My Bali Story (Chapter 5): The Double-D

So, where did we leave it? Click here to see the previous chapters of the story.

Moving in

We, The Three Amigos, moved in to the Kutilang house. There was such a big difference between this place and the one we stayed in Denpasar. Kutilang was closer to the idea we all had before coming to Bali: a villa with a swimming pool in the middle of the jungle. Of course: we HAD TO live there.

So Fio, Davos and me took three separate rooms in the second floor. The rooms upstairs were in better condition. They were cheaper as well because there was only cold water running. Really, who needed hot water in Bali? Temperatures range from 25 to 35 C all year long. I took the room closer to the stairs. It was a corner room. I was really weary of noisy neighbors and concerned about going up and down to reach the kitchen, which was in the ground floor.

Flashback to that first night we shared in the kos in Denpasar. Then, I already took notice of my soon-to-be neighbors. Fio was loud as hell. Her tone of voice was loud by default and she loved to talk. Davos received notifications on his phone every two seconds. He also snored a lot. So with that in mind, I sprinted to the corner room of our new house once we arrived.

After moving in we all gathered and took a swim in the pool. We had some beers. Started blasting bachata. It was like heaven. We made it. The dream was real. We had officially inaugurated our stay in Bali.

Puri Gading, the hood

Later that afternoon we decided to go for a walk and explore the neighborhood. We did not have motorbikes yet.

Walking in Bali is one of the most dangerous things you can do in life. The sidewalks are shitty: dirty, of varying heights, and full of potholes. Mostly the side roads are not lit at night. There is a huge risk of you getting run over by a bike. You will never see a local walking. Never. They know better than that. Even if a distance seems makeable on foot, they always ride a bike.

So imagine the faces of people as the watched us casually pass by on foot. Everyone greeting us and wanting us to stop for a chat.

Puri Gading was the name of our neighborhood. It is a long street perpendicular to Jl. Raya Uluwatu, the main road of the Bukit Peninsula. It was a residential neighborhood with a muslim majority. Luckily for us the mosque did not call to prayer with loudspeakers. Pro tip: if you travel to Indonesia, make sure your accomodation is not close to a mosque. Otherwise they will wake you up at 4am when they call for prayer with the loudspeakers.

In reality, Puri Gading had everything we wanted. Lots of street food stalls (warungs), shops and even a couple of European-taste coffeeshops.

So, what was next? We needed to find more people to fill up the house. I had a deal with the owner: I brought more people and for each room I would get a monthly discount on my rent.

Dimitra and Diana

Dimitra from Greece

I saw Dimitra for the first time in the Opening Ceremony of the program, in Jakarta. I remember perfectly because I thought:

Holy shit. This has to be the most beautiful girl I have seen in my life.

I was stunned. I could not move. Dimitra looked like a model, a greek goddess. And it was right: she was from Athens, Greece! We started talking and she struck me as a genuinely happy and positive person. Making jokes all the time and wanting to speak to absolutely everyone. He was proud I was one of the few people that could pronounce her last name right: Dimitra Koutsotheodori.

Dimitra studied Economics. She was also a gymnastics teacher, which explains for her extremely fit body. She was totally obsessed with surfing (and surfer guys 😘).

She seemed a great addition to our house. I said before I was shocked by how pretty she was. But with Davos it was different. When Davos saw Dimitra, he was like struck by lightning. He could not talk or move for a couple of days. After, he would not shut up about her. Dimitra this, Dimitra that... He was absolutely in love with her without having properly met.

We all followed the same program, so we shared the sames classes in Udayana University. One day after class, me and Davos approached Dimitra. I had already spoken to her a few times. I asked her if she was interested to join our house. She said she had to think about it. She was on a really tight budget and our rooms were a bit too expensive. While this conversation was going on Davos was just staring at her like she was a piece of sizzling bacon. I noticed it and gave him a subtle elbow bump...

Emm... Ohh... Ah... Yes yes! You should really join us is gonna be cool Dimitra!

That's all Davos could say. She seemed a bit scared. It did not help.

As it turns out, one of the rooms had a bunk bed. Two persons could share it and split the cost. It was good for Dimitra. She was enthusiastic. But she needed a partner...

Dr. DiDi (Diana)

While me and Davos were trying to convince Dimi, Fio was speaking to a blonde girl who also attended our class. They were really laughing and hitting it off. After that Fio came to us and said:

I see you guys just drooling over Dimitra. But she is really not convinced to come. This girl I was talking to, Diana, she is super interested in coming to see the house. She is super cool as well!

If you read it two times, you can notice a bit of jealousy from Fio over Dimi. This was one of the future problems Dimi would bring to the table: she had a profound effect in men. (Mostly all) men liked her, wanted her. And this meant that all her friends would be jealous of her at some stage in time.

But about Diana. After next period was over, Diana came to meet me and Davos. We realized Fio was right. Diana was extremely excited to see the house. She was looking for a place exactly like ours.

So one of those days of our first week of classes, Diana decided to come see the house in person. She absolutely fell in love with Kutilang. She was obsessed with surfing which meant that she had to live in the Bukit. Like us, she did not mind the commute to university.

As it turns out, Diana was also keen on sharing a room to reduce the costs. That was great! Now, we only had to wait for them to agree on terms. Remember that those girls never met before, and they were deciding to share a room for at least one month.

Personally, I was happy with both additions to Kutilang. But at that stage I already warned Davos that filling the house with girls was cool; but it would eventually turn against us.

Being the one that found the house and the one that got the discount for every new person, I was seen as a leader or manager of the house. I do not want to sound sexist, but the girls expected of me and Davos to do some things that we did not want to do. For the record, Davos is even lazier than me, which I thought difficult before I met him. In hindsight, we all did some mistakes we would regret. More on that soon...

Back to Diana & Dimi. On the next day of class, they talked it over and decided they were gonna share the bunk bed. Great news for everyone!!!

In the first days living together, everything was going smoothly. We talked, laughed, ate, explored, drank, surfed, loved... Everything. We were like a family. We took care of each other and got to know the wishes and fears of every member of Kutilang.

I had good relations with everyone, but I was pleasantly surprised by Diana. She quickly became one of my best friends. Like me, she loved to sit down in the afternoons to have some (proper) coffee and talk about everything. Diana noticed that sometimes you have to pull the words out of me to have a conversation. And she was totally a master of that. I ended up telling Diana things I rarely told anyone. I felt comfortable. I listened to all her stories. We laughed together and had a lot of common interests.

Diana is from Budapest, Hungary. She travelled a lot in the past and she was a lawyer. Like me and many others, she kind of took a break from life to figure out what was next. It struck me: she was full of contrasts. A woman who enjoyed a serious and organized life, but who also liked to have fun and had no fear of not knowing what's next. She was smart as well, which also made me like talking with her.

Surfer Girls

The friendship between Diana and Dimi grew stronger because of their shared passion for surfing. Fio also loved catching waves, but she did bodyboarding. They all went together, but there is a lot of hate between bodyboarders and surfers. The same kind that exists between skiiers and snowboarders. But there is one universal truth: everyone hates people on SUPs (stand-up-paddle).

In those first days living in Kutilang, the gameplan used to be the following:

Fio, Dimi and Diana would wake up around 7am to go surfing. Me and Davos would sleep until 10-11am. I usually woke up first and went to knock on his door to wake him up. We would have breakfast or go for a coffee, and then just lay baking in the sun and playing music in the pool for long hours. We went to lunch and then the girls got back from surfing. They usually surfed two times a day: early morning and afternoon. In the afternoon me and Davos joined them.

It was great to see the sunset in Bali with a beer in hand, which was the main activity Davos and me used to favor. I would read a book and Davos would just lie on the sand or go swimming. After a while me and Davos were like a couple. We had the same eating schedule, eating tastes, sleeping times, and shared many passions. Davos, like me, was kind of a quiet and observant person. So what could we do while sitting on the beach? Fucking gossiping like two old geezers. Speak about this girl's ass, and that guy who just got swallowed by a wave, and look at that fucker doing yoga mijo... Loads of bullshit but we had tons of fun.

When the girls came out of the water we would watch the sunset and go home. Sometimes we went to a party, or sometimes we just stayed at home talking or having some drinks. In general, it was an amazing environment and everyone had the time of their life.