my second trip to jogjakarta
As anywhere else in the world jogja also hit hard by economy downturn.almost everything went up since my last trip about a year ago.the becak guys demand at least 10,000 rupiah(12,000 is about usd1) for short trip compare with 5,000 rupiah a year ago.A bowl of bakso now cost 10,000 an increase of around 3-4,000,even meter taxi went up from 3,500 to 6,000 for a flagfall and i reckon the per km rate also increase eventhough im not sure how much it is.the sirloin steak which i like very much at a japanese restaurant along malioboro call oshin sell for 65,000 now from 50,000
But the good thing is the hotel rate offer a steep discount and the airlines also offer very large discount.for example the hotel which i check last time quote at 200,000 rupiah offer their room for 120,000 even the owner said its only for a limited time period but judging from so many old and newly built hotel along molioboro small alley like sosrowijayan and dagen and very low occupancy rate i expect the rate will stay there for pretty long time.the airlines ticket is going really cheap now with airasia sell their ticket for just rm70(around usd20) including taxes for round trip journey between kuala lumpur-jogjakarta,but for a limited time period only and need to pre book about 3 months earlier.check out their latest offer at airasia.com.at the time i write this article malaysiaairlines.com a full service carrier offer rm249(around usd70) including taxes for round trip KUL-JOG.Can you imagine fly for 2 and a half hour for just usd10 one way.i did it.

But as i said earlier its all happen because of economy downturn so its maybe not a good time to travel for you.For you guys who think u can afford to travel i think there is never a better time to go because almost any place lack of business now so u will really get great value for your money.Particularly to Indonesia which rupiah going down very significantly.last year its about 8,500 for a dollar but now is hover around 12,000 rupiah a dollar.of course almost every currency take a beating but its look like rupiah hit very hard compare with other currencies.for your example 1 million rupiah cost me just rm310 now compare with rm400 last year.the rm(ringgit) actually going down from rm3.2 last year to rm3.6 for usd1.
so even with the price increase u still save some money because rupiah is very weak.its also make other south east asian countries like Cambodia and Vietnam became expensive because their currency tide with american dollars.

why pick indonesia over indo china countries
firstly,the very reason why people overlook Indonesia over countries like
Malaysia,Thailand,Vietnam and Cambodia is because they are Muslim majority country and people feel its not really safe there.The reality is it is as safer as the countries i just mention above if not even safer place.Indonesia is so vast and they have many millions of other religion than Islam.20% of the total population is non muslim which make up about 50 million people.its even larger than many country in this world.While Sumatras consist of heavily muslim population about 95% the rest of Indonesia like Java have very mix religious beliver not to mention Bali which about 85% Hindus.The Javanese who are muslims from my observation is much more lack in term of islamic practice compare with Malaysia and Brunei yet people across the world mainly westerners flock to this country for holiday.Its very rare to find a muslim women wear headscarf and alcohol selling at many outlet here.The main reason Indonesia receive so few tourist is because they have bad image in the world media which i think due to their weak goverment administration.