Travel Report – Thammasat University Spring 2016
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“One night in Bankok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me”
The Preparations
Every exchange starts over a year in advance, when you are searching for the right destination to apply for.
I used quite a lot of time thinking about different options, but ended up applying for Bangkok. I did also
consider European countries like Spain and Austria, but in the end I reasoned that I could visit Europe
whenever I wanted, even live there abroad and work for a while if I so wanted, but living abroad in Asia
would be a chance I didn’t get again in a while.
Once I had decided I wanted to go to Asia, I started looking for the best place to go. I decided on Bangkok
due to various reasons:
1) Bangkok is a lot cheaper than most of the other places in Asia.
2) Bangkok is in the middle of South-East Asia, so it meant that travel to basically any other
destination was really cheap. (You could visit Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar by train or bus)
3) Bangkok is Bangkok. Stories about crazy nights in Bangkok emerge all the time in pop-culture, and I
was curious to see if there’s some truth to them.
After deciding that I wanted to go to Bangkok, I had to choose which school to apply for, Chulalangkorn or
Thammasat. I couldn’t really find any information which is better, so I flipped a coin. After my exchange I
can say that there is really not a lot of difference. Chulalangkorn is more strict with school uniforms and has
a reputation for being the school for “good citizens”, whereas Thammasat has the reputation for being
more of a “rebel”, which opens up interesting insights from some professors, if you happen to take their
courses. The Chulalangkorn campus is situated closer to downtown, and as such people live closer to
downtown. Thammasat is in the old part of the city, next to the Grand Palace across a river, so getting
downtown takes a bit more time, but the rent is cheaper.
I got my acceptance for exchange from Aalto in February, and from Thammasat in November. So be
warned, things don’t happen instantly in Thailand. Letting people wait is not considered rude. After you get
your acceptance letter from Thammasat, the process is straight forward. You just need to apply for the visa
at the Embassy and send a letter to Thammasat with all the requested paperwork (this included some
passport photos, a motivational letter and filling out some information online).
Applying for the visa is easy. Just follow the instructions on the embassy’s website and take with you the
letter you received from Thammasat. The letter will make things very easy. I feel that once I showed them
the letter I got better service. I also suggest you to apply for a multiple entry visa, this way you can leave
the country as many times as you please. This should come in handy if you plan to travel, and why wouldn’t
you?
I think I booked my flights about 3-4 months in advance. I took a direct flight from Finnair for 800€
roundtrip. There were also some cheaper flights, but the flying with Ukrainian Airlines didn’t feel like a
good idea after the conflict with Russia had just erupted when I was booking my flights. Other cheaper
options also included long layovers pushing the travel time closer to 20 hours, so I just decided on a youth
ticket from Finnair. I am sure you can find some cheaper alternatives, especially if you are looking in
advance. You might also consider how much they charge for changing the flight back, since you might want
to stay longer than anticipated. For Finnair the fee would’ve been 50€.
Before you leave for Bangkok, you should also make sure your travel insurance covers your stay in Bangkok.
A lot of exchange students ended up needing to go to the doctor for various reasons, the worst being a
broken leg. So make sure you have the needed insurance, in case something happens. Bangkok traffic is
frightening, and driving motorbikes on islands can cause a lot of small injuries as well.
The course offerings for Thammasat normally come very late, and they work on a first come first serve
basis, so it’s a good idea to choose the ones you’d like as soon as they come, so that you can be ready to email your preference list to the International Affairs office as soon as they open the applying process. The
first two weeks of courses are add-drop period, which means that you can still change courses if you don’t
like them. During this period they don’t track attendance, so you can also use the time to
travel/party/explore, whatever suits you.
Before the school starts, there is orientation week, and I recommend you attend it. You get to buy the
school uniform and get to know other people. Although I do recommend that you buy your school uniform
from a mall (just get black pants and white shirts), so that you can get the lightest possible clothes to wear
outside; Bangkok is hot! You will still need to buy the belt and tie from the school’s store on campus
though. Wearing the tie is optional for classes and only mandatory for exams, so no locals wear ties for
school. Actually the locals are super chill with the dress code for school, and you might want to experience
what all you get away with.
Life in Bangkok and free-time
Living in Bangkok comes down to one thing: where do the other exchange students live? Living in the same
building with all the other students makes life just so much easier. Need to go shopping? Let’s share a taxi
with 4 other people. Want to go out? There’s got to be someone who is up for it!
For our exchange and all the exchange reports I read before going to Bangkok, this place where everyone
stayed was Amarin Mansion. The rent for me with liberal AC usage was about 10 000 baht a month. You
could get a better place for the same amount of money, but being with all the other exchange students is a
big plus. At least for starters. It might be a good idea to contact them via e-mail if you want to make sure
you get a room there. It wasn’t necessary during our exchange, but things might change if more people go
on exchange in Thammasat and everyone hears that Amarin Mansion is the place to be.
Food in Bangkok is cheap as long as you are ready to eat street food. And no, I’m not talking about
Restaurant day street gastro style food, but instead it’s rice or noodles with different sauces, curries or
soups. Also the hygiene level of those street food places seems sketchy at first, but if you can get over it,
you’ll get used to it really fast.
Getting western food is expensive in Bangkok. You are paying a premium to get your hands on luxury items
like cheese or wine for example. The best places to do daily shopping are either Tesco Lotus or Central
Pinklao’s Topsi Market. Tesco is more casual, and has less western stuff. But you get all the basic stuff like
toilet paper and fruits from there. Central Pinklao on the other hand has a lot of western items that you
might start craving a few months into the exchange. If you ever crave some good western style food that
isn’t too expensive, go to the Topsi Market in Central Pinklao, and inside you will find “The Grill”. This is
where I ended up eating whenever I didn’t feel like having street food.
Moving around Bangkok is a pain. The best way to get from place a to b is to take either a normal taxi, or a
moto taxi. The normal taxies will have a hard time to move if you happen to hit a traffic jam. You can try to
keep an eye out for this trough google maps. Their traffic tracking is decent. Also be aware of taxis trying to
charge you a fixed sum of money because you are a foreigner. You shouldn’t take it, and insist they use the
meter. If they don’t you can just change to a taxi that does. However be warned, getting taxis with meter
outside a club at night is hard, and you might want to walk next to a road where you can pick up a taxi that
isn’t waiting to make a quick buck through the closing of the club. Other forms of transportation include the
river boats, and sometimes they are the most convenient way of travel, depending on where you are going.
Life in Bangkok is hectic, but that’s why you need to relax often. There are a lot of places to go out:
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The first thing you will probably experience is Khao San Road, which is a backpacker party road
with cheap drinks. It’s quite messy and the clubs are all but classy, but if you want to make it cheap
and close to Amarin Mansion, this is the place to go.
Levels club in Sukhumvit -district offers you a free bottle of vodka for a group of 5 if you arrive
before 23 on Wednesdays. Needless to say, we went here quite a few times. You have to buy
mixers though for 100 bath each.
Sky bars. There are a lot of these in Bangkok, and you should definitely go to these at least once.
Put on your fancy clothes and pay a little bit more for a drink. It’s fun.
Want to know where all the hipsters from Bangkok go to at night? J.J. Green night market. One of
my definitive favourites of places to go in Bangkok. Hand-made burgers? Check. Live Music? Check.
Cool ass bars? Check. Also vintage clothing and other stores if you’re into that kind of stuff.
So once you have checked out the night life in Bangkok and all the tourist attractions you found, it’s time to
widen your circle! Thailand offers a lot of amazing places to visit. And travel inside Thailand is cheap. The
best forms of transportation are trains or night buses. You can get to beautiful islands for under 10€, and
accommodate a night in a Bungalow for another 10€. Some must see places I recommend to check out:
1) Chiang Mai is a relaxed old city in the north of Thailand. A totally different scenery from Bangkok.
Nice natural routes to explore but still the feeling of a small city. Perfect for taking a break from the
capital.
2) Koh Chang the elephant island is the second biggest island in Thailand. It’s just recently been found
my tourists, and thus has a little more authentic feeling to it when compared to some of the more
well known islands
3) The Full moon party on Koh Pangan is a must-see if you want to see what a huge rave on a beach
looks like. Be warned: do not go alone and take good care of your friends. Every year people get
drugged and stolen on the party.
A lot of exchange students also travelled outside of Thailand. The countries of Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar
are very close to Thailand and as such make easy and cheap travel destinations. I myself didn’t visit those
places. Instead we did a 10 day-trip to Bali and the Gili islands. Bali is amazingly beautiful, but overrun by
tourists. Instead the Gili islands (especially Gili Air and Mano) are still chill. If you have some extra money
after traveling to the locations close by, I’d suggest making a trip to Bali.
Courses
When choosing my courses, I restricted my schedule by wanting my school week to be only 3 days long,
from Tuesday to Thursday. I was able to accomplish this, because you’re required to take 5 courses during
the semester, and each course has 3 hours of class a week plus additional homework depending on the
course. I chose 4 courses from the BBA faculty, and one course in Thai studies (Aalto doesn’t let us choose
more in Thai studies). Each course was 3 credits, but it converted into 6 ECTS, so no problem there.
As an exchange student your exchange will either be pass or fail from Aalto’s part, but you will still be
graded by Thammasat just like every other student. This opens up a possibility to optimize your school
work relative to the benefit. I ended up doing school work enough that I would learn what was interesting,
but not stressing out too much about my grades, since I knew Aalto was going to grade it as a pass or fail.
FN 312 Investments
A course about portfolio-theory. A very interesting subject and a good introduction to the field. The course
was also my most demanding during my exchange, as was the case for many other students with their
finance courses as well. The course had a midterm and a final, as well as semi-weekly homework and a
bigger portfolio-optimization assignment.
The homework assignments are based on the course book, but you can get the book from the library and
find some of the answers online in case you get stuck. It is also good to note that doing these homework
assignments is the best way to prepare for the exam. We would normally order pizza and to these
assignments while drinking a big Chang, making it not such a bad time at all!
In the exams you are allowed to bring a cheat sheet with you, which means that you can write down
whatever information you think will benefit you in the exam. Also the teacher of the course is really good,
and she cares about the students. If you have some prior knowledge about basic statistics/econometrics
you can get a bit of goodwill from her by answering some of the questions the Thais didn’t know. (The
course is a second year course, and most of the students hadn’t had their statistics courses yet)
MK 333 International Marketing
A relatively easy course. The teacher loves international students, and would let us get away with much less
than the locals. The course consisted of cases (2-3 pages long written reports about cases that you would
discuss in class before writing), a bigger group project, and an open book final exam which also included a
case.
The cases were interesting as was the topic of the course, but the teacher had a strong Indian accent that
made it sometimes hard to understand what he was saying. Also the teacher had some really simplified and
stereotypical reviews over the western world, but this was mainly just amusing.
MK 311 Consumer Behaviour
A course about the psychology of marketing. Things like Maslow’s hierarchies are taught on the course. A
very interesting topic and the teacher is a really nice Thai lady, although a very free spirited one. The course
was not demanding at all, but instead very insightful, as it also highlighted the difference between
marketing in western countries and Thailand. For example how much more sexualized our culture is
compared to Thailand. All in all a good course for easy credits.
ER 211 Introduction to Entrepreneurship
Hands down my favourite course on the exchange. The professor was from the US originally, and his way of
teaching was the most interesting. I always felt good about going to his lectures, since I knew it would be
interesting. The course did not have a final exam, but instead had the students come up with a business
idea and pitch that to some guests the professor had invited. You also had to read a few articles and answer
some questions about them.
For all the good, there is also bad in this course. We had days when we would go outside just to observe
local people and their doings, which in +35 degrees is not very fun. Also during one lecture we had to stare
at a banana for 30 minutes and write down our thoughts about the whole process. Sounds weird? Is weird.
PD 233 Thai Media and Society
A course about Thai media and society. While this doesn’t sound too interesting on the surface, this course
was really eye-opening to understanding the political situation in Thailand today. You will learn how the
Kingdom on Thailand came to be, who are the red and yellow shirts are, what actually happened at the
Thammasat Massacre, and many more things.
I really suggest you take this course or a similar one from the Thai studies department. Getting to know the
cultural and political background of the country you study in is always beneficial. It also helps to understand
the conflicts that are going on right now in Thailand. And in the end it reminds you why living in a free
democracy is such a great thing and makes you respect the contributions of your ancestors.
Final Comments
Thailand is awesome! Hands down. I got to travel all over Thailand, meet people I would have never met,
and make friends that will hopefully last me a lifetime. Also the simple adventure of traveling to a far-away
land and a different culture and making your way there on your own is something I think everybody should
do at least once in their life. And what better place to do this than the Oyster of Asia?
Thammasat University is one of the most respected if not the most respected university in Thailand. When
you tell the taxi drivers that you study there or have your school uniform on, you get treated like a local.
Also when you get to know some locals in Bangkok and tell them you’re actually studying in their respected
university you’re no longer farang (means western (stupid) tourist), but instead something more.
In the end I still have to say, that it’s not where you go, it’s who you go with. I got to meet so many new and
awesome people during my exchange that no matter where we would have been, we would have had a ton
of fun. But that’s what’s the best about Bangkok: no person who comes to Bangkok on exchange is going to
be boring. There is definitely a positive selection bias in the people who come to Bangkok, and this shows!