In 2014 I was still in Bali. In my earlier Bali days, I was traveling back and forth between Ubud and Kuta every few days. In these early days I a had a room rented at a bungalow called “Happy” in Ubud. And in the middle of the night in would find someone on a motorbike to drive me to Kuta where I would hang out here and there for at least 24 hours, before finding another motorbike to take me back.
After a while I had had enough of Ubud, and I discontinued staying there. Instead, I started spending most of my time in Kuta. For quite a while I didn’t rent any room in Kuta because I had a better option (or at least what I thought was a better option) and that was a membership at the Kuta Kartika Plaza Discovery Resort Health Club. I slept by the pool or better yet in the single lounge bed located next to the jacuzzi in the health club spa. Then, when the health Club was getting ready to close I would get up and shower and go out to have fun all night in various places in Kuta and sometimes the next day as well. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just get a regular room to rent in Kuta right away? I should like to explain that I generally am afraid of normal hotels, especially non-super-luxury hotels because my fear that the rooms may seem disgusting to me (my OCD). I prefer fresh tropical spa smells, beautiful sparkling clean tile floors, spacious surroundings, almost no furnishings, and only smooth surfaces, zero clutter. Otherwise, most interiors are usually repulsive to me. So can’t you see a little bit why I really preferred living at the 5 star Kartika Plaza Discovery Resort Health Club?
Unfortunately, after being a member there for several months, my membership at the club was terminated, mainly because of my repeated violations of respecting operations hours and causing staff to go home late frequently). So I was no longer able to “live” in the Kuta Kartika Plaza Discovery Resort’s Health Club.
Since at that point, I had no place to live so to speak, I would often find a place to rest by sleeping in a spa room after a spa treatment or hitching a ride on a motorbike in the middle of the night to Nusa Dua where I would sneak into an out of operation sauna or steam room or even an unlocked hotel room (yes I really found that!) at some luxury five star property there. Then the next day I would impersonate a resort in house guest and use facilities free of charge as much as possible. But this routine was getting really exhausting, and more significantly, I had basically ‘used up’ practically all the good luxury resorts in Nusa Dua and Jimbaren. They all found out about my behavior over time and alerted security to look out for me. The Laguna, Melia, Grand Hyatt, Westin, Ritz Carlton, … the list goes on. I had been to all, showered and slept and swam and dined at all, and they all knew about it.
And yes if your wondering why didn’t I end up in an Indonesian jail? I don’t know why either! I was actually arrested in Bali only two times, as far as I can remember, and both times were situations where it was really very easy for me to talk my self out of the situation at the police station office. Actually both those times I only spent a couple hours at the police office. I guess there in Bali it’s was pretty easy for someone like me to explain that I am not really a threat nor am I punishable, rather I am just very OCD. “I just wanted to feel clean and beautiful I would explain…that’s why I did what did, and why I used all the resort facilities free and without permission.” Also, to my advantage, I with my OCD behavior usually ended up driving police crazy to, and they also don’t want me around in their office asking them to wash their hands before they touch my bag, to let me sit outside on the smooth tile floor and not inside on a cushion (I am scared to sit on cushions), constantly asking them questions, etc. Indonesian police just want to do there job and go home, not deal with some annoyingly odd American princess like me.
Anyways… to shorten this long explanation, I finally one day gave in and started looking for a room to rent in Central Kuta. I wanted to find something near The Beach Walk Shopping Mall, near Starbucks at Kartika Plaza Discovery Shopping Mall, in other words near my usual hangouts. And, amazingly I quickly found this perfect place for $30 a night, located right next door to Matahari Department store, which is on a popular tourist street. This hotel had recently been opened and had been converted from a day spa into a hotel. It had a nice swimming pool and about 10 or 20 rooms. Not fancy at all, and not a name brand. I liked it because the location was perfect, it had the pool, the room was big and not much furniture, and most importantly was fact that it didn’t feel like a hotel. There were no staff almost, just one guy named Willy that I was aware of and also not many guests. So I started staying there!
I remember that the first night I stayed there I slept really well and arose about 20 hours later, ready to start a new phase of my life in Bali!
