The Cheapest Places on Earth: Java

Have you seen Bali yet?" inquired a green-eyed, sixtysomething Dutch woman at my hotel in Jogjakarta, who'd just casually mentioned having visited Java annually for the past 30 or so years. "Bali's a very beautiful place, don't you think?" She sounded rather like a rival cagily acknowledging an opponent's strengths. Exhaling a spicy fan of smoke from her kretek, the clove-laced cigarettes favored by Indonesians, she added, "But didn't you find it a little . . . commercial? And so expensive. You made a good choice coming to Java instead."

The truth is, I'm very fond of Bali. But she did have a point. A long-standing synonym for "exotic," the famous Bali - even its crafts capital of Ubud in the central uplands - has lately seemed a bit too cozy with mass tourism, if still ...