New Digs

After 3 days of searching we finally settled on De Hill Villas, Apt #5. Every place we've seen had its cons, but this place and one other had some pros. The biggest con on De Hill Villa I suppose is its location to ITB where Ronnie will work. Not that it's terribly far, but definitely too far to walk. Ronnie will have to call a cab to take him to ITB, as we do for anywhere else we need to go. Other than the transportation issue and not having a pool or exercise facility, it's by far the second best thing we found. The best apartment we saw had AC (none of the others did) but it was located on a VERY noisy street. We've second guessed ourselves almost daily, but the deal is done and we will settle in here. But not until after the middle of September.

Kitchen/Dining/Living

Because of Ramadan and the biggest Muslim holiday of the year (Idul Fitri) pretty much everything in the city has been booked solid for some time. Additionally, our apartment was already booked for Sept. 14-15. So we will have to move in and move out 3 times!! We won't really feel settled until we are able to completely unpack out suitcases. Fortunately, the owner has a room she will let us stay in so we won't be on the street or anything. It's just that all this packing and unpacking and lugging heavy suitcases up and down flights of stairs is a pain in the patoot!

Master Bedroom

The pros for this place are that it is roomy and (relatively) clean. We feel pretty safe here, and the landlady and her daughter both speak English (they are Chinese) and are very nice and helpful! One big adjustment is having no hot water in the kitchen and only being able to use the water for laundry and bathing. And even that is questionable (the laundry part). But that would be the case, no matter where we are in the city. We are thankful to have found something that met as much of our criteria as it did. Last but not least, it has a decent mattress which my back appreciates ever so much!!

Notice height of frig vs counter top!

Note: Houses here often come with a live-in housekeeper/cook, gardener, driver and sometimes a guard. Though we would have paid about the same (or less) for a house, neither of us felt that comfortable living with people we don't know, preferring privacy to all the extra help.

Evi (landlady), Ronnie & Pak Dwi