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 :)