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 :)
