Cambodia

Trip to Cambodia with Thomas, Shelley and Ran was great. We had a good time in KL before leaving. First we did some climbing!!! and then headed to the airport. Taxi driver was either high or... very high. We made it though so s'all good.
First two days were spent in Phnom Penh. Long story short: got ripped off at massage parlor, not fun, but funny when I look back at it, then visited some places from the times of Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979... unbelievable nightmare that killed 4 million people. School turned into a prison was very depressing. Seeing hundreds of skulls at the killing fields was humbling. What bugs me the most is that all this happened a mere 30 years ago. How indifferent the world is to the disasters that occur in faraway places. Bringing it back to today: there are people being killed everyday in Africa but because it doesn't affect our immediate well-being its hard to pick your hands up and do something. 30 years later we'll be visiting the Darfur and writing on our blogs how depressing and senseless the history is. I guess that's what defines us 'humans'.

Angkor Wat with all the beautiful temples was amazing. We were not able to see the sunrise clearly because it was a bit cloudy and sunset was ruined by the rain. Nevertheless it was a good day of exploration and awe.

Siem Reap is a cozy little town. We only spent 2 days there so much left unexplored, but visiting the floating village was great. The sandy and bumpy ride on the motorbike was fun. Seeing many villagers look at us was kind of fun. There's not many of our kind passing by their lands... with traditional krama wrapped around their heads:)

...it has been a while

I haven't updated the page for a while and believe it would only be appropriate to update.
So first off it was the weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur. After realizing that I cannot go to Thailand on Wednesday and then be back in KL for Formula 1 race in Sepang on Sunday (23nd of march), I just settled for a more in depth experience in Kuala Lumpur.
So I joined Johannes, his brother and 3 of his friends. These fellas spent a few days in S'pore before they continued their journey to Bali, Indonesia where they will spend a semester "studying". ...those study abroad'ers... :)
So we explored Kuala Lumpur a bit on Friday. Stayed in a very sweeeeet location on Petaling St, aka Chinatown. On Friday we got into the club for free because I was obnoxious enough two ask these two girls if they would take us into the club for free (after they told me that they are "big deal" around here and get into the club for free).
So they got us in and saved us a few hundred ringgit for the 6 of us. Next day we again explored KL and went to Menara KL, a 4th largest TV tower in the world.
At night there was an F1 SpeedZone party at the foot of Menara KL. Dj Mauro Picotto was there! Amazing light and show festival!

Next day was the race. Watching a race in the comfort of your living rooms is easier to follow, but no sound systems or 56inch LCD will come near replacing the thrill of hearing these 1000hp engines roar. An experience is worthwhile but after 54 laps the "watching" becomes tiring.

At night we head back to S'pore. Nice weekend.

Jurong Island Visit

A week ago, on Wednesday I had an opportunity to visit Jurong Island. This place is off-limits to general audience so to visit the place was an honor in itself. The trip was arranged by Prof. Young of Geography Department here at NUS. I'm in his class titled Economy and Space.
So bus filled with 45 students from our class took us to this island Wednesday morning.
Jurong Island is 3rd largest oil refinery in the world, surpassed only by Netherlands and #1 ranked Houston, USA. Island hosts 95 companies of various types, which collectively employ about 8,000 workers. The island was a result of reclamation project directed to bring 4 or 5 separate island together. Everything is possible in Singapore, or so the saying goes. I mean isn't it mind-blowing that officials from Singapore took Exxon's CEO on a helicopter ride and said: "we'll fill these island to make workable space for you if you agree to come do business here". Creating this cluster was a major driving force in bringing various companies to the area in order to create synergies and efficiencies by having companies use each other's output at various stages of production. The huge pipe-line around the island links all the companies, thus decreasing the cost of transporting material that is used by one company on the island but is produced by another company.

The company running the island is called JTC (Jurong Town Corporation). It is a government-owned company, which allows it to cut through a lot of red tape. Jurong is a very successful project, especially taking into account that Singapore has zero drops of crude oil but is ranked as #3 refiner of oil on the world.
These pictures were taken secretly because no recording equipment is allowed. We also were lectured about stories where people tried taking pictures and then were swiftly reported to security and interrogated. Luckily I was able to take a picture without interrogation:)) Professor saw me take a picture and scolded me for doing so but then said, "that's how I was able to put a picture of Jurong in my textbook".

The message here is that when the government takes a very proactive role to attract businesses - great things happen, such as country with no oil resources becomes #3 oil refiner producing 1.33million barrels per day.
...Being blessed with S'pore's strategic location helps too.

Douglass North visits NUS Law School

The other week I have visited Bukit Timah Campus of National University of Singapore, where Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy and School of Law is located. On this day (11th of March) Douglass C. North (a nobel laureate of economics in 1993) was giving a speech on what he called "a natural state". Overarching aim of his speech was to address the reasons why developing countries are "stuck" and why there is a huge dividing gap among the world's well-offs and "have nots". He coined the notion of natural state, which describes a Limited Access Society where elites with a lot of political power dominate country's policy, path and the well being of its citizens. In this society most of the access to you is given based on "who you know" not "what you know". Supposed opposite of this is Silicone Valley in California, where talent is able to achieve unimaginable levels of success based on pure merit. Entrepreneurship is thus a good example of state that is denoted as Open Access Society.

In addition to these in depth ideas, Prof. North talked about development as a more intrinsic process combining beliefs, time, culture, institutions and a sometimes imperfect functioning (or economically irrational) of these.

Overall it was a good lecture. Prof North is 87 years old but his mental skills and ability to engage the audience are still superb. The hall was packed tight and thus I am happy that I made my way to Bukit Timah that day.

On the final note, here are some pictures of the beautiful Bukit Timah campus. It was raining that day so in the midst rain I walked around the campus and took a few pics before my camera battery died.

Enjoy!

Pilipinas (Part II)

So off we go the the village called Panaman. After a long trek we get there and the village has a population of about a 100. I don't think they have electricity, not to mention other things we are so attached to nowadays. So we walked through the village and stop on the shore of the ocean. There we see a bunch of palm trees with coconuts so we decide to take one. Slowly the locals are beginning to pay more attention to us and give us strange looks.
One of the older men comes forward and helps us to open a coconut with his machete. We drink coconut milk and feast on ripe coconut. Then we walk further on the beach and decide where to put the tent. As we walk we pass a man who is helping to pull a boat onshore. They just came from fishing. Feast or what?:) So we ask if we can buy some fish and sure enough they take us to one of the huts and sort our some fish from their box. With emphasis on selling us the squid they finally sell us 2kg of fish and help to take the guts out. We then set up the tent and take a while to start fire. Cooking fish is fun and taaaasty. We eat, drink some more coconut juice and then it starts raining so we duck to our tent and fall asleep. Understandable... after a long day of walking from one village to another.
Next morning we wake up early and go back to village. There a local offers us coffee and some sweet bread - of course being hungry we accept it. The whole village, or so it seems, stand outside watching us eat. I am sure they don't see many tourists.
A local then takes us on his tricycle to the town. What a ride.... morning breeze is rushing through the air and finally its a sunny day:)) After all the rain sun really makes a day better.

We swim near the small port of the Caramoan and then catch the ferry to back to where the bus stops. Its about an hour ride. I took a video of the ride (its on facebook). Take a bus back to Naga city and get dropped off at CWC Resort (Camsur Watersports Complex). The owner of the complex is the government of Naga City. The guy is nuts (in a good way). He hangs out with wake-boarders and from time to time jumps on the board himself. I was wondering what is his agenda? Because it seems so pointless for this guy to hang out with this crowd when he is a governor of the town. Doesn't he have higher responsibilities to take care of? Well, just another paradox I guess.

So we meet the crowd we hung out with 2 days ago and they are professional wakeboarders from all over the world. Guy named Laurent is from France and he is the world champion of 2007. It is really fun wakeboarding in this park. Water is quite clear and cable is in a good shape.

In the evening we say bye to our new friends and leave for Naga city where we catch a bus back to Manilla. This concludes the journey to Philippines.

A week in Philippines (Part I)

I will try to make this short and sweet. Arrived in Manila, Philippines on Saturday (Feb 23rd). After figuring out our bus route to Pasay, south part of Manila, and taking the ride there, we got our ticket to Legaspi (13hrs bus ride away) and left with a couple of hours on our hands we took a metro (LRT) train to Intramuros. 1km or so area surrounded by the old stone walls where Spanish invaders lived while locals inhabited the surrounding area. 

On our night bus to Legaspi the bus broke down so instead of arriving at 7am we arrive at 10am in Legaspi and go meet our local tour guide (which I contacted before going to Philippines). His name is Richard and he arranges a tour guide for us to climb Mt. Mayon. I believe I covered our attempt at Mt. Mayon in the previous entry so to make this brief: we come back to Legaspi. The weather sucks, rainy, foggy, nothing to do. I and Loic leave Rahel in the tent in front of Richard's office (on the 2nd floor balcony facing the city) and go walk around town on Monday night at 11pm. Everything is closed. We stumble upon a bar and hear the music coming through the open door. We enter. Karaoke bar. We sit down, there are couple of "waitresses" entertaining the "customers" so we just ask for an album list and sing some Bon Jovi and Oasis. Go back to our tent and try to sleep a couple hours in order to get up at 6am when the other stores on the second floor open and we need to take down our tent and the "spiderweb" of clothe lines that we used to hang our wet EVERYTHING we brought from the Mt. Mayon. 

Tuesday is spend aimlessly wandering around town. Watching a terrible movie called "in the name of the king"

Wednesday we take a shuttle to Donsol. We meet 5 other guys from NUS, one of them is my floor-mate Don. We arrive in Donsol excited to go on the boat and snorkel with whalesharks! Friendly creatures in sizes of up to 18meters! 

On the boat it is raining and windy. No sharks around and aprox 12-15 boats chasing the brave ones who decided to come near the surface in such bad weather. 

We head back to Legaspi, pick up our clean and dry laundry from a laundry shop and catch the first van going to Naga city, 2hrs north of Legaspi.  In Naga we take decide to stay in a Golden Leaf hotel and its a clean place. Our first place with a bed since arriving in Philippines. Quite nice to sleep in the bed. After dinner in the restaurant with FINALLY some great food we head back to the room while the other guys decide to take a walk and check out some bars. 

On Thursday we take a Jeepney to the hot spring north of Naga and chill in a 39c water for a few hours. Nice way to relax. Afterwards we had back to Naga and settle for a good dinner in the restaurant Jellato. Owner DomiNikko met the guys the night before and had a lot of drinks complemented with some great food. Nikko is a chef and makes great food. Although we did not see him make the food per se, he has graduated from a culinary school in Manila. 

At night the boys take a bus to Manila and we (Loic, Rahel, Gabi and I) join Nikko to check out CWC - we didn't know that, but its a world famous place for wake boarding. We arrive in the restaurant and see a "surfer" type crowd partying it up with booze and music. We meet them and they are here from all over the world, France, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Serbia, etc. Most of them are staying here for a couple of months while they practice their wake boarding tricks... which are amazing as we found out on Saturday. After partying up with the crowd we join them for a trip to a local club and spend couple hours there, then head to Nikkos house and spend an hours on the couch. At 3am we head to bus terminal to catch a bus going to Caramoan.  Arriving in Sabang I am awaken by aprox 10 eager men opening the door and one of them saying "this is the end of your trip"... would serve as a good culmination to a nightmare but I realize that we did indeed arrive to Sabang where we will catch a boat going to Caramoan. Its raining, nasty, streets are dirty, there is no restaurant where we can get a decent meal so we just sit down in one of the places that reminds of a restaurant and chill for an hours while we wait for a boat. Take a boat and it is still raining... Reach Caramoan and take a Jeepney to Centro Caramoan. Here we find a decent place to eat and sit down to have some breakfast. After breakfast the sun comes out and we are unusually cheerful as we are excited about the weather. We take a tricycle to a nearby village where we need to hike for another 3km to reach Gota beach. It is known for its white sand and beautiful coves surrounding the area. There we find a bunch of white people talking on walkie-talkies. They are personnel for a french Survivor TV series. We are not allowed to take any pictures or stay on the beach. After conversing with one guy for a few minutes we are told many details about the show and he answers the questions we have. Then he was nice enough to offer us a ride from one of the locals who is working for them and drives a rented Honda SUV. After unsuccessful attempt to convince the guy that he should hire us as doubles for the Survivor series:) we thank him, jump in the car and slowly traverse across the muddy road full of huge puddles. Then we attempt to convince the local guy who is driving the rented car to give us a ride to the next village only a couple of kilometers away but he refuses. We thank and continue our trek to the next village. 

...to be continued in PART II.  Stay tuned:)

Spring break (recess week)

I am on spring-break now at the National University of Singapore, so I, Gabi, Loic and Rahel took a flight to Philippines for a week and now we are in Legaspi. The end of monsoon season is not very travel-friendly so instead of the expected sun we are flooded with ton of rain. Last Saturday we took a 14-hour bus ride to Legaspi from the capital Manila.
Next morning, after hiring a mountain guide from our new friend Richard (from Royal Quest Tours) attempted to climb Mt. Mayon (still active, most perfectly-shaped volcano), but heavy rains prevented us from reaching the top (or as close as dept. of tourism allows).
It was a very dangerous climb and at one point we were standing on the edge of a long waterfall, that rattles down the mountain like a big snake with a wet & shinny volcanic rock "skin", and waited for the rain to subside because the amount of water falling has probably quadrupled in a matter of 10 minutes. Shivering and holding on to branches of trees and grass we waited out the rain and humbly began our descend. Including a couple of bruises and grass-cuts we made it down safely, but Mt. Mayon showed that HE, not US... mere mortals, decides who goes up and who doesn't.

2400m high, Mayon stands tall and unconquered by the 4 students from NUS.
The weather sucks that's why I am not chilling on the beautiful beach but sit here writing my blog in the Internet cafe (15 pesos/hour = 30c US).

Out.

Batam Island (Chinese New Year Weekend)

So the weekend started early :) - Wednesday night. Went to city for Chinese new year and checked out the scene in Chinatown. Sat around a huge screen watching a concert that was happening live right behind us but because the streets were closed off we were too lazy to make a big circle around town to get to the stage.

Then we went to Ministry of Sound club (aka MoS). "Studio 54" on the 2nd floor was tons of dancing and fun.

Next morning (Thursday) early wake up and going to Waterfront to catch our 9am ferry to Batam Island (about 40 mins away from S'pore).
We had a resort booked for 10 ppl and so after a shady process of "visa on arrival" we were picked up from the ferry terminal and taken to resort (2 mins away) via shuttle.
Holiday Inn Batam is a beautiful resort with all the necessary things you can imagine... saunas, spas, huge pool, restaurant, bar, etc...even a waterslide yeeeey! ..ahm.. its only a bit in the middle of nowhere. There was another resort nearby called Harris. There was a cable wakeboarding, as well as go-carts. We did both. Actually we only had about 30 mins for wakeboarding because we arrived at 5:30pm and they were closing at 6, but we did get a chance to try it out. It was hard but I was able to get on water couple of times. Afterwords a local worker asked if we wanted to jump into the water from the cable tower. The obvious answer was YES. Thrilled and scared I climbed up and jumped from about 6m high tower.

Staying in the resort was fun and relaxing, but we really wanted to see the "real" Batam so with the help of our buddy Mukti (guy in charge of activities at the resort) we took two cabs to the city on Saturday afternoon. In Nagoya (center of Batam) we went to a massage place and a few of us received a reflexology (foot massage) for about S$9. really cheap compared to the S$80 or 90 at the resort. Then we went for dinner and finally arrived in NoName Cafe - really nice bar with live music. There was a band from Jakarta performing. Just good live music and very good pub ambiance. The place was decorated as if you were under the trees, so you can see structures that represent roots of a tree, kind of a darker "Alice in the Wonderland" atmosphere.

Sunday we headed back to Singapore. Again the stricking difference in the way things are organized here... order and structure stands out. It is actually nice when you come back from a more chaotic place because you know that here (S'pore) everything will go as expected, the bus, the taxi driver, the server at the restaurant will just perform their function in the society and thus make your life easier. Comforting, but when 'consumed in excess' becomes annoying. I guess we as people need some chaos in our lives.

Article about Malacca/Melaka

I simply have to share this... Today while surfing net for our recess week travels I found this article on National Geographic. I wish I would have read this before the weekend trip to Melaka. I believe it would have given me a different feel for Melaka. Author writes about Malacca Straights and Batam (the island we're going to this weekend - Chinese New Years Weekend). Maybe we'll go to one of the places mentioned in the article, where the pirates shoot pool and plan their next "happy happy".

Article is great and supplementary materials (field notes, photos) are really awesome.

READ

Bike Quest Update

So the race went very well. We have completed two areas West and Central that included about 16 checkpoints spread around Singapore, at which we had to solve puzzles and play games to complete the area checkpoints and receive clues about the next area.

The race attracted a total of 58 teams (4 members each) and started at around 10pm and ended at 6am. We crossed finish line at 6:05am but did not get penalized because at one point during the race my bike broke down so we had to wait for about 20 mins to have another bike delivered to us by the organizers. I still don't know the final rankings but we will know soon.

Overall it was a challenging task and required some effort, especially the final few kilometers. When joining our team Rahel was afraid that she might not be able to keep up with three guys, and in the end she was the second to cross the finish line! Amazing effort!
This is the summary of the route we took:

3 winning teams were all professional biking teams and had about 200 points more than we did. We had 730 points, 3rd place winner had 930 and first place had 1015.

All of us were exhausted after the race so while we waited for the scores and announcement of the winners I jumped into the ocean at the East Coast Park (Very refreshing!) and in the meantime the sun came up.

I am very happy that I was able to compete in Bike Quest 2008 and if there will be a chance to do it again, I AM IN!

Because I did not select a team name when registering for the event, the organizers used my name for the team name, thus my lithuanian soccer shirt worked very well with our "team name" Karolis on the back :)

BikeQuest 2008 - Cycledelic

In about half an hour I am meeting my teammates Manas, Toby and Rahel to make our trip to the East Coast Park (Haven't been there yet) and at 9:30PM tonight, Saturday, the 2nd of February 2008 we will compete in a night bike competition/event Bike Quest 2008 - Cycledelic. The race will take place during the night hours so tentatively it should end around 5-6am tomorrow. Along with 40-some other teams we will have a task to solve puzzles in order to find hints on where the next check-point is located, equipped with only a map and a bottle of water we will rush with our bikes to that location (bikes are rented to us by the organizers).
There are two groups, leisure and competitive, so being ambitious group of amateur bikers we enter the COMPETITIVE group:) There will be some sweet prizes for the 3 teams who will find the most checkpoints around Singapore! (around 20 checkpoints total)

Look forward to the challenge and will update on the results tomorrow!

GO TEAM!

Gimtadienis = Birthday

Bega metai, bega dienos:) Stai ir dar vienas gimtadienis. Sis sutiktas su naujais draugais Singapure. Vakar (30d) sventeme klube o siandien bare buvom.

So today (the day that ended 3 hours ago) was my 23rd b-day. Even though I am far away from my close friends and family, I had a great day today. It was really great to have very nice people around me to go out to St. James club complex yesterday and to the famous (or is it infamous) Wala Wala bar for some live music tonight.

Also got two amazing gifts today. Ramona sent the most wonderful powerpoint presentation made specially for my birthday:) Rahel brough a beautifully wrapped piece of cake and also gave a friendship band (the thing that is tied around wrist).
It's the little things that mean the most. Also many people congratulated me today and I am very thankful to all of them.
Esp the crowd I hanged with yesterday and today, so Ran, Rahel, Johannes, Tobias, Thomas, Manas, Gabi, Loic, Aleks, Charles, and others.

update: 02.02.2008 Ran (Welcoming Buddy) txted me yesterday that she needs to pass something to me so we met up to have lunch and she gave me a beautifully giftwrapped webcam!! Can she be any sweeter? I looked around the stores after I arrived and didn't buy a webcam cause it was very expensive, a luxury:P So thank you Ran, you're the best welcoming buddy in the world!

I have been slow about updating my blog but I promise to take more time and write a bit about my Singapore experience. I have learned quite a few interesting things about this country, and the people that live here. Still lots to see and learn though:)

Goodnight!

Where I live

I took this picture a couple of days ago. Its where I live. Its a huge residence housing about 3,000 students. Highly sophisticated infrastructure makes living here very comfortable and smooth. Although locks on everyfloor, which can be unlocked only with the key to your floor, make this place a bit like a prison, it's bearable if you keep in mind that they are managing 3,000 residents!

You can also see the port.
Pictures taken on the rooftop:)

Good night!

Melaka Jan 18-20

1st weekend at NUS I talk to my French bud Thomas and we agree on going to Melaka. After some last minute considerations and decisions we are heading to the bus stations by taxi. We barely make it to the 5pm bus and I, Thomas, Karim, and UIUC students Heidi and Michelle, along with their roommate guy from Mexico named Andres, head to Melaka. Thomas had some problems at the border so the whole bus waited while the problem was resolved. Driver scolded us that next time he will wait for 15 minutes and then leave whoever is not able to make it through the border passport check.

Leaving Singapore may appear as insignificant change of surroundings but after a couple of days in Malaysia (or the little that I saw of it) it is clear that Singapore, unlike surrounding countries, is very organized, clean and stands out of the pack.

In Melaka we stay in the hostel called Shirah's Guest House. Bargained to get a room with A/C and for 50 ringgit (about $15US) we got a room for 4 guys:) comes out to less than $4US a person. Surprisingly the beds were comfy and clean and they even gave us towels. I believe this was my first stay in a real hostel and I am not disappointed.
So Melaka... historically a trade city that was visited by almost every cargo ship traveling from China to India or further West. Due to this there are no clean beaches in Melaka, however being a crossroads town brought a lot of rich culture and a blend of various styles of architecture... Chinese, Malay, Indian, Dutch and British symbols are all present in the old buildings. One of the highlights is Christ's Church built in 1753. Oh by the way the taxi driver that took us from bus stations (the famous Melaka Sentral) to the town, was very knowledgeable and interesting guy. Told us not only the dates of when various buildings were built around town but also pointed out where's the best place to see the sunset... funny thing is he somehow mixed up the times and told us that the sun will set between 5:10 and 5:15PM, although the actual time next day was a bit after 7Pm. It's all good though. It was fun riding with the guy. He also told us how Melaka as a state is also trying to have the lowest number of accidents and lowest crime rates in Malaysia, thus no scooter rentals for tourists... bummer:(

Christ's Church:

Facing left from the Christ's Church is a bridge. Pass the bridge and you are facing Melaka's China Town, or the main street that is known as Jonker Walk:

To be brief, Melaka was fun. Especially the dinner. There's couple more pics online right here -------->

Till next, entry!

Arrival to Singapore

I begin my blog exactly 1 week after my arrival to Singapore. 1 week is a short period of time but I already had a chance to experience some of what Singapore has to offer. In fact, I already took a weekend-trip to Malaysia (next blog entry). So arriving to Singapore was an exhausting experience. I and a group 21 students left Zagreb after our GEDI trip in Croatia. Jumping of the plane in Frankfurt required to quickly say goodbye to the rest of the group as their flight to Chicago was already boarding and they needed to be transported from one aircraft to the next via airport shuttle. Quick hugs and a few sad faces ran through my eyes and I was on another shuttle closing the trip to Croatia and beginning a new adventure: Singapore! After flying from Frankfurt to London, then Dubai, after some 20 hours I arrive in Singapore. Sounds easy but in the process I almost missed one of my flights due to the incompetence of Lufthansa's staff at Frankfurt airport. They were not able to route my 2 bags directly to Singapore, so they made me pick up my luggage in London, which in the end I did not do, or else I would have missed a flight to Dubai and thus Singapore. The result of all this? - I had to report lost luggage at Singapore airport and spend the first night in the dorm without towels or clean clothes:) Luckily Singapore is warm and I survived until the next evening when airport called and said that their guy will deliver my luggage in a few minutes.

My awesome welcoming buddy Ran met me at the airport and for the next couple of days hung out with me to help me register, obtain my student pass and temp resident card. I am really happy that I opted out for the Welcoming Buddy program that was made available through office of Student Affairs. So to end this entry, I would like to tell you why i am writing all this. I would like this blog to be my public-diary. I never had success in writing a real diary so maybe modern technology will at least help me to have a public diary. On this blog I will attempt to track my experience in Singapore and share my impressions, ideas, travels, and picture with you.

Till next entry!:) p.s. this is a cool picture I took in Dubai. I only stayed there for a few hours, but the luxury and material richness $$$$$$ of the country was clearly visible.