I have traveled extensively around India and abroad and quite of few of these trips were solo so I am well used to staying alone. Be it tents, a bench on a roadside Dhaba, a budget hotel, or a star hotel I have experienced it all. I am comfortable in all of them coz after a day-long trip I usually get tired and just a place to put my head should be enough for a quick rest.
To be honest I don’t sleep much since I am busy processing photos or writing notes which help me writing my blogs later. Another important activity that I usually do at night while traveling is to read up on the places that I would be visiting the next day so that I don’t miss any.
On one such trip to Bhubaneswar in September 2019 which was a one-day official tour, I had no hotel reservation for the night. Since my flight was next day morning so I had to find a place to spend the night at the last moment. I opening my mobile and checked a few places available for a night. Did not seek anything fancy so decided to book a room from a hotel aggregator portal. I am purposely withholding the name of the portal and the hotel where I spent the night just to avoid any controversies later.
I just wanted to crash for the night so checked into the hotel and went straight to the room. The room was average for its price, no towel no toiletries, and beds with an unclean bedsheet. On requesting the bed sheet was changed but the request for the bath towel was never acknowledged. Even after following up several times the bath towel did not arrive.
For dinner, I ordered thee rootis, one chicken curry, and daal. I was told that the order will be served in an hour due to staff shortage which I did not mind. I went for a quick wash and changed and relaxed on my bed to watch some Netflix on my laptop. After an hour a knock on the door and I knew it was my dinner arriving.
I laid the food on the table and sat on the chair to have food. I was served three rotis, daal, and a funny-looking curry. Upon inspecting I realized that it’s no chicken instead it was panner. I called the reception and complained, the call was transferred to the kitchen and the staff told me that they had run out of chicken thus served me paneer instead. I was speechless and did not want to drag this much further thus decided to settle with paneer curry.
After dinner, it was time for some more Netflix and around one past midnight, I decided to call it a day and switched off the lights to sleep. I think I might have slept for around thirty minutes when I realized some anomaly. I felt that there was something heavy near the leg side of the bed. I opened my eyes and switch on the light to find nothing.
I went back to sleep thinking that I might have been dreaming but within minutes I felt the same and this time I was not sleeping but awake. I felt that it was someone and not something that was sitting on the bed. The feeling was surreal and could not be seen with my eyes but could be felt only. Every time I tried to sleep this feeling kept repeating. Just to break the pattern I switch on my mobile and listened to some music and in an hour I was a bit sleepy so must have slept off.
What happened next still gives me creeps to date. I could again feel someone sitting on my bed but this time I could see a faint outline of a human form but not the face. To make matter worse I was in a suspended sleep meaning I was awake and could feel my surrounding but my body was asleep and could not move freely.
Then things turned bizarre and I had an out-of-body experience where I could see myself sleeping and this figure sitting next to my leg. There was no recognizable face but a blurred face with no clear feature. This must-have continued for some time and the more I tried the wake up more clearly I could see and feel myself.
It took me some good time to get outside this pattern and finally I could come to my logical senses and got up from the bed. At once I switched on all the lights and drank some water. Sleeping was not a solution anymore so I decided to leave the room and sit in the corridor. It was around 3 AM and I had to spend a couple of more hours outside for sunrise.
I knew that if I let this incident get into my head then it will spook me up so decided to listen to some heavy rock music. So after a couple of playlists, the sun started slowly breaking the dark skies. Finally, it was morning and I could get back to my room.
I took a shower and realized that the bath towel that I had asked a night before was still not delivered so used my worn t-shirt to dab myself dry. I packed up my luggage and left my room around 6 AM. My flight was at 10 AM so I could have easily left at 8.30 AM but I decided not to spend any more time in this hell hole. I reached Bhubaneswar airport and had my breakfast with Medu Vada as for strange reason all other food joints at the airport were closed and only one counter was active only serving vada, dosa, tea, and coffee.
After boarding the aircraft I just slept off and did not even realize when the plane was airborne. I was dead tired and slept the whole journey.
I am not here to judge if it was a ghost that I saw or just that I was hallucinating in my dreams due to my extensive tiring day. It can be anything so I leave this up to you to decide what you would like to call this experience.