Posted by BaliJo on Saturday, 31. October 1998 at 19:26 Bali Time:
In Reply to: But for how long posted by Chris F on Saturday, 31. October 1998 at 15:04 Bali Time:
You write "If the rupiah continues to drop and the prices stay the same, how much longer will we be able to afford to come."
Chris, if this would be the case Bali would become cheaper for you all the time. What happened over the past year was that the Rupiah dropped fast and prices increased only slowly. When the Rupiah was just 1/6th of its old value prices for most items had about doubled i.e. you paid in foreign currency only 1/3 of the old price.
Now suddenly the Rupiah has gone up to 1/3rd of it's old value, and prices have about tripled compared to 18 months ago. This means that you pay in foreign currency considerably more than during the past months but still not more than 18 months ago.
Don't forget, in the past Bali never used to be very cheap. Even for locals everything here was always much more expensive than Jakarta, Surabaya or other towns. The past year was simply unreal -- everything become suddenly unbelievably cheap (in foreign currency, and everybody who earned USD bought air-cons, refrigerators, new cars, etc as if there would be no tomorrow - which now turns out to be correct).
Today we are just back to normal. And Bali is still very cheap compared to the real world (just returned from Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo)! Try it, wou'll learn to appreciate Bali prices!
Regards from still cheap Bali.