Travel Journalist’s Ghost Story 1 / That Night at the Old Five-Star Hotel… Who Answered the Phone?

The job of a “travel journalist” is rich and diverse, often offering opportunities to travel around the world, filled with all kinds of challenges. However, what may seem like an exciting job is actually demanding independence, a willingness to try new things, and frequent solo stays in various hotels, visits to peculiar locations—naturally leading to many XXXX encounters. ETtoday Eastday Travel Cloud specially collected experiences from multiple online travel journalists to reveal the ghostly encounters they faced before and after reporting—stories readers never get to see.

By / Elber

Many people think ghosts are terrifying, but sometimes I wonder, what really scares us? Actually, it’s our boundless imagination, shaped by TV shows, movies, and books about ghosts and monsters. Thankfully, I respect the supernatural but am not afraid of it. Otherwise, someone as sensitive as me would definitely have gone crazy by now.

Because I’m quite sensitive, no matter where I go for work, I never forget the proper etiquette for “yB” (ghosts/spirits)—like knocking before entering a room, waiting a few seconds before opening the door, and keeping all the lights on at night, even the TV, so I don’t overthink.

After entering the travel industry as a journalist, I’ve gone to Bangkok every year to attend conferences related to Thailand. Almost every time, I stay at the same old five-star hotel that has good relations with the government. It’s said to be a designated accommodation for flight attendants from many airlines.

I can’t even remember how many times I’ve stayed at that hotel for conferences. The conference usually runs from Thursday evening to Sunday, and my magazine’s deadline is Friday, so Friday night is always my busiest time. I remember that when I checked in on Friday, I got my room key and realized I was in a side room. To be honest, I’m not particularly superstitious, but after hearing so many stories about side rooms, I felt a bit uneasy.

I’m not sure if it was just in my head or what, but as soon as I entered the room, I felt something was off. Still, I didn’t want to bother the housekeeping staff, so I toughed it out and went in. When I inserted the room card into the power switch on the wall, it seemed like there was a poor connection. After fiddling with it for a few minutes, it finally powered up. With my tight schedule, I left without thinking much about it.

That night, close to midnight, I was still working on my draft at the hotel vanity. When I stood up to get some water, I noticed the bedside lamp wasn’t on, so I walked over and flipped the switch—the room instantly brightened.But when I turned back to the vanity to continue writing, the bedside lamp suddenly went out.

“Could the lamp be broken?” I flipped the switch again, and the bedside lamp lit up. But as soon as I turned away, it went dark again. This back-and-forth happened several times.I started to get annoyed and thought, “Could this be yB?” After this happened a few more times, I said to it, a bit irritably, “You do your thing, I’ll do mine!” I ignored the dimmed bedside lamp and sat down at the vanity to continue my unfinished work.

A few minutes later, maybe “yB” got bored and simply turned off all the lights in my room.I wasn’t too scared at first—I just looked up because my laptop still had power, so I didn’t pay much attention. I just opened the room door to let in some light from the hallway.Then I called the front desk and asked the staff to check if there was something wrong with the room lights, then continued with my work.

About three minutes later, the entire floor suddenly lost power—all pitch black except for my laptop.

“Damn it. I don’t have time for this!” I stayed seated and finished the nearly done draft, sent the photos and text back to the magazine, and by then the power on the whole floor had been restored—but my room was still out, with less than 10% battery left on my laptop.

After a long, exhausting day, I got up, closed the door, lay my head on the pillow, and fell into a deep sleep. The next morning, I woke up to find all the room lights on—including the bedside lamp—as if nothing had happened. I packed my bags and went downstairs to catch my ride. When I passed the front desk, I angrily asked why no one had come to check the lights in my room the day before. The staff looked terrified and kept apologizing. They asked for my room number and started typing on the keyboard.Looking at me with confusion, they said, “Sir, we didn’t receive any call from you yesterday.”

Just as I was about to get angry again, I suddenly remembered—The hotel phones are all digital and require electricity to work. At that time, my entire room had no power. So who answered the phone?


▲ No call records, no power to the digital phone—so who exactly answered that call that night?...