Creepy Ghost Encounter in ZIA Hotel Kuta Bali

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Jiaying

I feel fortunate to be a part of this loving family's adventures. I bring an extra dose of fun and laughter to our trips, while ensuring everyone feels supported and included. Traveling with my dear nieces opens my eyes to new perspectives, and together, we create precious memories that will be cherished for years to come.

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⚠Warning: This is a quite a long post because there’s just so much to share! In the last part of this post, I will be sharing our creepy encounter. 👻👻 Read only if you dare!

We stayed in Hotel Zia for our Bali Trip.

Hotel Zia was arranged by Carol and Christopher for all the wedding guest! Congrats to them!🤴👰

That is part of the reason why we are here in Bali! Candyce is here to attend their wedding! As for me, I just kaypo and tag along.

Hotel Zia Bali – Seminyak, Indonesia

Pic credit: Booking.com

Hotel Zia Bali – Kuta, Indonesia

Pic credit: Booking.com

There are 2 Hotel Zia in Bali, one in Seminyak and the other in Kuta. The Seminyak one looks so gorgeous. Ours was the one in Kuta. Nevertheless, for $45 a night, it was a great deal!😄

The Room

The room was decent. Nothing too special, just enough for a short stay.

The table was small, can’t put much things and my things keep dropping. LOL😂

The toilet was very cram. Right after you enter is the toilet bowl, basin on the left and shower area on the right. Not much space for movement or to put your clothes.

It doesn’t come with a bathtub either.

Basic amenities were available. If you forget to bring something, you can always walk to Matahari (less than 5 minutes), where there is a hypermart with whatever you need!

Room Services Menu and Laundry Packages

We didn’t order any in room dining as there is just too much café and local delights for us to try! Laundry services are available but I would not encourage you to send your clothes for laundry. The housekeeping lost someone’s bag of clothes and insisted that they place it in our room by mistake. But there was nothing found in our room. You probably wouldn’t want to risk losing your clothes!😅😅

Breakfast

Mee Goreng, Nasi Goreng, Scrambled Egg, Steamed Vegetables, Chicken…🍗🍚🍜

Breakfast was mostly traditional Indonesia dishes.

Don’t forget to eat some the fruits too!🍎🍐 The breakfast was not fantastic but not bad either. Some variety of food choices, taste decent. We had a list of cafe waiting to go, so we only eat a few mouth from the hotel breakfast!

Have a cup of coffee and some keropok before heading out for more yummy meals!☕☕

Location

It is located at Jalan Ciung Wanara No 17 Banjar Tegal Kuta Bali. It situated right beside the small road, not very common that the hotel building is directly along the road. There is only limited space for vehicles to park outside the lobby. Nevertheless, the location of the hotel was quite strategic. Walking distance to Matahari, Kuta Square, Bali Bom, Discovery Shopping Mall and Lippo Mall Kuta. Not far away, you can reach a row of stalls mainly selling food and massage shops. There is a convenient store located 5 minutes away from the hotel (opposite McDonald). Oh yes, you didn’t read wrongly there is a 24 hr McDonald for your supper or breakfast!🍟🍟

In the morning, you can take a 5 minutes’ walk to the iconic Kuta Beach where you can try out surfing or simply laze around the beach and watch people surfing! Kuta is a well-known destination for surfing! For those of you interested to learn surfing, you can try it in Bali Kuta Beach!🌊🌊

Read more: LEARN TO SURF IN BALIThe average price is around S$ 13/per hour (1 to 1 coaching) which is damn cheap!🏄

Read here to find out some important tips before heading out to the sea!

Getting Around

A viable way of navigating around Bali is by taking the taxi. Uber and GrabCar may not be the preferred method.🚕🚕

Most of the time, we took bluebird taxi to get to our destination. There are so many stories of taxis scam so how to protect yourself from being scams? As advised by the locals, always take Bluebird Taxi. 🚙Bluebird is the most reliable and trustable taxi company in Bali. Reason being Bluebird will always use meter! This means it is relatively safe and you don’t have to worry can worry less about getting cheated. Despite that, that doesn’t mean you are completely safe, it is really really common to get con in Bali. Many drivers will not on their meter just because you didn’t ask for it or by claiming it is faulty. They will then offer you a much higher price for your trip. And if the meter works, they may even take a longer route and detour, just turn on your Google maps and fix your attention on the navigations.🌎🌎

Since I’m at it, let me just share a bit more!

Recognized by its shades of blue and the title “BLUE BIRD GROUP”.
Pic credit: IndonesianIndustry.com

Knowing that you should only take Bluebird Taxi is not enough. You need to know how to identify a Bluebird taxi. Sounds like the obvious right. But trust me, there are taxis that look like bluebird but they are not.😌😌

Due to the good reputation gained over the years, many other taxi companies tried to replicate Bluebird taxi’s branding by making it look like Blue Bird Taxis. E.g. Blue Biro. Blue Biro taxis are blue and look extremely similar, almost identical to blue bird taxi. We heard that if Blue Biro Taxis go by meter the rates is lower than Blue Bird cabs. But better stick to Bluebird and not risk! Open your eyes and keep a lookout before catching a cab!👀👀

Can you identify Blue Bird Taxis?

Same Same but Different.

Download My Blue Bird App

📱To be safe, download the app whereby you can book a bluebook taxi! It is simple and easy to use! Else, you can always get your hotel reception to get a taxi when you are heading out from the hotel! Lastly, prepare small change to give when you pay our taxi fare in case the driver pretends to not have small change!💸💸

Note: Hotel Zia Bali is previously Holiday Express Inn so some drivers may not know Hotel Zia but Holiday Inn Express.

Another means of getting around Bali would be to rent a car 🚗 or motorbike 🛵only if you are a really good driver – confident enough to drive in Bali’s chaotic driving conditions! Else you can get a driver which we did for our day trip to Ubud! Ubud is one of the highlights of our trip and I would recommend you to add this to your itinerary! It was a different experience from the city.👍👍

Note: If you are looking for drivers to tour around Bali, you can contact Mr Ayok (I Nyoman Arya. W)! He is really super enthusiastic about Bali and shared with us many places! We found him super friendly and reliable! 👍👍Highly recommend him to anyone who would be visiting Bali and wants to explore more!

📱✉ You can contact him via facebook (Arya Wijana), WhatsApp him at +62 8123605394 or email him at ndraputu@gmail.com for a NOTCHBAD tour around Bali!🚗

Now back to the Hotel Zia!

Basically, everything was great until the night when Candyce went for the wedding and I explored Bali on my own.🌚🌚

8 April 2017

All ready to go for Chris & Carol’s Wedding Party!!

We waved goodbye and I started wandering around the area. All of a sudden, it started raining heavily. I headed back to the hotel at around 8 pm and decided to just nua and watch my drama. After a good bath, I lay down on the bed and started using my phone with the TV on.

Here comes the eerie part.👻👻

💥“Purrrp” (fart noise sound effect)

I got a shock. Is someone in the room? Did someone come in when I was showering?

I checked the door, it was locked and the metal safety locked was also shut. No one came in.😰

I scanned the room and confirmed that I was alone.

💥“Puuurrrp”

There it goes again.

Even though I heard it, I act as if I didn’t hear anything and ignore it.🙈🙉🙊

But the “purrpp” sound constantly occurred.

Then I hide into my blanket knowing something is really wrong. Shit man, this shit is real.😰😰

Then, I realise … the movement of the side table accompanies the sound. 😧😧The “purrpp” sound is actually the friction between the table and the floor. There and then, I tried to stay calm and convince myself it might be just an animal. Sounds really dumb but I didn’t want to know what it was. Perhaps, a rat moving the table or whatever. The sound continue and the table move slightly every now and then.

A few minutes later, I saw a white figure floating beside the bed. 😱😱 I would describe it as white bunny bouncing up and down.🐇🐇

What should I do? The fear is killing and what makes it worse is that I am alone. Really GG Sia.😰😰

If you are wondering, what was I doing. 🤔 I was on phone under the blanket, frozen. I didn’t have courage to even type out what is going on to Candyce or to escape out of the room. And the room was at the far end from the lift.

Then, in my head, I sensed that it would know be able to know whatever I do.😖😖

If I move, it will know that I am here.
If I run out, it will catch me!
If I say out, it will kill me!

All I did was stay still, while constantly asking Candyce when is she coming back through WhatsApp. 🙏🙏 I felt that that it will knowing everything. It will know if I tell my sister what happen. All I did was to keep asking if her wedding is ending. I didn’t want to bother her but I really needed her to come back. Throughout, I held my phone tightly and kept it charging through the power bank. HAHA

Finally, my sister is back!

Me: Let’s go out! I am very hungry!

Candyce: Lynn and Francine are not going out anymore, they say they are very tired.

Me: No, no, no, let’s go out! I want to go out! Can we go out? Very Hungry!

After leaving the room, I heaved a sigh of relief. Lynn and Francine joined us in the end too. We went McDonald for supper. We had lots of laughter and they shared with me about the wedding! The food and laughing therapy calmed me down.😂😂

After the supper, we headed back to the room. Being a fraidy cat, I didn’t dare to voice out what happen. Somehow, I decided to remain untold since we are only going to be there for a few days. But many people said that I should have say it when I told them this story.☹️☹️

On that night, nothing occurred after we return from our supper. Everything continued as usual except the fact that I was really scared but still manage to get through the night.😔😔

10 April 2017 – 2nd Incident 

We didn’t spend much time at the hotel as we left the hotel at 2 am for our trek up Mount Batur and ATV! After a tiring day of activity, we return to Hotel Zia in need of a good sleep! We showered and went to bed immediately.💤💤

Just then, it came again.

💥“PURRPP”

Candyce: Meimei! You fart ah!! Why you fart I wanna sleep!😏😏

She joked. But it wasn’t very helpful because I knew it was here again.😩😩

I shifted my body away from the table where it was at towards my sis. Obvious enough, she knew something was wrong.🤢🤢

Candyce: What should we do?
Me: I don’t know
Candyce: on the lights
Me: it’s at the table beside me, you on your side.

Candyce took a deep breath and turn on the lights.💡

We both froze and kept quiet for a few seconds.😬😬

💥“PURPPP”

Candyce: “Let’s go find Francine and Lynn”

12:15 am We hug our bags and dash out of the room. Candyce called Francine to open the door while we ran to the lift.🏃🏃🏃

Even though this time I wasn’t alone but explaining what happened two days ago makes me tremble.😭😭

At first, we got “accepted” to stay in their room. But on second thought, the bed was basically too small to fit the 4 of us. Lynn suggested that we call the lobby and request for another room. What are we going to tell them? How are we going to say? GAHH This is really terrible.😩

Fortunately, Lynn called for us.

Lynn: Hello this is room 2028. My friend room is 3028 and there is something wrong with it. Can they have another room?

Hotel Zia: Can you describe what is wrong?

Me: The table was moving.

Hotel Zia: We will get the technician to check. (My jaw dropped, even if the table broke, i still can stay in the room but it’s not!)

Me: Eerrr I don’t think you can fix it.

Hotel Zia: Can we change for you tomorrow?

Me: No, we are leaving tomorrow.

The hotel responded quite fast and came to the room after 5 minutes. Fortunately, there are 2 other rooms available and asked if we would like to check the rooms. But honestly, we couldn’t sense if there is anything wrong until something goes wrong. Ultimately, we know we had to get through the night no matter what. We followed the hotel staff and went to check out the empty room.

On the way to the room,

Staff: What happen? I heard the table was moving.

Us: Yeah

Staff: Ahhh I also scared *shrugged his shoulder*

We followed him into the new room, looked around and then to the reception to change our room card. Now we had to bring all our belongings from THAT room to the new room.

Staff: Do you guys need help with the luggage?

Us: Yes (better have someone right!)

The staffs spoke Bahasa Indonesian, probably asking him to help us with the baggage. It was quite funny to think of it as the staff was also afraid and asked the bigger size staff to help us with the change of rooms. The bigger and fitter staff followed us to the scary room. Initially, he stood outside the room but we asked him to come in HAHAHHA. We could sense that he was hesitant and glanced through the room before coming in. We quickly grab everything and put on the luggage trolley.

Come to think of it, it’s scarier for them since they work in the hotel day and night hahaha😅😅

We had another room but we didn’t sleep the whole night. Who would be able to sleep in such circumstances? We slept on the single bed together. Even when we had to go to the toilet, we went together into the toilet. That’s how scared we were HAHA!😂

The next morning, we left the room at 5 am and went to McDonald for breakfast. Morale of the story: it’s always good to stay near a 24-hour McDonald! Even though we were tired but today was our last day in Bali. Thankfully, we hired a car to drive us around Ubud so we slept majority of the journey between attractions.

Read more: DAY TRIP TO UBUD 

Strange things uncovered.

Later on, we realised even more unusual things.😱😱

There were rust/red stains on the mirror and light frame. Being a scary cat, I didn’t dare to take photos of the stains on the mirror. I didn’t think that anything was unusual and just felt that was the hotel was quite old? But after going to Francine and Lynn room during the “escape”, their room is quite clean and clear unlike ours.

The chair was always stained with a water. 🛋Initially, I thought because we put our clothes there but we didn’t put our wet clothes on the chair seats. We just hang it on the arm rest.

💦Another strange thing was that the floor was sticky and wet 24/7. That day we came back at 10 am after surfing, the floor was damp. We felt weird as it was too early for the housekeeping to mop the floor and our bed hasn’t been made. Our bed hasn’t been made as well. But we didn’t really bother just felt uncomfortable to walk on. Later at night, 10 pm,  when we came home after shopping and massage, the floor was still not dry. It isn’t the condensation from the air conditioned as well since we are not in the room the whole day.

On both days when the incident occurred, it was raining.⛈⛈

After leaving the hotel, I went to google for about wet spots and stains and found out that it may be a water sprites, possibly the soul of a drowned person. It occurred to us that the seas around Bali are very vulnerable to tsunami. Indonesia was one of the country hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami which is believed to be the deadliest tsunami in history. Some believe that when people die, their close one must cremate or bless them. If they are not found, they will often move objects or interfere with electrics as a way to let to show where they are. It is impossible that it was trapped since then and was trying to seek help.

Pic credit: http://www.abc.net.au/

Even on the final morning before we left Francine and Lynn’s room which was directly below our room, we heard things in the room above moving. It was the next morning after we evacuated last night. No one could have possibly checked in so early.

The above experience is much creepier and terrifying during the incident. Without doubt, the most spine-chilling experience in my life. Phew, we left the hotel safe and sound in one piece HAHA. We were glad they didn’t play anything scarier except for moving the table and having floating object. But that’s enough already, I am really dying from it. I couldn’t imagine if it starts to play even more especially when I am alone. I’m not planning to stay here again no matter what.

Some tips for future:

• Stay away from rooms with stains
• Always have your phone with you (with battery obviously).
• Know your friends/family room especially the one nearest to your room.

Getting to Bali