Since the monetary crisis started last year, Indonesia had become one of the cheapest countries in the world, at least for some people. They are the expatriates and the local people who have enough foreign currency to spend. For the remaining local people, life is just getting more and more expensive every day.

One of the lucky people is Mia, who once came home with a designer's dress for less than 50 dollars and a skirt of the same brand name for "only" 16 dollars. "Nowhere in the world can I buy a skirt for that price!" she exclaimed happily.

On another occasion I met Nancy carrying 6 pairs of shoes, which she bought at a sale. She confessed that she only wanted to buy one pair, but couldn't chose between the red or the black pair, so she decided to buy both. Then the salesgirl showed her another pair, that was so comfortable, she decided to buy that pair as well. The other pairs followed suit, because they were "so cheap". I gave her all my blessings, but prayed that she would also think of giving a generous donation to the riots victims.

Whereas Mia and Nancy were happy to snap up bargains of imported goods, Sandra became happy because she had 'discovered' local cosmetics. "To think that all these years I had spend thousands of dollars on imported cosmetics! Our local cosmetics are just as goods and much less expensive! They are made of local herbs, fruits and flowers according to our own traditional recipes and so soothing for your skin!" she said elated, showing me attractive bottles and jars she had just bought.

But Indonesia did not only become a paradise for shopaholics. Gourmets too have a hell of a time here. Take for instance the day that I went out with six friends and had lunch in a seafood restaurant in Pluit.

The food was ordered by Hans. As a gourmet he had ordered the most delicious dishes. Large prawns, fish and crab all fresh and tasty decorated our table. I was worried about the prices and proposed to go Dutch, because the one who would pick up the bill may have had to go hungry for a few days. But when the bill came, the amount showed 137.000 rupiahs, not bad for so much food. It was very good for Jim, an American who was happy to pick up the bill all by himself. "Less than 10 dollars," he said with a broad grim. "In the States, I would have to pay more than 10 dollars for each person!"

For Jim who thinks in dollars and calculate every payment in dollars, life must have been a paradise here. He bought lots of gifts to give to his friends in the States, at the same time helping our craftsmen. He bought designer's shirts like Kenzo, Ralph Lauren etc. shoes and something I had never seen him wearing and to help promote tourism, he bought many postcards to send to his friends. They were so beautiful and yet so affordable and the costs of postage was ridiculous, only about ten cents!

He had them all written out, but not being used to send postcards he postponed it for a long time. When he finally did it was too late. The boy he had sent out to mail 10 postcards, came back with stamps for only one card. The biggest problem was not the price but it was how to fit them into the card, because the highest denomination for stamps is 2000 rupiahs. So the part where he had written his messages became all covered with the 9 stamps to make it worth 15.800 rupiahs. Even worse was it for the photographs he wanted to send to his mother. The letter weighed 50 grams, so he had to pay about 55.000 rupiahs in stamps. It was funny to see Jim, the university professor, licking all the 28 stamps, trying to fit them on the envelope and still leaving enough space for the "sender" and "address".

It was probably the only time I saw a tourist in distress, but Jim was still full of humor.