Cheap Bali

I've already mentioned the cheap prices of Bali in this blog for a couple of times. That's also one of the reasons why many students all over the world want to come to study here: in your freetime you can do so much more with your money than in your home country. For example I'm eating in a restaurant in my home country (Finland) maybe once or twice in a month. Here I do it every day. Of course you have to spend money daily also here but almost everything is still many times cheaper. I've already mentioned the cheap prices of accommodations etc but now I've composed a table where I've collected some of the most usual costs and the prices of them. These are only my estimations based on my own experiences so prices may still vary a little bit. Prices are in Euros, 1 Euro is 15 000 Rupiahs (e.g. 1 Dollar is approximately 10 000 Rupiahs).

 

I'd like to compare the prices to the prices of other countries but unfortunately I don't have that good knowledge of the prices of other countries and I bet most of you aren't interested in the Finnish ones so that's it. If you want to know what something else costs here, just comment and I'll add that in the table!

Internship Videos

This time I have two videos to post. They both have a lot of information about doing an internship in Bali. Besides of offering great opportunity of studying abroad, nowadays Asia Exchange also makes it possible to apply for an internship in Asia. There's many different opportunities of doing the internship in Bali. The first is the one that I'm doing myself right now: applying for an internship as an Asia Exchange representative for the semester. In the video I haven't interviewed myself. Instead of that I interviewed Jana, who is my intern colleague right now in Bali. The second option is to do your internship as a volunteer in the Seeds of Hope children's home. In the video I have interviewed Jutta who is working there at this moment. The third option is to apply for an internship place for example in a Balinese marketing field with the co-operation of Asia Exchange and an Balinese internship organization Bali Internships. In the video there's two current Bali Internships interns Jonas and Laura speaking about their experiences and in the other video the two persons behind Bali Internships (Laura Korwa and Carolin Vogel) tell more about the organization itself.

Singapore

Last weekend we were in Singapore with an exchange student group to extend our visas and of course to see probably the most western-like and the most modern city of the whole South East Asia. It was really nice for one weekend to once again be in a really modern city with an underground system, a clean city centre and actual pedestrian ways.

For a longer stay I like more Bali because I came to South East Asia to experience something completely different compared to my home country, Finland, but for one weekend the experience of staying in Singapore is awesome because it's something I've never experienced even in Finland. All of the skyscrapers and for example the most expensive building of the world (Marina Bay)... Yeah, it's something you have to experience and can't be explained by words. At the same time the city is also really expensive so you have to have a lot of money to stay there longer.

As I said, we spent one weekend in Singapore. During that time we tried to see as much as possible so during the daytime we were walking around the city centre (where the biggest malls are), Chinatown and Little Indea. During the evenings and nightime we visited of course Marina Bay and the world famous casino inside of it. Also we went to Altitude which is a nightclub which operates at the top of the highest building of Singapore. That was by far the greatest club where I've ever been.

Videos and Pictures

This blog post will focus on videos and pictures :) Firstly there's two student interviews. In the first video Saara tells about her experiences after the semester was half way over. In the second one Johan tells about his feelings about the workshops.




And then pictures. This time they're from Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok so this have been taken almost two months ago but I hope they're still interesting to someone :) Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures from Phuket, sorry about that.

Bangkok

Kuala Lumpur

Nusa Lembongan

Me and group of my friends here in Bali left Bali behind us last weekend. This time we didn't go far way - insted we jumped to a boat which took us to the small island of Nusa Lembongan. When I wrote about travelling around Indonesia a couple of weeks ago, I didn't even mention Lembongan. That's partly because of Lembongan is so near to Bali that it's a kind of part of this island (in the same way as Gili islands are a kind of part of Lombok) and partly because I  already knew that I'd be writing about Lembongan soon.

So, Nusa Lembongan is a small island that's located next to Bali. It's part of a group of three islands, Pulau Penida. Lembongan is the most famous and most visited of those three islands. It seems to me that nowadays most of the tourists coming to Bali want to go Gili islands if they're going to some other island but actually Lembongan should be a really good option for them. Many may not even know about Lembongan (I learned about that after living here already for one month). We visited Lembongan during November and because of low-season there wasn't a lot of tourists beside of us. That was perfect situation at least in my opinion.

Lembongan is pretty similar compared to Gili islands, especially Gili Meno, which is the most quiet one of the three Gili islands. So primarily in Lembongan you can focus on enjoying of cool views, warmth and perfect beaches. The biggest difference compared to Gili islands seemed to be the fact that in Lembongan you can drive with a scooter or even with a car. Although if it would be up to me, I wouldn't anybody drive those small roads in the middle of pretty high hills there.

Well, what  you can do in Lembongan? Relax. That was the thing that at least I was looking for when I travelled there and that was also the thing that I got. There's not too much activities in Lembongan so it's perfect fit relaxing because the island is much more quiet than Bali. Especially in the area of Mushroom Bay there's nice views and really good beaches. In addittion you can surf, snorkel and dive in Lembongan. Especially snorkeling and diving is pretty popular amongs the visitors of Lembongan. Near to Lembongan there's for example the area of Crystal Bay where water indeed is crystal clear. You can also see manta rays while snorkeling/diving there if you have a good luck. I enjoyed snorkeling there really much. Once again it was nice to watch beautiful coral and cool fishes. Also, when we were coming back from the snorkeling trip, three dolphins swam past by our boat. That was the first time I've ever really seen a dolphin.

In overall the weekend trip to Lembongan was exactly what I was hoping for. An easy way (only 30 minutes by boat from Sanur to Lembongan) to get away from chaotic Bali. I recommend to everyone who wants something for change to Gili islands where is all the time more and more tourists.

Accommodation in Bali, Part 2

Alright, as you may have been noticing, it has become a habit for me to publish new articles here every Monday if I have something new to publish. This time I've written an article about accommodations in Bali which is pretty popular subject amongst our students. Last times when I wrote about this subject in this blog I posted two videos that I've made with Farah and Chris who are probably the best real estate agents here in Bali. This time I've written an interview with them. There's a lot more article about living in Bali in that same article. Below there's also a couple of pictures of our group's villa to give you some impression about the student accommodations in Bali.

Most of the students like to look for the accommodation only after arriving here which is quite a wise decision because in Bali you should see the place before you've made any kind of official agreements about living there for the whole semester. Otherwise you may end up with an unpleasent surprise. On the other hand I really recommend you to at least contact Farah or Chris (or someone else) already before arriving here because then you have the best chance to get that kind of place you want to. I'm also sure that Chris and Farah will rent only that kind of villas that they're completely satisfied with and that's why some of our students nowadays rent a villa with their help already before coming here. So for conclusion I'd say that it's pretty much up to you what you want to do. At least you should find the right group with whom you try to find a villa because living alone here is pretty hard.

READ MORE: LIVING IN BALI CAN BE REALLY LUXURIOUS

Manuscript Workshop

The last couple of weeks have been different compared to the normal ones (last week there was the Islamic New Year, before that was the exam week and before that the mid term break). That's why there haven't been neither workshops nor excursions almost for one month. Luckily today the students finally had again chance to learn something new about the local culture when the workshop about Balinese manuscript was held in Denpasar campus. Besides of Asia Exchange students there were also a lot of local students attending to that workshop so our students once again had a great chance to get to know better with them.

Nowadays the Latin script is used in Bali as it is in many parts of the world so you don't have to study new alphabeths when you arrive here. This makes Indonesian language classes a lot easier because students don't have to spend the first students with learning the alphabethics. Still it's important to know that there has been and actually still is an own alphabet in the island of Bali. It's used when writing Balinese, which is different language than Indonesian. Actually almost every significant island in Indonesian has its own language but Indonesian is the language that practically everybody understands.

Some centuries ago the Balinese script was really used in Bali to produce text but nowadays the Latin script has replaced it practically entirely. Still Balinese script is taught in the local school and especially in the religional texts you may still see the Balinese script. So it's really important for our students, who are studying the local culture here, to know more about the local manuscript. During the workshop students also had a great chance to actually try to write something with the Balinese alphabet. The local students were helping exchange students as much as they could. Unfortunately the manuscript is pretty difficult and even writing your own name with that is pretty good performance. Still I think this lesson and workshop was light and good way to end this school week :)

The last couple of blog posts have been only about the studying here in Bali so I promise that next week there's going to be more lighter material about the overall life in Bali :)

Really about studying in Bali

I'm pretty sure this blog post is more interesting to those who haven't still been in Bali as an exchange student than to those who have already been here or actually are at this moment. You see, this time I'm going to write a little bit about the courses you can study in Bali. Unfortunately I haven't had chance to attend most of the classes because I also have so much other things to do while I'm at the university. Still during this week I've been in most of the classes so that I can write a description about the basics of the courses. Students have to choose at least five of these six courses.

Bahasa Indonesia

I have most experience of this subject because I've been attending most of the Indonesian language classes and I even did the midterm test just to see whether I've learned anything. Indonesian language is the only course which has two lessons per week. That's because the idea is of course that students could learn at least good basics of the language during their stay here and that they could really use the language when they're living here.

Studying in these lessons is pretty intensive and there may be even 50 new words in one lesson for students to learn. Of course they have to practice using those words after classes. Otherwise it's impossible to remember every new word. Anyway, the phase in Indonesian language classes may be even a little bit faster than in language classes held in Finland. I don't know about universities in other countries so I can't speak about the culture there.

Still I've understood that most of the students really like the phase in those courses because that's the way to really learn the language. At most of the time during the lessons students are forming sentences in Indonesian. It's pretty rewarding to see how you can finally communicate with local people with the basic language you've learned. Besides of the new words students are also taught about the basic knowledge of the Idonesian language grammar.

Tourist Management

Tourist Management is quite useful and interesting course in this part of the world because especially in Bali there's huge amount of practical knowledge of tourism and how to manage it. That's why the lessons include a lot of good examples about the everyday tourist life here and which help to understand the theoretical side of tourist management. At least I think it's pretty interesting to hear about all those details of the specific tourism here. The basic themes in the whole course are the different kind of tourism strategies and tourism management in Indonesia and also in whole South East Asia. It's easy to see that lecturers have really much knowledge about the subject and they want to share it with the students. I've never studied tourism in Finland so it was interesting to also learn about the theoretical side of tourism.

Indonesian Literature

Indonesian Literature course is held on Mondays and there's a little bit smaller group studying that subject than the others. The reason maybe because it's the newest course here and many may not have had that much information about that. I hope there's more students studying that course in the future because I've heard from the students that they really like the course and they think the themes are really interesting. The students learn for example about the Indonesian poetic and the specialties in Indonesian literature. There's many students who are studying cultural subjects in their home country so I think this course is really useful for them.

Indonesian History and Culture

I think it's pretty obvious what's the subject of this course (yeah, it's Indonesian history and culture). What I've understood this was one of the most anticipated course among the students already before the semester because the themes are really interesting and because most of the students don't have possibility to study Indonesian culture or history in their home country. Also most of the students come to study especially because they want to know more about the local culture so that's the perfect way to combine students own interests with the supply of the university. Indonesian culture is really rich: the culture is very different in different parts of the country so there's also numerous things to teach in the classes.

Business and Economy of South East Asia

The course about business and economy of South East Asia is of course perfect fit for the business students which are quite big part of our exchange students here in Bali. Still it's quite useful also for other to know more about the local economy as for example Heidi Knutsen said in the interview. I've never studied economy or business in the university but I think it was still really good to attend the class and actually learn some new things about the economy of South East Asia. For the students it's of course even more useful because during the course they're for example trying to figure out together how the local economy can be improved.

Business Law and Legal Tradition of Indonesia

If I've understood the students correctly, the business law course is one of the most popular during this semester. Many students have praised it for example because the subjects are dealt really widely and because the lecturers are really qualified. Basing on my own experience I have to agree with the students. Lecturers try to raise as much conversation as possible. Although you wouldn't be interested in law normally, this course may still be extremely interesting because besides the legal tradition there's also a lot of talk about the local culture because it affects so many ways to the legal tradition.

About the Student Life in Bali

As I've already mentioned in this blog, I'm not actually here in Bali to study. Instead of that, I'm working as an intern for Asia Exchange and my main task is to observe the student life as many ways as I can. Also my life here pretty much resembles the students' life because I've arrived here at the same time as the students arrived and because I'm spending a lot of time in the university campus when the students are there. Still it's nice to have stories of an actual student life in this blog so here's now one article about Norwegian Heidi who's studying here and who has enjoyed living in Bali really much :)

Heidi is actually the first Norwegian Asia Exchange student in Bali

Traffic in Bali, Part 2

Alright, this is the post that I've been planning to write for a long time but all the other subjects have been more urgent so far. Finally, now I have time to go deep into the fascinating world of Balinese traffic. Before I try to describe the situation by words, I want to remind you about this great video which is made by Aleksi and which I've already once posted to this blog in the beginning of this semester:


The Kerobokan Getaway Bali 2013 from Aleksi Laitinen on Vimeo.

Although the video is awesome it may give even a little bit too easy impression about the Balinese traffic. The picture tells more than thousand words and the video does at least the same trick but it's still almost impossible to capture every part of the completely chaotic traffic in one video. And I of course would have chosen some hardcore punk or heavy metal for the video because those kinds of songs describe the local traffic much better ;) Of course it's good to remember that the traffic even here isn't chaotic 24/7. Especially in the northern Bali it's actually quite fluent and easy. Also one really important point is that Balinese people respect each other in traffic and try to avoid all kinds of accidents. Same kind of solidarity couldn't be found for example in Sumatra.

Still in my opinion every future exchange students should be prepared for a culture shock that's provided by the crazy traffic here. First it may seem completely insane but you adjust to it pretty quickly if you just want to do that - and you probably will because driving a scooter is by far the easiest and many times the only way to get from a place A to place B here. And because of that I tried to create some kind of list about the most important things to know about Balinese traffic.

1) The traffic is left-handed. This is the most basic fact you have to know about Balinese traffic before you can think about anything else. Luckily it's pretty easy to remember because the traffic is left-handed in the most parts of Asia and because it's hard to drive in the wrong side of the road when there's other vehicles driving in the right side all the time and you probably don't want to crash with them. Still sometimes there's short moments when I forget to think about the traffic as a contrary version to Finnish traffic. So yeah, try to remember all the time that you're driving in the left side of the road and so is everyone else (at most of the time at least).

2) The rules about giving the way (and who can drive first) are pretty unclear to say at least. Firstly, there's no "give way" or "yield" signs in any junctions to indicate the correct order of giving the way... Or yeah, actually I've seen one "give way" sign! Unfortunately no one cared about that. Secondly, the same "nobody cares" situation applies to STOP signs even though you may see them sometimes at the junctions (not too often, though). Nobody stops at STOP sings. So yeah, thirdly (partly because of the first too points) it's often completely mystery who has the right to drive first. Normally someone just makes the first move and then everybody follows the best way they can. That's why I advice you to be very observant at the junctions and make your move when you feel safe to do that. Normally you'll notice the right moment pretty easily. I haven't had any big problems at the crossroads so driving safely is the key to the success. Sometimes the police is at the crossroad trying to guide the traffic but usually they're only able to make things worse.

3) The traffic signs seem to be mostly just recommendations. As I already mentioned about STOP signs, nobody cares about them and the same situation applies to almost any other traffic signs - especially to speed limit signs. There might some 60 km/h signs on the sides of the bigger roads but almost everyone is driving there at least 80 km/h. I have no clue what's the normal speed limit at the city area and I bet that neither do most of the local drivers. The easiest advice about speed limits is to drive with that kind of speed that you feel comfortable to drive. The common sense is the best guideline here to any situation in the traffic.

4) The obeying of traffic lights depends on the situation. There's a lot of traffic lights in Bali and pretty often they are also obeyed... At least some way. It's pretty usual that everyone runs a red light at least during the first five seconds after the lights have turned to red. That of course lead to the situation where you can't start driving immediately after the lights have turned to green because there's still vehicles driving in front of you. The other pretty common custom here is that if the driver is turning to left, he will continue driving even though the lights are red. Especially taxi drivers run a red light at the night time and sometimes also in the middle of the day. That all being said I remind that you that you should never run a red light here because it's really bad violation of the traffic rules and you may be fined very hardly if you get caught. Of course the even more important reason not to run a red light is the fact that you may easily get into a bad accident by doing that.

5) You can't trust the police. As I've already mentioned in this blog, the police is really different here than in most of the western countries. Many of the policemen are corrupted and that's why you can't trust them same way you can trust them in your home country. Every time I'm driving here I just hope that I won't see any policemen because there's no certainty about what they want from you. Some of them are really nice and just want to keep the traffic safe but some of them are corrupted and want to get money from you even though you wouldn't have done anything wrong. If that happens, the easiest way is just to give money to them. But don't give them that amount they're asking first. Normally they may want even 500,000 RP (~30 euros, ~50 dollars) which is way too much if you haven't done anything wrong. Normally the amount of 50,000 RP (~3 euros, ~5 dollars) is enough and policemen are satisfied with that. Still, I want to remind you that being caught by a policeman won't happen to you every day if you drive normally. I've been driving her for two months and policemen have stopped me twice. First time they just wanted too see my driving license and they were really surprised and happy when they noticed that I can speak a little bit Indonesian. The other time wasn't that successful but I didn't have to pay more than 50,000 RP.

6) You can drive almost everywhere with your scooter. Most of the Balinese roads aren't designed to hold so much traffic that they have to nowadays. That's why there's pretty bad traffic jams on the roads almost all the time. Some talk about special rush hours (during mornings and afternoons) but from my experience I would say that the traffic jam may hit at any time of the day (most probably not at the night). The good news for a scooter driver is that with a scooter you can survive from almost any imaginable traffic jam. In Bali scooter drivers almost never stop at the traffic jams or drive with as much as space as cars (from example in Finland the rule says that even with a scooter you have to have as much space as a car has). So with scooter you can drive between cards or pass by the car from either side you want. You can also drive on a pedestrian way if you can't get forward any other way. Even while waiting at the traffic lights scooter drivers try to manage their way as front as possible by passing by all the cars that can't move anywhere.

 

7) Many road are in a very poor condition. Indonesia is still pretty poor country and that is easy to notice from the infrastructure. There's not much money to make the condition of the road better so there's a lot of cracks, holes and rocks on the roads. During rainy season the water can sometimes pour on the roads. Because of the money issues there's not any ramps even on the biggest road of the southern Bali (called Sunset Road) so if you want to go to the store that's on the other side of the Sunset Road, you have to make U-turn at the nearest possible place. The traffic signs show you the recommended U-turn points but of course you have to be prepared for the fact that those are not the only places where drivers may do a sudden U-turn.

8) The local driving school lasts one week. I asked this from the taxi driver during my first weeks here and he gave me this answer. First I didn't want to believe him but apparently that's the truth. The situation doesn't get any better by the fact that most of the Indonesian people don't even go to that driving school. They instead just start driving and learn that way. The official age required to drive a vehicle here is 17 years but I've seen many 10-year-old kids driving a scooter.

9) Besides all of this I've told you, I enjoy driving here in Bali. It's still the easiest and, as I already said, many times the only way to get from the place A to the place B. And even though the traffic may sound really rough, dangerous and scary, there's really few traffic accidents amongst our students. I've fallen down once but it was just a stupid mistake that could have happened anywhere. Nothing happened neither to me nor my scooter. As long as you keep your common sense with you, look around all the times and drive safely (and don't drive any faster than you feel comfortable), you should be safe. And yeah, I have to say this: driving here is so much more fun than in Finland. You can drive scooter 365 days per year (in Finland only during summers) and it feels great every time to hop on my scooter.

Pictures

For a chance I decided to 'write' one post which includes mostly just pictures from the last two months that I've been spending in Indonesia. I haven't remembered to post this earlier so I thouhght that now it's a good time to do that. Here we go:


West Bali National Park:

Northern Rice Fields:

Pura Luhur Uluwatu:

 

Bukit Lawang (Sumatra):

Lake Toba (Sumatra):