The strange and amusing in hotels around the world

I am lucky I have been given the opportunity to stay at some of the best hotels in the world and at some of the worse hotels in the world. Here I will share some of my stories. Stay tuned for updates.

Just a picture of a hotel corridor for atmosphere...from http://i.imgur.com/RveEAWXl.jpg

The Hotel Floor...

As an internal auditor I travelled far and wide in Malaysia. Most likely only fellow auditors would know. If one were to look at a Malaysian map I would have travelled almost everywhere. So here are some of the stories...

It was a dark and stormy night (yes really), we just arrived at a leading hotel in Kota Kinabalu (back in the 90s) and we were ready to check in. It was all fully booked so we were given 2 rooms on the 11th floor. The bell boy happily took our luggage. When told which rooms were in he stopped cold in his tracks. He gave a look to the reception, and they returned the look, he then sighed resigned to the fate and walked to the lift with our luggage with us in tow. I noticed the looks exchanged and I asked, what's going on? He kept quiet and said nothing. When we got to our rooms all he said was please call him for anything and he means anything and gave us another look. I was getting a little suspicious but said nothing.

We were tired. We just arrived from KL, and it was getting late. Tomorrow was the beginning of the audit assignment, and we didn't want to be late. All of us got comfortable and turned in. Then, things started happening.

The room where my team leader was staying started leaking as if it was raining. My room where I shared with a team member suddenly felt strangely heavy as if there were a presence. But we were tired. We all went to sleep or tried to. At around 1 am we heard knocking on our door, we shuffled sleepily, got to the door there was nothing. Then we went back to sleep, there was a knocking again and again there was nothing. Suddenly there were banging and this time not at the door. That was it! We got up and rushed to the door and at the same time my team leader was at his door, and everyone had the same idea. Change rooms or move to another hotel.

We rushed down and do you know what was said? The front office manager said I was waiting for you. We have rooms ready; we will send the bell boy to help you move your things. You will now be on the 18th floor. We said, WHAT? He said that sometimes people are okay on that floor and sometimes they are not. We don't know what to say we were too sleepy to argue. We went up with the same bell boy and asked, what's going on? We were at my room, and he walked to the balcony, he pointed to a flagpole and said, this is where she jumped, this very same room, she died on that flagpole. Since then, the whole floor became haunted. I was surprised when they sent you to this floor.

We felt like throwing the guy to the nearest flagpole, but we moved to the 18th floor and nothing more happened.

Stones

Same hotel but a different time.

Still as auditors. This time there were more of us. Different teams auditing different branches. It was a weekend and we decided to go to an island nearby. As we landed, we noticed a notice board that says.

TAKE NOTHING AWAY EXCEPT FOR MEMORIES

LEAVE NOTHING EXCEPT YOUR FOOTPRINTS

That's a good reminder we taught. Little did we know that it actually meant more than that. We snorkelled and had a grand time. We went for walks on the beach and we found things. But taking heed of the notice we took back nothing. But one of us paid little heed to the warning. Later, we had our meals and then was ready to go. Among us, one of us had a secret that he hid from us. All of us went on the boat and returned to the mainland. Soon we were back in our rooms. Some of us hanged around in each other's room before we called it a night.

That night my colleague and I turned on the television. Suddenly everything was turned off at the same time. Thinking my colleague hit the master switch, I went to sleep as I was getting sleepy anyway. At the same time my colleague had the same thoughts and also went to sleep. The next morning, we woke up and noticed that the master switch was not turned off and neither were any of the switches. We picked up the tv remote and as suddenly everything turned back on. We thought it was just a faulty switch and didn't say more about it.

On the second night, we went to bed early. It was a working day, and we were tired. It was a few hours later when I heard my colleague mentioned my name, "Eh, what are you doing here go back to your bed!" I got up and wanted to ask him what was going on but all I could see was that he was sleeping soundly. In the meantime, my colleague felt someone was in his bed and he thought it was me, he sounded out, but he can't seem to get up.

This went on for a few days until one day when I returned to the room alone, I felt a really heavy presence. I did my ablution to perform my prayers but throughout I felt as if someone was watching me. I prayed and quickly left the room to join my colleagues for dinner. During dinner we told our experience. Apparently, my colleague who was in the same room experienced even more. He felt it in the bathroom, he thought I was lying in bed when he suddenly realised, I have not come up.

One of my other colleagues jokingly remarked, someone must have taken something from the island. Everyone laughed except for a junior colleague. He sheepishly told us that he picked up some stones from the island and didn't tell anyone about it as he was stung by a jellyfish and he was in bed for a few days to recover. Everyone scolded him and then my team leader asked, where are the stones now? He said he forgot about it and left it in OUR BATHROOM. We finished our dinner quickly and returned to our room.

And there it was, the stones. No one noticed it at all. My team leader took it and said that he will throw it away. Someone said that we should return it to the island but as we had very little time we decided to cast it at a river. We went to the river, and we placed the stones by the river and as we wanted to walk away the stones disappeared.

Suddenly I realised

I was really tired. It was a long day and I just arrived on the last flight. They gave me my room key. I took it and went up the lift. I ambled to my room. Freshened up, changed to my sleeping clothes and quickly went to sleep. It was at 3 am when I heard the fire alarm. Thinking nothing about it I just quickly left my room and started down the fire escape. As I was going down, I suddenly realised there was no one else. I went out at one of the floors and noticed that the alarm was silent and the room doors were close. I did it at a few other floors and it was the same. So I went up and returned to my room. A little puzzled and sleepy, I went back to sleep. Half an hour later the alarm rang again and this time there were knocking on my door. I got up and there was no one and the alarm was silent. I went back to bed, unsure if it was or was not a dream. And when it rang again with a knocking, I said to whatever, "You can do what you want but please don't interrupt my sleep!" And the knocking and noise stopped.

Sleepily I woke up in the morning to get ready and as I was opening my door, I suddenly realised that I was all alone on that floor.

More will be coming. I will publish this first.