desk and a proper chair. A bed and a bedside table is not a workspace.
• Arriving in the monsoon with a hard deadline and no mobile-data backup.
• Staying in Upper Bir for the view and then discovering the twenty-minute uphill walk home after dinner.
• Planning to work from the cafés. Plan to work from your room and enjoy the cafés.