In Reply to: Expensive Bali posted by pertholdie on Thursday, 10. March 2016 at 12:53 Bali Time:
Depends on where you stay and what/where you eat and drink.
Research and careful planning can make most se asian visits comparable in cost.
Bali I find as a budget visitor the cheapest for food in relation to food cooked predominately for westerners but not much in it with local street food visitors buy in Bali Thailand Vietnam and Cambodia.
Cambodia and Vietnam was very attractive when the Au$ was parity with the US$ given tourist prices are pegged to the US$ and people would have missed out if they didnt grab that opportunity.
Cheap hotels all about the same in my experience around $55au a night for 2 persons in tourist areas.
I have also seen the Rup to $ exchange change from around 4000 to 10,000 and this along with cheap air fares these days makes Bali still very cheap especially for west Aussies.
Some prefer to pay more some prefer to pay less but for me every time I visit Gong corner or Bamboo corner the prices are very low even after small price hikes over the past year.
My last trip to CD I found the prices very cheap because of the competition for tourist dollars whereas I have found the prices can actually get higher in Thailand Vietnam and Cambodia in not so popular or off season tourist areas.
I visit Bali in between other se asia destinations and the reason bali is in between the other trips is because of overall total spend per person per day including flights/accommodation and bali is cheaper to visit from WA in my opinion than the others.