It’s unavoidable. Sooner or later tourists in Bali turn their thoughts to money. My suggestion is, if you have any vacation time saved up, and only a little dough in the bank, you saddle up and get to Indonesia right now. Sure you’ll be taking advantage of a country in a tailspinning financial crisis, but when was the last time you went to the ATM broke and came out a millionaire?

As of today the currency exchange rate is 9000 Indonesian rupiah for each 1 U.S. dollar. That means that each rupiah is equivalent to .000111 dollars, about 1/10th of a cent.

This all came clear to me today when I rented a brand new 100cc Suzuki motor scooter, went for a 10 hour tour of the island, and filled the gas tank twice. Total cost: two dollars, fifty-five cents. Lunch, a triple-decker ham, cheese, and cucumber sandwich with two Coca-cola’s, sitting in a bamboo lounge chair on Lovina Beach gazing out over the Indian Ocean was an additional one dollar, thirty-four cents.

Kuta Beach is the embarkation point for most tourists visiting Bali, the popular Indonesian vacation destination. When I got to Kuta I decided to live large. I’d been paying around 15 bucks a night in Australia to sleep six-to-a-room in hostels, so at Kuta I thought I’d get a room around the same price. What I got was very different. For 17 dollars I had my own private bungalow, two queen beds, a front porch with furniture for four, a private garden view, and just 40 feet away the pool. Breakfast is included, as is the safe, the nightwatchman, maid service, and all the peace and quiet you need to comprehend the novelty of the situation.

As it turns out, I was living large. A new aquaintence, Ed Pringle, a kid From Canada, did the extremely smart thing. He hung out with a group of us at our hotel, using our pool, while he checked into an only slightly-less glorious hotel down the street. His nightly cost: 15,000 rupiah, $1.60 per night, also including breakfast, but no pool. Perhaps he’ll become a Wall Street trader. He’d be a genius.

Cheap does not come without a price. Everything and everyone in Kuta is geared towards removing rupiah from the tourists. Imagine if you took all the telephone salespeople in the U.S. that call you relentlessly at dinner time trying to sell you a subscription to Readers Digest, and put them on each street corner and beach entrance at your favorite ocean resort. Havoc would break out wouldn’t it? Well that’s Kuta.

Walking down any street in Kuta is like being at a carnival midway where all the hawkers had been snorting cocaine for three weeks, and their arms were 20 feet long. “Braid your hair, buy watch yes, massage, hat, hat, lighters!” chant the street vendors. “Transport? Where are you going? You need room? You want girl? Good price, special price for you my friend.” And we Westerners are not used to physical contact in a sales pitch. Vendors here put their arms around your shoulders, hold your wrist, tap your back, and wave food directly in your face. The 3000 U.S. Marines that landed in
Kuta during my stay were freaking out.

After a week or so, maybe as your tan gets darker, or the braids you got have come out, the sales routine gets easier to shrug off with a quiet “no,” or a gentle shake of the head with a knowing smile. “Cheap price for you!” is easier to ignore.

And stuff really is cheap. Top of the line genuine Nikes are fifty-five bucks. Top of the line knockoff Nikes are five-fifty. My favorite excursion, in an attempt to calm down my gastro-intestinal system, was every day or two to walk to Wendy’s. The extra value meal, a Big Classic with cheese, large fries, and a Coke cost seventy-nine cents. A beer is forty-four cents, grilled Swordfish is $1.88, Indonesian specialties are slightly less. I went wild one day and bought a pair of shorts and two t-shirts. Stateside these would have been 70 bucks. I coughed up 10.

Culture, as we New Yorkers know, ain’t cheap. Here too, every museum, temple, and tourist trap has an entry fee. It’s pretty much fixed at 1200 rupiah, fourteen cents. You’ll need, of course, a local guide, driver and chartered car: eight dollars a day, all inclusive. I rented a surfboard for three bucks, and broke a rib for free.

So, having tired of the hustle and bustle of Kuta I made my way to the painting and dance capital of Bali, Ubud, and write to you now from the deck of my suite overlooking the rice paddies at sunset. I’m sipping hot tea left for me by my host Ketut. My daily room and board is $1.66. I am king.

Today I made a gasoline salesman very happy. The going rate for a liter, which is dispensed from 50 gallon drums with a saucepan and a funnel (can you say confligration?) is 750 rupiah. He demanded 2000. Every price in Bali is open for negotiation, but it’s hard to get real motivated to argue the price down from 22 cents to 8. He made a killing. Yesterday I climbed an active volcano at sunrise with a guide. As soon as we got out of the van at four a.m. another Balinese guy with a small satchel joined us at the rear. I thought he was looking out for us as part of a team. He was, in fact, selling Coke. He followed us for five hours around four volcanic cones, and weathered a slight earthquake (my first) while relentlessly offering me a soft drink. My friend paid 4000 rupiah. Not a big sales day, but a truly outstanding sales pitch.

I have the solution to Indonesia’s financial crisis. Enlist Balinese street vendors into a sales army. Fill ten Boeing 747’s and fly them to Wall Street stock sales call centers. Send all the money back to Jakarta. These guys will generate so much cash it will make the International Monetary Fund look like a piggy bank.