Getting onto the internet varies tremendously around the world, but there are a couple of things which can help when you are not in a friendly place such as HKG with free local calls.
1. Take out a compuserve account, around 15 US dollars a month I think. That will give you a list of local rate access points in a lot of countries.
2. Take out a subscription to IPass through your existing ISP (see
http://www.ipass.com/ )
This will also give you local access numbers in a lot of places.
I don't find most internet cafes are very useful for e-mail unless you use a web-based e-mail system. I much prefer to use a POP3 mailbox and MS Outlook.