Accommodation in Bali, Part 1

Hi! It's time to post few videos once again :) Before the holiday week I had an opportunity to meet both and Farah and Chris who are probably the two most popular estate agents among the students here in Bali. Farah and Chris are helping over 100 students per semester to find their dream housing in Bali.

The most usual way to live here is to share a villa with your friends. Villa is a very luxurious and huge building that normally includes some special services like a swimming pool and own staff. I've been living in a villa for the last two months and this is undoubtly the coolest place where I've ever lived and probably where I ever will.

I'm going to write more about living in Bali later. This time I just want to introduce Chris and Farah to you so that all the new students would know whom they should contact. I can recommend both of these great guys: they will find the best possible place for you :)





Chris's web site: http://www.auslandssemester-bali.de/
Farah's web site: http://www.bali360.com

Holiday Week, Part 3

Although the holiday week is already over and the exam week began today, this post still says 'Holiday Week' because I promised to post this already yesterday but because of my own holiday I was able to write this just today. But here this text is now: information about traveling around Indonesia!

I've already written one long blog post about traveling in some of the biggest cities/places in South East Asia (Bangkok, Phuket and Kuala Lumpur). Although there could be numerous blog posts about so many different places where to travel in Asia, this time I want to focus on just Indonesia. That's because it's really good to remember that when you're living in Bali you have plenty of opportunities to do some amazing domestic traveling which isn't possible in your home country.

You don't always have to go to Singapore, Australia, Cambodia, etc. while you're living here because there's over 10,000 islands in Indonesia itself so you wouldn't get bored here even if you didn't leave Indonesia even once while staying here. So, this post is just about some different locations in Indonesia. Of course there's even more than these I'm writing about but unfortunately I can't write about every island in Indonesia (and no one would write blog post that long). So here's some of the most well-known destinations in Indonesia. These are in order from the western Indonesia to the eastern Indonesia.

Sumatra

Okay, let's start with Sumatra where I just were during last week's holiday (unfortunately only three days which is way too short period: you would have to be there at least one week). Sumatra is the biggest island of Indonesia and it's located in the western part of Indonesia. It's impossible to give some great overall impression of whole Sumatra in a couple of sentences because the area is so big and there's so many different parts in Sumatra. You can't see and do everything there in one stay. Although I was there only three days, I loved Sumatra. It was a really great place.

Most of the flights to Sumatra land in Medan which is located in Northern Sumatra in which is the main city in Sumatra. I wouldn't recommend staying in Medan (at least not for the days) because I don't think it was that interesting place: although it's one of the biggest cities in whole Indonesia so you have great chance to see there the local way of living in a big city. For me Medan was a good place to stay for few days because I wanted to see Lake Toba and Bukit Lawang and it's easy to go to both places from Medan.

Lake Toba is the world famous volcanic lake. There was a huge volcano eruption in Sumatra hundreds of thousands year ago and that's how Lake Toba was born. Unfortunately at the same the eruption destroyed most of the humans at that time so Toba is really important place for the history of mankind. Lake Toba's area is huge: it's even bigger than whole Singapore. There's an island (called Tuktuk) in the middle of Lake Toba and it's a very popular paradise island to for a vacation. It takes 4-5 hours by car from Medan to Toba.

Bukit Lawang is even nearer to Medan than Lake Toba. It's a big jungle area which is one the few places in the world where you can see wild orangutans. The visit to Bukit Lawang and the trekking in the jungle was one of the best experiences I have had while staying in Indonesia. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to try something like that. Of course Bukit Lawang is nowadays a kind of touristic place and there's even more wild jungles in Sumatra.

But yeah, Toba and Bukit Lawang are the most well-known tourist attractions in Northern Sumatra and those places were also the ones I was most interested about while staying there for few days. Toba because of the historic meaning and Bukit Lawang because of experience in general. Still Northern Sumatra and those two places are only tiny scratch of the wholes surface of Sumatra. The nature and the culture of Sumatra is so diverse and so interesting that I can't say that I have any clue about the island in general so far. I've just heard that almost anywhere you go there, there's some great places to see. You should also remember that Sumatra is one of the most Islamic places in Indonesia which of course affects to the local way of life. While staying in Sumatra you can from north to south (or from south to north) for example by train.

Java

Java is the main island of Indonesia when you look at the amount of population. There's over 124 million inhabitants living in Java (approximately half of the whole population in Indonesia). The capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, is located in Java and so are many other big cities like Yogjakarta, Surabaya and Semarang. So it goes without saying that Java is also a huge place with numerous different parts so it's impossible to give any overall impression of it. Especially it's hard for me because I've only been in Java for a couple of hours when I changed my flight from Denpasar to Medan. Anyway, Java is a very popular trip destination.

Jakarta is a real big city and many locals do have strong opinions of the capital city of Indonesia. Some say it's chaotic, horrible and even unsafe because there's too many people in too little area. Others say that Jakarta is significantly no different compared to other Asian big cities. I've heard that especially South Jakarta has great nightclubs. I hope I'll have chance at some point to visit Jakarta and actually experience the life there. Of course it's important to remember that Java is so much more than just Jakarta. As I already said, there's many other big cities but in comparison there's also some peaceful places and great beaches for surfers. Yogjakarta is famous of its amazing temples.

Kalimantan

Kalimantan is the Indonesian part of Borneo which is one of the biggest islands in the world. Most of the northern part of Borneo belongs to Malaysia - only exception is a small part of the island which belongs to Brunei. The whole southern part (Kalimantan) belongs to Indonesia. Kalimantan and Borneo in general is world famous of the rainforests which are one of the oldest rainforests in the world nowadays. The flora there is really amazing. Because of the rainforests Kalimantan is pretty densely populated and there's not many tourist attractions. That's of course the reason why Kalimantan seems to interest so many travelers. Although you can also dive in Kalimantan the main reason for traveling there is to see the rainforest that you can't see anywhere else. I've understood that the Malaysian part of Borneo is even more popular among the travelers but Kalimantan isn't bad opinion at all when you're living in Indonesia.

Bali

Bali is Bali. I've already written pretty much about Bali - wonder why - and I'm pretty sure there's also more to come. So I'm not going to write that much about Bali now but I still have to say that living in Bali gives you a great possibility to sometimes just travel around Bali. Bali indeed isn't one of the biggest islands in Indonesia (approximately 5800 square kilometers) and it doesn't take too long to drive around the whole island if you want to do that. There's so much to see in Bali (you just need to leave the most crowded areas of Bali, which means Kuta, Denpasar, Seminyak, Kerobokan etc.) I suggest that you should at least visit Ubud, the volcano of Mount Batur and in overall the northern Bali which hasn't even been mentioned in Lonelyplanet although there's many great places like Lovina (where you may see dolphins). In the southern Bali there's areas like Uluwatu, Nusa Dua etc. So I can just conclude this by saying that remember to travel around Bali while staying here!

Gili Islands

Gili Islands are probably the most popular or at least one of the most popular places where our exchange students visit while staying here. It's pretty easy to understand because these three paradise islands are really near to Bali: it takes only a couple of hours to go there by speedboat. So it's really easy to go there for a weekend and just relax because you know, relaxing is definitely the best thing you can do in Gili islands - they're like designed for easy living.

Gili Islands consist of three really small island: Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan. Trawangan is the biggest and most modern of those three. It's also most touristic and besides relaxing during daytime you have a great opportunity to have some awesome partying in Trawangan during night time. Gili Meno on the other hand is the most peaceful of these three and many consider it a honeymoon place although you pretty well can go there to just take it easy with your friends. Gili Air is something between Meno and Trawangan. Of course you can do other things in Gili islands besides laying on the perfect beaches of the islands: one of the most popular activities there is snorkeling which I can recommend to everyone. Also surfing and diving is possible there. I've been in Gili islands once and I'm going there again at least once.

Lombok

Lombok is the island next to Bali. Compared to Bali it's a little bit smaller although the difference isn't pretty significant. Much more important difference between Bali and Lombok is the fact that Lombok is much more quiet and much less touristic place than Bali - even though there's nowadays coming more and more tourists to Lombok because many tourist have already seen Bali and want to experience something new. From Bali it's really easy to go to Lombok: you can either take a boat or a plane

I have heard only good things about Lombok so I hope I'll have a chance to visit there at some point. In Southern Lombok there's awesome surfing places. The biggest cities and most of the tourist attractions are located in Western Lombok. Still maybe the most famous attraction in Lombok is the huge (over 3000 meters high) volcano. It's possible to climb there (there's a lot volcano trips arranged in Lombok) although it can bee pretty physically pretty rough experience. The trip lasts 3-4 days and every day you're going to climb more than one kilometer. Still I've heard it's worth it because the experience is pretty awesome. The flight from Bali to Lombok lasts only 25 minutes.

Sumbawa-Komodo-Flores (and other Lesser Sunda Islands)

When you go continue to east from Lombok, there's a group of small islands, like Sumbawa, Komodo and Flores. At this moment there's many boat trips arranged to that area. Boats leave from Lombok and sail all the way to Flores. The trip lasts normally four days and the nights are spent in the boat. During the trip you have the possibility to stop at the most interesting islands and you can also try snorkeling and diving - although the latter only if you have a lot of experience of diving because the place is not suited for beginners.

In overall I've heard that these boat trips are really interesting experiences. There may be not much to do in those islands but mostly the visits are pretty short and you just have the opportunity to enjoy the great nature there. One of the most interesting places during this trip is Komodo where you can see Komodo dragons (the largest lizard of the world). Flores is the most significant of these islands and if you want you can travel straight there by plane. There's a lot of hotels, restaurants etc. in Flores and especially divers really enjoy staying there.

Sulawesi

Sulawesi is one of the biggest islands of the eastern Indonesia. It's easy to recognize from a map because of its spider-like shape. Actually from all of the islands I've written about in this post I know the least about Sulawesi because I haven't heard actually anything about it from other exchange students or from other travelers I've met during last two months. So if you know something about this island, send me some information.

It has to be a pretty interesting place at least some way because Sulawesi is a pretty big islands and there's many tourists going there. There's also some big cities like Makassar. Internet tells me that Sulawesi is popular especially among the divers. Some even say that in Sulawesi there's the best diving places of the whole world. Besides diving you can see big mountains and experience the interesting local culture.

Timor and Papua

The most eastern part of Indonesia are the small island of Timor and the huge island of Papua (also known as New Guinea). Both are politically at least a little bit unstable locations and the tropical diseases are there more common than in other parts of Indonesia. So at least you should think twice before going there (and also plan it well because it's not that easy to go there than to other Indonesian islands). Still it's possible to go there and I've heard that those are great places to see the nature and experience the culture. So of course you can go there if you want to do some 'true traveling'. At least it's pretty different compared to the life in Bali.

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So that's all about traveling around Indonesia. As I already said, there's of course even more destinations but these are the most well known and/or the most popular among our students. So yeah, if you don't want to you don't need to go further from Indonesia to enjoy you stay here :)

Holiday Week! Part 2

As I already mentioned in my previous post, there's no school this week in Bali. Normally the midbreak would be only after the midterm tests but this year they did have to rearrange the schedule because there's Galungan in Bali this week. Galungan is one of the most important holidays in Bali and I'm going to write a little bit more about that later this week. Because of Galungan this week would've been anyway holiday so now the midbreak takes place one week earlier than normally. Maybe students can use this week to study before their exams ;)

I'm also going to write more about travelling in Indonesia (based as much on my own experiences as possible) this week but now I just wanted to publish the video that I've done after interviewing few of our current students here in Bali :) In the video they tell about their feelings about living in Bali and they also reveal their plans for holiday week so maybe you can get some inspiration from the video!




I'll be back later this week :)

Holiday Week!

Yeah, it's holiday time! This week was the last before the midbreak that's taking place next week. As I already mentioned in the earlier post, this school week was a little bit different compared to normal school weeks since there was no school on Monday or Tuesday because of Idul Adha. Hence the school week began on Wednesday and continued until Friday. Normally there's no school on Fridays in Bali.

During a normal school week there's only either a workshop or an excursion on Thursday but this time the workshop was held on Thursday afternoon after the classes had taken place. So it goes without saying that this week was a little bit more intense than a normal school week, but it was still pretty okay :)

After the midbreak there's going to be the midtest so understandably this week's lessions focused on the things that should be remembered in the test. Unfortunately once again I didn't have time (I've been really busy since coming back to Bali because of all kinds of practical arrangements) to take part of any other classes than just the ones that were focused on Indonesian language.

I couldn't skip those ones because I haven't been in Indonesian classes for three weeks so my (pretty poor) Indonesian language skill were already rusted. It was good choice to go to those classes because now I remember at least a little bit more Indonesian. I also learned few new words, like 'sekarang' (now). The only problem is that I don't remember any other time words (like tomorrow, weekdays etc.) so if I have to arrange a meeting in Indonesian, I have to have the meeting immedetiately.

But yeah, during this school week there was something even more fun than my shitty Indonesian skills. I'm of course speaking about the workshop that took place on Thursday afternoon. The workshops are always fun because they're focused on Indonesian and especially Balinese culture (there have already been a workshop of Balinese ornaments and Balinese clothing) but this time it was extra hilarious because the workshop was about traditional Balinese dancing :D So all guys and girls had to practise and learn a little bit Balinese dancing which may look a little bit silly. I have to respect all of the students that participated the class because they at least tried the basic moves.

Here's few pictures from the workshop. After the pictures there's also one video that I made with Heidi from Norway after our trip to Bali Art Centre last week. Heidi has been in the same place already few years ago so she had some pretty interesting points about the place. That's that this time! Have a nice weekend wherever you are! This weekend I'm probably going to visit southern Bali (Nusa Dua). And because next week is the holiday week, I'm going to write more about travelling in Indonesia then.

 

Kuala Lumpur, part 2

I guess this should actually be part 3 because last week I posted two videos from Kuala Lumpur and didn't remember to write the right number in the title. Maybe we can let it slide this time.

Anyway, I just wanted to post quickly here and let you guys know that I've written an article about Santra and Antti who are the first Asia Exchange students in Universiti Putra Malaysia. I think this article is very useful to read if you want to know more about studying in UPM because hopefully there's going to be many more AE students in the near future :)

Antti and Santra have enjoyed their studies in Kuala Lumpur

This is all this time. In Bali we have had Idul Adha (Islamic holiday) yesterday and today so there hasn't been any school this week. The school week starts tomorrow and ends on Friday so I'm going to write more about that at the end of the week :)

Bangkok, Phuket & Kuala Lumpur

Alright, I'm back in Bali! Although the whole trip to Bangkok, Phuket and Kuala Lumpur was just awesome, it's also really nice to be back home. And I'm not calling Bali my home because I have to or something like that: It really felt like I'm back in my home when I arrived at our villa on Tuesday night.

So now I have been in Bali already for three days and life feels quite normal. I have missed sitting next to my pool and enjoying the sun. The feeling is awesome, especially because it's October and in Finland it's already quite cold. But this post is not about Finland and not even about Bali. As I promised to you earlier, I wanted to write something about all the three places I visited during last two and a half weeks. Of course I'm not an expert or anything but at least I have some impressions I want to share with you :) So here they are:

Bangkok

CITY:

Bangkok indeed is a huge city. It was really nice to be in a real metropol for few days after living in Bali. There's almost 10 million people living in Bangkok and the city area is huge. You can find numerous different places around the city. I had time to see just few of those but for example I liked a lot the area where I was staying. It was near to Wongwian Yai BTS station and wasn't exactly in the city centre or didn't look really special or anything. I just liked the feeling there and it was really nice that almost all people there were locals.

Of course the area wasn't that special that I'd spend much time there if I would have been staying in Bangkok for a week or longer time. There's so much to see that you just have to choose something. Khausan Road is the biggest shopping, eating and partying area, which is also the place where maybe the most (especially younger tourists) are going. Siam Square on the other hand is in the heart of Bangkok. It was really stylish area with huge buildings, fine stores etc. I visited both quite quickly but I think there would be much to see and do in both areas although they're really different when compared to each other.

TRAFFIC:

Traffic's bad almost everywhere in (South East) Asia but the level of chaos depends on the country or the city. I'd say that in that level Bangkok is pretty chaotic, almost as bad as Bali. The difference is that there's almost twice as many people just in Bangkok that is in whole Bali so there's a huge amount of people.

On the other hand everyone isn't using own cars or scooters as in Bali (because the public transport is really good in Bangkok) so it helps at least a little. Especially taxi drives tend to do crazy stunts. So yeah, be careful and I wouldn't recommend driving in Bangkok by yourself because you have many other options (BTS-trains, trains, cheap taxis, even buses).

PEOPLE:

Really nice. Of course it's impossible (and unnecessary) to say something general about everyone in Bangkok but my impression was that people in Bangkok and overall in Thailand are really nice. They try to help you anyway they can and are also really friendly. Especially I liked Joy, who was the owner of the hostel were I was staying. She probably was one of the nicest person I've ever met. So awesome.

It's also interesting to notice that the most of people who you see in Bangkok are indeed locals and not tourists. It's different compared to Bali where almost half of the people seem to be tourists. Only problem I had with locals was the fact that they spoke quite bad English. I guess English isn't that important to them so the communication was really problematic because I don't speak Thai at all. The difference was clear, when I noticed that the cashier in 7/11 spoke worse English than Balinese farmer.

PRICES:

Cheap as almost everywhere in South East Asia. The local currency is Baht and one Euro equals approximately 40 Bahts. So it's not as funny currency as in Indonesia where 1 Euro equals over 15 000 IDR.

Some notifications about the prices in Bangkok: you can eat pretty well in a local restaurant with 30-60 Bahts (~1 Euro). Of course Western versions are more expensive. Tax drive in a centre area is approximately 80 Bahts (~2 Euros). Public transport is very cheap. I didn't buy clothes in Bangkok but I've heard they're cheap also. In overall it didn't seem to be too expensive place even though it's a huge city. Of course the tourist areas in the centrum (like Siam Square) are quite expensive but you don't need to buy everything there.

FOOD:

Real Thai Food which I think is extremely delicious - especially now when I have had chance to really eat it in Thailand and not just in some Thai restaurants in Finland etc. Although I have to admit that ate the best Thai food in Phuket because I had some difficulties with getting what I want in restaurants of Bangkok because in many places they didn't have a menu in English. So I had to order food by just pointing at some random food on the menu.

Phuket

ISLAND:

In my opinion Phuket resembles Bali a lot. Of course there were some differences but the overall feeling is pretty similar as in Bali. The most obvious difference is the timing of a rainy season what I've been already complaining about. The rainy season ends in Phuket in October while it starts in Bali about the same time. So I had the pleasure to enjoy the final weeks of the rainy season in Phuket which meant that it was raining most of the time. Not so nice.

But yeah, Phuket and Bali are kind of paradise islands of their own country. Although it has to be said that Phuket is 10 times smaller than Bali. The size difference was easy to notice when I was driving around Phuket. It was a lot easier and especially faster to get from place A to place B in Phuket than it was in Bali.

Like Bali, Phuket has beaches, warmness, tropical flora and many different areas inside of it. Kathu and Chalong are smaller towns and most of the people living there are locals. There's many similar areas especially in the northern Bali. Phuket Town is the main city of Phuket. There's not that much to see for tourists and most of the locals live there. It resembles a lot the Balinese main city Denpasar. In Phuket the shopping, partying and tourist centre is Patong, in Bali the same kind of area is Kuta. Also there's lot of great beaches both in Phuket and Kuta. In Phuket for example Kata Noi and Nai Harn, in Bali for example Padang Padang.

So Bali and Phuket are pretty similar in many ways but there are of course some differences. In my opinion Phuket is a lot cleaner island which will suit better families etc. Although Bali is really popular among the tourists, it's still a lot shabbier than Phuket.

TRAFFIC:

You can't say that traffic in Phuket is easy but I still think it's easier and simpler than the horrible situation in Bali. There was only few traffic jams and some kind of rules are easier to notice than in Bali. It felt a lot safer to drive in Phuket than to drive in Bali although I have to admit that people can drive unsafely also in Phuket. Also the public transport is at least a little bit better in Phuket although it's not too good there either.

PEOPLE:

Not too much to add to the description of Bangkok. Really nice people although a little bit shy like most of the Thai people are. Anyway almost everyone was helpful, smiling and friendly. Also the English skills seemed to be a little bit better in Phuket than in Bangkok which I guess results from the fact there are more tourists in Phuket compared to the number of locals.

PRICES:

Taxis were really expensive. Still cheaper than in Finland but almost every time you have to pay at least 400 Bahts for taxi drive, most of the time even more. When I came to Kathu from the airport, I had to pay over 600 Bahts and it even was with a meter taxi. There's only few meter taxis which are cheaper than the other ones. Besides taxis the prices were pretty much same than in Bangkok.

FOOD:

Not much to add to Bangkok here either. Although as I already said, it was easier to enjoy Thai food in Phuket than it was in Bangkok because menus weren't written only in Thai. I especially liked Pad Thai and Pad Mama which are local tasty noodle food which are also pretty spicy if you want so.

Kuala Lumpur

CITY:

Kuala Lumpur was smaller and cleaner version of Bangkok. There's only 2 millions people living in Kuala Lumpur while in Bangkok there's almost 10 million. Still I have to say that one of the things I liked most about KL was that it was easier to get around there but it still was quite a huge city. Especially it was cool to walk around KL and look at all the numerous skyscrapers.

Although the Islamic religion of Malaysia is visible everywhere in Kuala Lumpur (the dressing of women, no pork in restaurants, no kissing in buses, trains etc.), the city seemed to be pretty western at the same time. The western influence is pretty visible. The city is really clean and stylish. There may not be that much to see or to do for tourists but I bet you can easily spend at least one week there.

I spent most of my time in Chinatown which seemed to pretty nice and especially cheap area in Kuala Lumpur. The stylishness of KL of course isn't that visible in Chinatown but I don't think people will expect that when they're going to Chinatown area. There's also one big shopping street in Chinatown. As opposite to Chinatown and some other similar areas there are KL Sentral, KLCC and Bukit Bintang which are really stylish and huge areas with many western malls etc.

TRAFFIC:

The western influence I was talking about is easy to notice in traffic which was a lot less chaotic than in Bangkok or in Phuket (I won't even mention Bali). Still I wouldn't ever compare the traffic in Kuala Lumpur to the one in Finland but it was a lot easier and more rational than in Indonesia or in Thailand. Although it has to be said that the car drives didn't want to give way to pedestrians. And yeah, the traffic is left-hand in Malaysia as in most of the countries here.

PEOPLE:

I wouldn't say that people in Kuala Lumpur are as friendly and nice as in Thailand. At least they didn't give that same impression as easily as in Bangkok and Phuket. Although I have to say that the staff in my hostel was very helpful and nice. And yeah, I didn't have any problems with locals or anything like that so you don't have to worry about people in KL being rude or anything like that. I just mean that I wasn't impressed by the niceness of the locals the same way as I was in Thailand. One nice thing for students in Bali is that you can communicate with Malaysian people with bahasa Indonesian, because Indonesian and Malaya languages are really similar!

PRICES:

The prices depend on where you want to go in Kuala Lumpur. You can live really cheaply if you spend most of your time and do most of your shoppings in areas like Chinatown or Serdang which is the area where Universiti Putra Malaysia is located. On the other hand especially KLCC and Bukit Bintang (mentioned earlier) can be quite expensive. The local currency is ringgit. One Euro equals 4 ringgits.

FOOD:

I didn't have time to get to know with Malaysian cuisine because I stayed in Kuala Lumpur only three days. In Chinatown I ate really good Chinese food. Also Thai and Indian food seemed to be pretty good. In overall I can just say that food seemed to be pretty cheap and good.

That was all! I hope it was at least a little bit helpful for you :)

Videos from Kuala Lumpur

Hey!

Here's two videos I made with Antti, Inka and Sofia who study in Kuala Lumpur :)

Articles and videos from Phuket

Hey guys!

Here's some stories to read and videos to watch from Phuket :)

Articles

Alexandra has much more experience of South East Asia than an avarage exchange student
Florian has a great business idea which can help Acia Center Foundation
Helery Homutov is Asia Exchange study abroad ambassador

Videos

Kuala Lumpur, part 1

Haha, that's me. I just realized that there may be not even one photo of me in this blog since I started using this blog in September. Of course this blog shouldn't mostly be about me but about our great exchange students and their life in Bali (and for the last couple of weeks also in Bangkok, Phuket and Kuala Lumpur) but it'd be nice to have even one picture of me so you know who's writing all these stories. So, yeah. That's me. And a yellow fire hydrant (or something like this) which catch all the attention being in front of me.

But yeah, that's all about me (and fire hydrants). Let's move on to writing about Kuala Lumpur and especially the universities in Kuala Lumpur. I arrived in KL on Saturday night and spent the whole Sunday wandering around KL. I visited the Petronas Towers as you can see from the picture and also walked around Chinatown which seemed to be pretty nice part of the town. Otherwise I didn't have too much time to see the city but I still got pretty nice impression of Kuala Lumpur. It's quite a big city and seems to be kind of western place even though the Islamic religion of course affect everything in the everyday life there.

I'm going to write at least a little bit more about Kuala Lumpur (and about Phuket and Bangkok, hopefully some kind of comparison) during this week but in this point the main focus is on the the universities I visited yesterday and today. Yesterday I went to see Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and today I was in the campus area of University of Malaya (UM). Both seemed to be really good and nice universities which huge but on the other hand very stylish campus areas. I luckily had also a chance to meet some of Asia Exchange students in those two universities. In UPM I met Santra and Antti who actually are the first AE students there. In UM I met Sofia and Inka. All seemed to be happy about their studies although there's not as much AE students in Kuala Lumpur as in our other cities. At this moment there's only 11 exchange students in KL: 9 in UM and 2 in UPM.

Universiti Putra Malaysia

As I already said, Antti and Santra are the first two Asia Exchange students in Universiti Putra Malaysia. Asia Exchange has just finished the official deal with UPM and hopefully there's going to be many more our students in UPM in the future. At least there seems to be no reason why that couldn't happen. Antti and Santra sounded to be really happy about their studies and they had gotten a lot of help from the university during the first weeks. Also the campus area seemed to be really nice, even though it's really huge as I said already! I had first a lot of problems to understand where I should be going but quite quickly I learned to understand the main area there. Luckily the students don't have to move around too much there during one day. And if they do, they can use the own bus service of the campus area. So yeah, I liked UPM. Although it's a little bit far from Kuala Lumpur center area (it's actually located in the nearby town Serdang), there's a really good train service to Serdang :)

University of Malaya

Today I visited University of Malaya. If UPM was huge, UM was at least as huge as it was. For me UM was even a little bit more difficult to understand the whole area and to know where I should be going. Especially I had problems when I was trying to get out of the campus area: it took me like extra 30 minutes because I was completely lost. But maybe it's just a problem of my bad skills to understand wide areas. But yeah, otherwise UM seemed to be also a really nice university which has its own swimming pool and sport stadium, of course. In UM I had a chance to speak with our students Inka and Sofia. In the beginning of their semester they had had some problems with choosing their courses but finally all problems were solved and they found really good courses for themselves :) It's really good to hear that most of the things are working also in UM now!

Unfortunately I didn't have too much time to be in UM area because I had to arrive at the airport in time. Actually I'm in the airport right now and I'm waiting that my plane would be ready to leave. So yeah, after really fun two and a half weeks I'm flying back to home in Bali! That's not too bad at all but of course it would've been really nice to spend even more time with all this great guys I met during last couple of weeks. I hope that many of them are coming to Bali and that I'll see them again there :) But now it's time to go to the plane!

Phuket, part 3

Sad but true: It's over. Yesterday I had to leave Phuket and fly to Kuala Lumpur. I mean, I'm not complaining at all: KL seems to be really nice city (based on the experience I got from walking around the city centre and Chinatown today) but I'll miss Phuket and especially the students there. It was so nice to get to know them all and I really felt like being part of the group. That's of course thanks to the awesome guys who took me to their evenings, happenings and everything.

We even went to wakeboarding which was first for me :) It was great, one of the best experiences I have had during my stay in Asia! And then I hanged around with the students a lot in The Café which is a really good restaurant next to the campus area. Most of the students seemed to stop by there at least once a day so it was really easy to meet them just by sitting and working there, haha.

And yeah, that's one of the first things I saw every day when I woke as I actually stayed my whole time (minus two nights in Ko Phi Phi) in PSU Lodge which happens to be located (surprise, surprise) in the PSU (Prince of Songkla University) campus area. So it was a kind of easy for me to be part of the student life because I actually lived in the very same building where the students have most of their classes :) But yeah, I have to say one more time that the best part of staying in Phuket for one and a half week was the whole group that's staying there. So awesome guys and girls and I hope I'll see most of them again. I felt like I got many new (not just Facebook) friends from the trip.

Of course it was also nice to see how the semester began in Phuket. This week was the first real school week (as last week was the orientation) so now the semester has really began also in Phuket and it will continue until January. Sadly I hadn't had time to visit any courses or lessons but I heard many students that the courses seemed to be really interesting. Most of the guys were even excited when they were going to the school. Or that's at least how it seemed to me. Of course most of the students are never going to say they're excited about the school but I know the truth! So it's true that you can both study and enjoy your life in Phuket.

...And about enjoying the life: Phuket's a really great place for that. It reminds me a lot of Bali. Of course there's also many differences. One of the biggest being the fact that the rainy season ends in Phuket when it only starts in Bali. And because I guess they still have sunshine and dry days left in Bali, Phuket was experiencing some heavy rain especially this week. I didn't like that part of Phuket as much as everything else and I'm a little bit scared of how the rainy season will suit for me when it starts to rain in Bali. We'll see. But yeah, a lot of similarities between Bali and Phuket. I hope I'll have time to do some real comparison between the to islands at some point.

But that's all from Phuket for a little time. Tomorrow I'm going to visit one university here in Kuala Lumpur and on Tuesday I'm going to visit another one. So two busy days still left before I'm finally flying back to home in Bali. Next week I hope I have time to write at least a short report from KL and of course there's still going to be many articles and videos from Phuket which I hope I can post here next week. So this is not all from Phuket although I've already left the island.

Here's still some pictures from the campus area. There's even one picture from Friday morning when some of the students had a chance to test some new foods in the university. Seemed to be fun.

Phuket, part 2

Hey!

Sorry for the short update from really rainy Phuket. Thank you for the rainy season, I really hope that I don't have to keep enjoying it straight when I go back to Bali. But this post shouldn't be about the weather. Instead I wanted to share with you the first two videos I've made here in Phuket. I promise that there's still more coming soon :)

I already wrote a lot about the orientation week but you don't have to believe when I say that the first week was awesome. Here's one video where our students tell their feelings about the orientation week and about the trip to the Phi Phi islands. In the other video the Vice Chairman of Asia Center Foundation Roelien Muller describes their important work. You really should watch that to know more about ACF.






So that's all this time. I'll post more material soon!

Articles from Bangkok

Hey guys!

Although I'm actually staying in Phuket at this moment, I'd still like to make one more post about Bangkok. Don't worry, I'll post more material about Phuket still this week! You see, as I told you in my earlier posts, I visited both Siam University in the western Bangkok and Kasetsart University in the northern Bangkok.

During my visits I met many of Asia Exchange students and I also met interviews with Stephan (studying in Siam University) and Jens & Simon (studying in Kasetsart University). So now the articles that I made based on the interviews are ready and you can read them from the links above:

Stephan's semester in Siam University is almost over
Jens and Simon have enjoyed their studies in Kasetsart University

So that's all from Bangkok so far. I'll come back with some Phuket material soon :)