Ghost at the Grace Hotel

[Co_Van_My]

Here is a repost of the story originally posted by

Joe Red Man, Sanuk Board 2/22/01

...this is a not so strange story about some strange events. And this one also is a collection of those adventures that it is almost impossible to tell to the "common people" because they normally never guess that this kind of things could happen.

Hope you can follow my bad english and easily decypher my typos...

At the beginning of my staying in Thailand as a traveller (i use to think that I stopped to be a turist as soon as i discover the real Thailand, talking with an old taxi-driver, after few days following a fucking tour group...)i used to stay mostly at the GraceHotel when i was in BKK. This hotel, on soi nana is pretty (in)famuous just like some others in the capital (BTW: have you ever been at the Malaysia hotel?...try it once!!!). But starting on my 3th trip to the Country, being at that time always travelling on a budget, i decided to stay there after having been around looking few other places. I didn't know about its fame as it seemed very nice for the price to me.

1989 The Grace Hotel had three different kind of rooms: old, standard and new-wing rooms, being the last ones very beautiful and nice decorated with two big beds and all the amenities (fridge, tv, ac, vcr etc...) as you can see in one of those small books the tour agencies show to you if you ask about it. As i strolled inside the big hall i didn't know about the kind of customers this hotel catered and still caters (mainly Arabs,Pakis and Indians...) but anyway being the open-minded guy that i am, and not racist at all, it didn't care to me about being one of the few falangs there. The girls at the reception desk were kind and smiling, i asked for the price: 1800b new-wing rooms, 1200 standard room, 800 bath old-wing room. Being on a budget i asked for a low priced ones but: "sorry fully booked!"... (usual trick, isn't it?!...). I waved goodbye and was leaving the desk when they started talking each other and one of them called me back letting me know that indeed they have rooms in the old wing but at the 7th floor!... So... what was the problem? Answer: the elevator reaches only the 6h floor!... i had to go up the 7th by stairs,... i was amazed! (and you'll think "TIT", at that time i didn't know about the "TIT"behavior and was only sooo amazed and bewildered) This wasn't a big deal at all!... the girls giggled and talked together and then they gave me a discount also for having choosed to stay there anyway!... 600bath for a room at the Grace Hotel. Not bad!

I wanted to check the room and up we went. The elevator to the old wing is at the left of the reception desk just at the corner after the cashier and indeed it stops at a crappy 6th floor, then you have to walk up a couple of stairs to the 7th, the funny things is that all the floor girls seems to dislike the stairs so they go up only for the daily routinary tasks and on demanded services like serving meals in the rooms and so on but normally stay at the 6th floor sitted on the stair steps and chatting together. I had literally to step over them to go up and they seemed amazed to see a falang willing to go up with luggage to the 7th floor rooms. There are no on-floor services at the 7th but you can anyway call and they come up from the 6th, no big deal. The room wasn't bad at all: clean, basic services (AC,TV, HotWater, nice big bed) and very old fornitures but everything seemed working well. And I decided to stay there.

Few days after i appreciated my choice even more being usually the only inhabitant of the floor and being everything so quiet, just only those kind of backpackers or cheap-travellers that stay one or 2 nights,some nights i got the impression that somebody was playing the "hanky-panky music" with a nice companion just in the room near mine but in the morning time they usually left early leaving me alone and quiet all the day with may darling of the night, ...really those Arabs with lots of petro-dollars didn't liked a couples of stairs!!.... Had only few drawbacks: the shower sometimes had problems with water as probably the pipes had lot of rust inside and if you didn't take care you risked to shower under a reddish water splash from the tube!... Also the AC was a little crappy due to the old climate-control system, i was waked up more than one time in the middle of the night by an icelander room-temperature!!... had to switch-off the AC!!!.. Anyway the place was good and the bed strong enough to support any kind of phisical execise. Had plenty of interesting phisical rounds there with good and "not so good" but anyway nice gals!... Stayied there a total of 2 weeks, learning about Bangkok customs and its female inhabitants, call it: cultural anthropology!...

1990-1991-1992-1993-1994

Having been to LOS more that 10 times in these years and met lots of interesting women. When in BKK i usually stayed at my official headquarter: Grace Hotel old-wing 7th floor, never had to book in advance, anytime in the season they always got a vacancy for me there (call me a cheap charlie but this was anyway another plus of the place!!).

The service girls got aquainted with me (i usually good-tip them for having a good room service!...), and they were always happy to see this strange backpacker-type long red haired falang willing to climb the 7th floor alone or, more often, with nice company (they nicknamed me "khun chow-chou daeng" and we joked about that few times)...

The place wasn't getting too bad during the years and has been keeping its laid-back atmosphere, anyway year after year the lack of maintenace added few more problems due to the age: dark corridor with red lamps not all working, the light-switch in the bathrooms weren't working very well (i use to sleep in the full dark and so i take my time to switch off everything before going to sleep, especially the few times when i am alone and really want to sleep!), more that one night i noted that the bathroom light seemed has been turned on !... but what do you want for a 600bath room in the Capital of the Land of Smile???.

One last silly drawback: most of the girls i was bringing back there didn't care about it,... but talking with few of the girls hanging at the Grace Hotel Coffee-shop (at those time a real "hot-spot" in the BKK nightime!) gave me a "you cheap charlie" look when i told her that i was staying in the old-wing room at the 7th floor. I still remember one time when i met i nice doll in the lobby and started a conversation and in few minuted we closed a good deal for the night, then when going to the elevator she said that she didn't like the old rooms and wanted to stay only for short time!...jeez! those fucking Arabs with their fucking dollars are spoiling the field i said to myself!!!... Being so old the place there were indeed few cockroaches around (exception few nights during these years when i left something sweet on the fridge and waking up in the nighttime because of the scream of my girlfriend seeing a black crowd of them assalting the fridge itself... funny ... the Thais use to eat these insects and still they get scared when seeing lot of them moving... well not a pleasant panorama, especially in your room!... but it was by accident.)

Talking about screamers i still remember one night when coming back maybe around 3am with two nice dolls, one of them very drunk, it happened that while i was trying to open my room-door they starded to scream and laugh so loud that one of those rare inhabitants of the floor woke up and came to the door in front of mine, opened it and had a look at us: old man, with a friendly smile and pure white hair, i excused myself and the one sober of my two ladies wayied to him profusely . He just smiled to our band, looked at the babes and waving his hand with a fatherly look greeted me: "Nice selection!... No problem!... Enjoy the life!..." with what i guessed a very cockney accent. The way he said that (it was like a blessing!) and the camaraderie in the look of him i'll never forget!... and since that time this has become my very personal motto and i use it to greet all the my true classy whoremonger Brothers!. BTW: the next day in the afternoon i went to Foodland for shopping and remembering the night before i bought a bottle of Scoth Whisky to gift him for the disturb and for his sympathy!... I was never able to see him again, he left early i guess, but talking with the service girls it seemed that they never has had another guest at the 7th floor other than me during that week... another TIT i tought...funny people the Thais!...

1995 During the last two years met a wonderful lady in Pattaya that helped me forgetting my first Perfect Pricess. Nui is her name and she has been working at the Cat's bar along the walking street (the bar was just no more that a hole in the wall and has been closed in the last years). She had never gone with a falang before (she told me that used to work in a Japanese-bar north Pattaya but left because of the very rude treatment she got from the customers, but very good money...). Nui was so shy and scared that it took about a week to convince her to spend a night with me. But when we started sharing our souls it was a blast!... and we have been seeing and writing each-other for a couple of years and more. I falled for her soo much that i was thinking to move permanently to Thailand, sent here money when i was back in Italy (yeah!... me too!...as you can see: been there and done that!...ahaha..) and she stopped working in the Bar. She was a kind of lovely and very shy person, very sensible also, and ... a very Thai country girl. Could you guess?...She had a cute babygirl back at her village!... She taught me more about the Kingdom and the Thai people: when i was in Thailand we spent lot of time travelling and sharing experiences. Nui was from Ken-Khoy, Central Thailand, and there we went one time. As i told you already we liked travelling slowly and everywhere and i still can remember one time when we stopped in Sarabury, where we slept in a strange hotel (the only falang-style hotel in town), very near to a temple. I can remember that, being the hotel 5 floors tall, we could see the inside of the temple in the daytime. As i told you already my Shy Princess was a kind of very sensible person and it happended that in the night i woke up in the middle of my dreams being she so trembling and strict against me that i thought she got sick or something. It was just pure terror!!!!! We got a "peeh" in the room!!!...trying to sort out what a "peeh" was i open the light and started to look around for some sort of exotic animal, a she was almost unable to speak... at the end of the search it resulted that this strange animal was indeed not an animal but...a "ghost", as it seems that "they"(the ghosts also known by Thais as "peeh"...) use to hang around the temple walls during the nighttime and infesting all the people walking there. Our room was just along the temple walls and that was why this nice "entity" liked to enter in our sleeps!... funny people the Thais i already said!!! we spent the rest of the night talking and i try to joke with her about this (i do not believe in any gods, can you figure out as i can believe in ghosts!??? but i always respect other people way of thinking and i am always curious to learn...so call it: cultural anthropology again!), calming her down and with all the room lights open everything ended with a good love session, very passionate by her and me little bit amazed! BTW: it seemed that the peeh had gone in the meanwhile!... After this adventure, i got to know her much better and better and the real Thai person in her soul was more open to me. The Thais have a very complex supranatural system, as they really believe in a mix of Buddhism and ancient KhmerAnimism and have a "dark world" populated with spirits,Nagas, Garudas and... so on. They are not willing to open these inner worlds to any non-Thais so it it is very difficult to us poor stupid falangs to get inside this strange way of thinking (much more deep to understand that a simple religion...). If you travel North and Issan areas and you keep your attention open to this kind of things you'll learn a lot about these legends. Nui was a sort of super-sensitive person in this field: shy, silent, lovely, and misterious in some of her daily behaviors. I was simply fashinated by her being so "Thai"....

At the end of one of our trip through the Kingdom we stopped in BKK before my leaving back to Italy, (at that time my Shy Pricess had a rented apartment with her sister down in Chomburi where the two of them opened a small food-shop), she wanted to be with me during my last two nights in the capital, and being sooo Thai she was also veeeeeery jealous as you can guess! And we went at the GraceHotel, this time i wanted another kind of room (not wanting that some of the service ladies at the 7th floor talk about the Red-Butterfly also know in thai as:"chow-chou daeng"...) but: high season and they were very sorry and had all the normal rooms fully booked!!!...so i had to switch back to my preferred 7th floor room that was indeed always available for me. Nui was not so impressed by the room style!... nor she was entusiastic about the small talk with the service ladies (they were indeed very kind and polite with us...). Being she always so reserved and "riep roy" i didn't have any worries ... She was the kind of woman never demanding and always comfortable in any situation (always "up to you"!.... simply perfect!!!), but this time i saw her a bit strange... It was late afternoon and after a quick shower (thanx God: no reddish water this time coming from the tube...!) we went out for dinner and to see a movie...

We came back around midnight and being these our last nights together she was more silent that normally, i guess sadness !... We had our usual chat before cuddling and kissing and sweet talking but as soon as i switch off the light (she was sooo shy that we almost never did the "dirty deeds" in plain light ...) she asked me to turn it on...! strange... I looked at her and smiled... but saw something from the past in her eyes: terror!... (I didn't forgot that fucking night in Sarabury and how she seemed innerly touched!!) She said craying that she cannot stay in that room because there was a ghost and how i could stay there, maybe falang don't believe in ghost, she knew that, but it was so dangerous for people... we had to go!...

Well... can you believe that?... i followed her and out we went in the nighttime... i just wanted to know more about her feelings, but she just told to me that it was no good to talk about ghost in a place where the ghosts live and anyway no good in the nightime... in the following morning she was going to give some light about her feelings!... Me: a big falang, well experienced traveller, black-belt karate'teacher, former army/police instructor in my country, scared by nothing and nobody, ... me atheist and spoiled about any religion.... following a small Thai puy-ing scared by a ghost that beside i never could see!!!... this happened to me in 1995 in BKK!... So... where to go now?...

December is high season in Thailand and it's not so easy to find a room in a decent hotel at 2am in the night!... The fun reached its maximum when we jumped into a taxi and i told to the taxi-driver to take us at the RoyalHotel, the stupid guy start driving lost not knowing about this Hotel (this is another place where i used to stay in BKK having some friends Thais there and always willing to see me, so i was hoping they, being working at the reception desk, would fixup a room for us that night.).Well:... RoyalHotel is one of the oldest hotel in town, with a luxury hall and not so bad rooms, it's at the end of Rathdjadamnoem Road (what a fucking name for a road!!...) near SanamLuang in the monumental area of the City (if you are the turist like person, who like to see temple and palaces and so on this is the place to stay as you can just walk to lots of the most famous monuments in BKK from there!...). It is best called Rathanacosima Rongrem among Thais and as i had seen my lost driver driving around like a chiken i explained him where to go and the Thai name of the place and now my sweet Shy Pricess started screaming again, still scared by the feelings from the previous experience she prayed me not to go at the Royal because it was not good!... How could she know about that???... She always has been saying to me that she has been working only in Pattaya and with Japanese and that i was her first falang...She should not have known nothing about BKK!!!... bewildered and i little bit curious i asked what was wrong with RoyalHotel and she kept telling me the story of the "army coup" in 1994 and that the newspapers and the people said about lots of people killed by the Police and the Army along Radjadamnoeng Road and the wounded and dead bodies translated in the Royal's lobby and then moved away from there: that was another terrible place infested by ghosts all the time and only stupid tourists could live in the rooms there... but not a Thai! ... no more...

So... what was the end of that night ???... we ended in driving straight to Chomburi where i left her, kissing her a nice goodbye and coming back (good biz indeed for that fucking stupid driver!) for my last night of debaucery in BKK next day!... sleeping my last night in my confortable Grace 7th floor room with a wild girl from Thermae who was not aware of any ghost!...

1996 As usual i checked in at my headquarter at the Grace and started my heavvy nightly anthropological researches around the capital during the first week of my staying. Then i moved to Chombury and Pattaya where i met my Shy Pricess again and we had a nice 10 days together going to khoSamet and KhoChang. During that time we had been joking about what happened on our last night in BKK and Nui definitely told me about how she was feeling a "strange presence" in the room and how the desk people and the service-ladies at the 6th floor acted, seeing the two of us walking to the 7th floor: "Thai people know!" she said to me... probably there were some stories about that place that the hotel staff didn't want to let the customers know. Well incident was closed!... Just a good funny memory! Being the butterfly type that i am i saved few days of my vacation to be alone back in the Big Mango to finish my academic works! And when there, I started also to investigate about the "ghost".

Ended up that every lady "old enough" working at the GraceHotel Coffe Shop was aware of the "old story", now almost a hotel "legend": Once upon a time a very old but classy English Man, used to spend his time and his money in the Kingdom pursuing carnal pleasure and alcohol deboucery, was found dead in his room at the 7th floor. Here the story has many variations, being now more a "legend",... some narrators talk about that he committed suicide after loosing all his money with a fatal lady, ... some other tell that he was killed by a dark lady and that she took all his money,... and so on.... If you like legends and if you have the time and the patience just pay few drinks for a 50y.o.lady in the coffe-shop(right now on 2000 not so easy to find but not so uncommon 4..5 years ago...) and she probably has her version....

Anyway his Ghost is still leaving in the 7th floor rooms and everybody can feel his presence, and some tourists also were soooo scared to see this very white and old man walking drunk along the dark corridor, that the hotel management don't like to book those 7th floor rooms so they are almost all the time vacant. There are many other signs of the ghost presence: in the nightime he travels from room to room, showering in the bathrooms (it seems with whisky!!!!... thus the reddish water flowing sometime from the pipes...), forgetting to close the lights, when he comes into the room he takes with him "his cold temperature" and has cockroaches followig his steps..., sometimes he has girlfriends from "the other world" and they have their "sanuk" in the rooms... lot of other amenities like these, if you really are into this kind of things, very fashinating (just some more than a good fun for an open minded guy like me!)...

Most of the Hotel employees don't know but few of them (the oldest) are aware of the story and the service ladies have the permit to stay there at the 6thfloor instead of at the proper working site on the 7th!...

During all my few last days of staying in BKK i was sleeping and sanuking in my usual room, and also being now aware of the legend, and putting together all "the signs" of the ghost presence, i felt very confortable, just like a friendly protector was looking over my "night affairs" there... (you see how the people can interpret the whole thing ?... everything had a completely common explanation to me stupid falag, but quite different for the more sensible Thais!!!!....).

Anyway I still remember the old EnglishMan blessing me and my girlfriends from his rooms and if He was a Ghost ... well... this is the most friendly Ghost i could imagine, a true Father or,...better, an old friendly Brother to all of us fellow whoremongers and i am still proud having being able to meet Him and got his blessing, which is now my motto!

1997-1998-1999-2000 During these years for many reasons i have been staying at the Grace 7th floor only one time, the place is now very run down and no more confortable, they have very nice and cheap rooms (and i am no more on a budget...) in the new-wing, but i found that most of my fellow friends use to stay at the GP (did i ever tell to you that all those Arabs are not so friendly at all?...), last but not least i now need a 24hour available INTERNET connection due to my job, and the GP is definitely a much more convenient place to stay...

Last time i went to the Grace Hotel up to the stairs to the 7th floor has been 2 years ago: dusty and crappy place, TV not working and bad smell in the rooms. It has been a walk into the past,... i didn't feel any fatherly presence anymore,...the place is a desert in itself. I think that my friendly Ghost, if He ever existed, has moved to some much more confortable place somewhere in some other world, i warmly wish this to Him!

...and I still owe Him a bottle of Whisky and my very personal motto: Enjoy the LIFE!!!

Joe (the Red Man from Italy sorry for the length...)

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

Thanks for posting this. I remember reading it the first time, but it was still a good read the second time around.

Joe Red Man, if by any chance you are reading this, would you please contact me (sanuk@nanaplaza.com or use the PM function).

Sanuk!

[Guest]

Thanks for going to the trouble of finding and re-posting this.

Well worth another read.

[ November 27, 2001: Message edited by: ozbod ]