Bali conjures up images of exotic cultures and exquisite art.

For 200 students from the Limkokwing Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Bali provided an exciting breakaway to conduct research.

It was an extraordinary experience! All thanks to the University’s global classroom programmes.

The first batch to visit Bali was the third-year students. The objective for their visit was to absorb the culture of Bali and at the same time harvest ideas to build a performing dance and art center for academic purposes there.

The second batch comprising second-year students focused more on developing an extension of an existing Balinese Spa at the Grand Inna Kuta Beach Resort, which was initially developed by Curtin University.

The continuation project of the six spaces was called “ocean side on ensemble”.

The trip was not all about working hard as students had a chance to witness the culture of Bali themselves by going for a day trip visiting tourist attractions in Bali such as Uluwatu, Kintamani, Monkey Forest and others.

“Bali is a fabulous Island; it’s such a wonderful place for artists to give them inspiration. And Limkokwing in Bali, makes dream come true. I found it, a great opportunity for students who wants to be creative artists, It could be an unforgettable experience,” says Arosh Nissanka from Sri Lanka who had the chance to join the trip.

They observed the traditional crafting of silver, wood carving and most interesting of all, traditional Balinese dances - a crucial part of the visit in order to understand Balinese culture. Dances like Kecak and Barong have their own stories in translating and telling the background of Bali.

The trip ended at the famous Bali city, Kuta. For the second-year students, they were given 13 hours to explore the city on their own starting from 1pm to 1 am. Another group was sent to Tanjung Benoa and Nusa Dua to complete the site analysis.

As for the third-year students, 90 of them were divided into several groups to research selected criteria such as public amenities, contextual study, landscape, cultural study and more, each bearing its own magnitude.

The highlight of the education trip was the presentation day of the data that were successfully collected at Limkokwing University Bali campus.

Life in Bali

Apart from Balinese dances, students sampled a diverse range of Balinese food. The choices varied from Sundanese, Indonesian seafood to “tepi sawah”.

For the third-year students, they did not only manage to observe the architecture and culture of Bali, they also had a taste of one of the festivals most associated with Bali, that is, Nyepi - a Balinese “Day of Silence” that falls on the island’s Lunar New Year .

It is a day of silence, fasting, and meditation.

It was a silent day indeed. The busy streets of Kuta looked dead without any sounds from the shoppers and shop owners. Everybody returned to their home to reconnect with their spiritual side.

Balinese are well known for their spiritual beliefs; during this period, all businesses were closed and the island’s inhabitants do not even use a single electrical appliance.

Not wanting to disrupt the spiritual mood, the students continued their work in silence at the hotel’s multipurpose hall and obeyed the tourist guide’s pointers by locking themselves in the room by 11 pm.

Bottom line: The global classroom mission was completed when the students went back to Malaysia with new experiences and knowledge.