True confessions: After my run in with the spider, I went walking down the street and saw that every other building is an accommodation of some sort. So I started inquiring. I found a place called TunJung Mas Bungalows that is the same price and the rooms are clean and the doors close properly, no huge gaps. So I packed up my stuff and moved.
This flower was blooming in a pot right on the busy street where my first hotel was.
Quick recap for those of you that weren't there for the epic Facebook conversation. I checked into my beautiful but tiny little room in Ubud, Bali. I was a little surprised because I had this picture in my head of what Bali would be like and I thought I was going to be in a quieter part of town but it turns out the place I booked is right on the main street and the town is super busy! So I was a little thrown off by that. But such is the life of a wanderer so I was determined to keep an open mind and explore where I landed. Even though I felt very exposed, the grounds were absolutely gorgeous! So after doing some walking around, I settled in for the night. I woke up at 3:30am (as I often do - touch of insomnia) to find a huge spider on my door! Not tarantula size, but about the size of my palm, quite big enough to scare the bejeezus out of me! I grabbed my laptop and started writing status updates about it. The nice thing about the time difference is that when it’s 4am here, it’s the middle of the day for Sacramento where I come from so all my friends were up and commenting. (Status updates in red)
“OMG you guys it is 4am and I just found a giant spider in my room! Eeeeeekkkkk!!!!!”
After I wrote my first status update, I looked at the door and it was gone!
“Ok, so I looked up from my computer and he's not on the door any more. What's worse, seeing a spider or not seeing a spider? Oh Sh*t, he's on my desk now!”
“I called the reception guy and he came in but now we can't find it. All I can think of is it's behind the bed. Aack!”
The reception guy tried his best to find it but in the end he failed.
“So I've got at least two hours to hang out with my arachnid friend until sunrise... There's no way I'm going back to sleep. I'm sure I'll get used to it but it's only my first day so I'm freaked out!”
I sat in the center of my bed in the middle of the room until sunrise. Finally a bird started singing and I felt better, knowing the worst was over. I still shuddered to think that spider could be anywhere! So after breakfast I wandered down the street and decided to find another place to stay.
This sweet little gecko took up residence in my second hotel and kept me company. I loved having him there!
It wasn’t just the spider that made me decide to move. It was a number of things that all added up. First, the location, imagine buying a cheap storage shed at Home Depot that hasn’t been put together properly and so has big spaces in between the doors. Now put it on Howe Avenue (for non-Sacramentans, a very busy street) and try to live there. That’s what this place felt like. Even though they have done their best to create a beautiful oasis, the fact remains that you are sitting right on the street. I read the reviews and I think I just lucked into getting the worst room. There are other rooms further back with better features. But when I asked to change rooms they said there was no availability. The spider was just the cherry on top and with the way that room was constructed I knew there was no stopping a hundred other critters from coming right in. The staff was really nice about trying to help me out but in the end they could not solve my problem, so I tried to be as gracious as possible when canceling my reservation. I paid a small cancellation fee - uderstandable - and packed up my things and moved to my new place.
I felt better in this place knowing the door was pretty airtight. It had this fantastic shower which was on rocks, kind of like an outdoor shower but totally screened in so I was confident no spiders could get in. I unpacked and went out to explore the city. I came back later that afternoon and took a shower, which was an interesting and fun experience! I went out again to find some dinner and when I came back, to my horror, there were giant ants making their way en masse from the shower into the bathroom! Seriously, they were easily 20mm long and fat! We used to have red ants like that in Carmichael so I knew those suckers wouldn’t die easily. I killed all the ones in the bathroom but five minutes later there were just as many! I looked online for natural remedies and made an ant-killing concoction of water, tea tree oil, peppermint oil, and clove oil and sprayed the heck out of everything! My room smelled amazing but it didn’t seem to deter the ants. I dumped a bunch more clove oil in but it destroyed my spray bottle. So I finally went down to reception and told them the situation and said I’d like to change rooms to one with an inside shower. They asked me if I would let them clean it first and see if that solved the problem. I said ok and minutes later had three staff guys in there looking for ants. They said “there aren’t that many” and I said “that’s because I already killed them all!” They came in with some kind of pesticide and sprayed all over the shower which killed most of the ants but made the whole bathroom smell like pesticide which couldn’t have been healthy for me to breathe! I told them I would stick it out for the night but would probably still want to change rooms in the morning.
I spent a very nervous night not knowing what I would find every time I opened that bathroom door! I did make it through the night and woke up with a fresh bite mark on my foot. At 8am I went down and requested a room change. This time I have a room with an inside shower and a good fitting door. I dumped the rest of my concoction on a towel and pushed it up against the gap at the bottom of the door and saturated cotton balls with tea tree oil and clove oil and placed them by the door and in the bathroom. I was a nervous wreck as night fell, hoping I wouldn’t have another freaky bug battle! I didn’t get much sleep but by about 2am I hadn’t seen any more bugs I finally started to relax. I do have the cutest baby gecko which makes me feel more comfortable. Why do I love lizards and hate spiders and ants? I don’t know, but it’s how I am. As of this writing it is 6:30am the next morning and as far as I can tell, I am still bug free. It’s not that I expect to be completely bug free all the time; there were plenty of bugs at the first place I stayed (the Elephant Safari lodge) but they made sense. A couple of ants which came out of the fruit tray they brought in, the occasional spider. This was not a man-eating spider chasing me around a tiny room or an army of determined ants forging their way toward me. I have learned a few valuable lessons from this experience. I definitely look for clean rooms with tight fitting doors when I book lodgings. I am much more interested in learning about essential oils now and plan on expanding my collection. At 2am all alone in a room in a foreign country it helps to have some essentials oils to concoct remedies for problems. I am optimistic about this new room; third time’s a charm I guess, and I am looking into my next move to hopefully something less bustling and more like the Bali I was hoping to find.
This was a common sight in the area I was staying. You really had to watch where you walked or you could seriously injure yourself!
I felt better in this place knowing the door was pretty airtight. It had this fantastic shower which was on rocks, kind of like an outdoor shower but totally screened in so I was confident no spiders could get in. I unpacked and went out to explore the city. I came back later that afternoon and took a shower, which was an interesting and fun experience! I went out again to find some dinner and when I came back, to my horror, there were giant ants making their way en masse from the shower into the bathroom! Seriously, they were easily 20mm long and fat! We used to have red ants like that in Carmichael so I knew those suckers wouldn’t die easily. I killed all the ones in the bathroom but five minutes later there were just as many! I looked online for natural remedies and made an ant-killing concoction of water, tea tree oil, peppermint oil, and clove oil and sprayed the heck out of everything! My room smelled amazing but it didn’t seem to deter the ants. I dumped a bunch more clove oil in but it destroyed my spray bottle. So I finally went down to reception and told them the situation and said I’d like to change rooms to one with an inside shower. They asked me if I would let them clean it first and see if that solved the problem. I said ok and minutes later had three staff guys in there looking for ants. They said “there aren’t that many” and I said “that’s because I already killed them all!” They came in with some kind of pesticide and sprayed all over the shower which killed most of the ants but made the whole bathroom smell like pesticide which couldn’t have been healthy for me to breathe! I told them I would stick it out for the night but would probably still want to change rooms in the morning.
I did love all the statues and creative creatures there!
I spent a very nervous night not knowing what I would find every time I opened that bathroom door! I did make it through the night and woke up with a fresh bite mark on my foot. At 8am I went down and requested a room change. This time I have a room with an inside shower and a good fitting door. I dumped the rest of my concoction on a towel and pushed it up against the gap at the bottom of the door and saturated cotton balls with tea tree oil and clove oil and placed them by the door and in the bathroom. I was a nervous wreck as night fell, hoping I wouldn’t have another freaky bug battle! I didn’t get much sleep but by about 2am I hadn’t seen any more bugs I finally started to relax. I do have the cutest baby gecko which makes me feel more comfortable. Why do I love lizards and hate spiders and ants? I don’t know, but it’s how I am. As of this writing it is 6:30am the next morning and as far as I can tell, I am still bug free. It’s not that I expect to be completely bug free all the time; there were plenty of bugs at the first place I stayed (the Elephant Safari lodge) but they made sense. A couple of ants which came out of the fruit tray they brought in, the occasional spider. This was not a man-eating spider chasing me around a tiny room or an army of determined ants forging their way toward me. I have learned a few valuable lessons from this experience. I definitely look for clean rooms with tight fitting doors when I book lodgings. I am much more interested in learning about essential oils now and plan on expanding my collection. At 2am all alone in a room in a foreign country it helps to have some essentials oils to concoct remedies for problems. I am optimistic about this new room; third time’s a charm I guess, and I am looking into my next move to hopefully something less bustling and more like the Bali I was hoping to find.
