This morning a conversation started by Didi and Bangwin, then joined by Fikri Rasyid, Evan, Prima, and Wiku, eventually turned into a cost-of-living calculation. The topic: life in Bali.
After roughly eight years in Bali and two years in Jakarta, I can say with some confidence that the difference comes down to one thing: culture.
Several baseline costs make Jakarta expensive.
Transportation. The actual distance from my place in Cibubur to the office in Cipete, South Jakarta is about thirty minutes — provable if you drive at night via the toll road with clear roads. But during work hours, the same trip takes one-and-a-half to two hours. To deal with traffic, you need a car. Taxis are too expensive. TransJakarta gets you there smelling like a gymnasium. And not just any car — a new one that won’t overheat in stop-and-go traffic all day, with automatic transmission, unless you want your left leg noticeably larger than your right. A new car means premium fuel, maintenance costs, and parking fees at every building.
Clothing. If you work at an agency, your life is meetings — at client offices, in high-rise buildings. Every elevator ride involves a full-length mirror that reminds you what you look like. You end up buying clothes.
Food. If lunch is always a client meeting in an office tower, you’re eating at the restaurant inside. The prices show.
Housing. Working in Jakarta is hard. You need a decent place to decompress or you’ll burn out. Decent housing in Jakarta is not cheap.
Vacation. Skip a weekend off and the next week gets murky. The options in Jakarta are the mall or a trip out of town. Neither is cheap.
In Bali, the math looks different.
Transportation. A motorbike covers everything. The roads are manageable, and nobody cares if you show up damp — everyone is slightly damp from the sun, from the office boy to the boss. If you need a car, it doesn’t need to be new or impressive. No one bats an eye at a Jimny Katana, because even the guy who just stepped out of a Lexus is wearing shorts. Also, most of Bali is free parking.
Clothing. My boss — who owned several of Indonesia’s largest surf clothing companies — wore shorts and flip-flops every day. I didn’t need to dress better than that. Without office building elevators with mirrors, nothing reminds you that your t-shirt collar is fraying, so you stop buying clothes. When I was freelancing in Bali, I didn’t buy a single pair of shoes from 2005 to early 2011. One new pair of flip-flops per year.
Food. Around the tourist areas — Kuta, Seminyak, Legian, Jimbaran — there are cafes serving Western food at prices that make Jakarta’s mall restaurants look like a scam. The food tastes better too, because most of the cooks are actually from somewhere that eats that food. Meanwhile, warungs and rice stalls are everywhere, and their prices are kept in check by budget-conscious backpackers who’ve already been ripped off once and aren’t falling for it again.
Housing. Rental prices are lower, and the distances aren’t as punishing. Kuta to Ubud is thirty kilometers. So is my house to my Jakarta office — except in Jakarta that’s ninety minutes of traffic each way, and in Bali it’s a thirty-minute drive through scenery.
Weekend. Two cheap options. First: step outside, grab a Cornetto and some snacks from Circle K, walk around Kuta or Seminyak where everyone looks like they’re on vacation, because most of them are — and you will too. Second option, total cost around Rp 100,000: drive to a white-sand beach in Nusa Dua or Jimbaran, buy a Bintang for yourself, OJ for your wife, pizza for the kid, and swim until you don’t want to anymore.
This is only about cost of living, of course. Living in Bali has its trade-offs — if it were perfect, I wouldn’t have moved to Jakarta.
*My car isn’t automatic, and my right calf is already bigger than my left from years of skateboarding, so maybe they’ll even out eventually.