My job was conceived in hell, IÂ’m traveling 99% of the time, living out of my suitcase, always having to find a way to press that shirt I need to wear tomorrow and oftentimes donÂ’t even know where IÂ’m going the next week. As you would imagine, IÂ’ve lived in my share of hotels, 1 star, 5 stars and oftentimes no stars but there is one particular hotel that IÂ’ll remember for a long long time.
It all started when my buddy Don, on hearing that I’ll be visting Ho Chi Minh again suggested that I try this hotel called the The Orient Inn. “It’s cheap, clean and there’s a ‘university girls wanting to make some money’ racket in the coffee shop” Don said.
I usually stay at the Duxton which used to be Singaporean owned and until today has chicken rice and The Straits Times but the university girls part made me jump at it and on checking out the hotel did indeed find that pretty university girls were hanging out at the coffee shop looking to make some money.
I promptly checked into room 9006, went down to the coffee shop and letÂ’s say got to know the Vietnamese university students very, very intimately. They have great knockers these girls, much bigger in general than the girls in Thailand, donÂ’t know why but it might be the great Vietnamese coffee they serve super strong.
As always when IÂ’m there I would go to the top floor of the Intercontinental Hotel to meet up with the Singaporeans who live and work in Ho Chi Minh. There is quite a decent group of Singaporeans there and they always seem to have a great, friendly party time, reporting daily without fail to drink and be merry each and every night. This time around there was this real sweet, demure thing there and on inquiring of the others, I found out she was just stationed there and was working for one of the big courier companies.
The whole night I waited and waited for a chance to chat her up but it was pretty difficult with all the guys buzzing around her trying to get her attention, likes bees to the honey.
The chance came when I was coming out of the washroom just depositing the ‘rented’ beer I had been drinking continuously and bumped into her. ‘Hi! Are you from Singapore too?” she asked and we starting chatting from there.
Her name was Rachel, she was single having been divorced recently and she was a real looker. Tall, big bre.asted with legs that went on and on all the way to the Vietnamese- Cambodian border. Rachel explained that she had volunteered for the posting in Vietnam just to get away from the hassles of being recently divorced. We got along real good and promised to meet the next day for drinks at the Madame ZeeÂ’s open air bar which had a panoramic view of Ho Chi Minh.
Things went extremely well from there and soon Rachel would stay over in my hotel room instead of going back to her apartment on the outskirts. I remember on the first night she stayed over we were joking about sex and she said “I’m divorced, haven’t had sex for a long time so do you think I need it?” and on my hesitating to reply provided the “Of course I do!”. The sex was great, the company even better and we had a grand time in Ho Chi Minh.
After a round of exhaustive, ‘combative’ sex, we were all snuggled up in bed when the strange events in room 9006 started. The bathroom door which had been quiet the whole week we had been staying there starting opening and closing on it’s own accord. At first I thought, in my dreamy sleep state, that it was Rachel but she shook my arm and said “Honey there’s someone in the bathroom”. On checking, I found no one there. ‘It’s probably the air conditioning’ I said and promptly went back to bed. A loud thud a couple of hours later woke me up again and this time the lamp on the writing desk had fallen to the floor.
Having stayed in countless hotel rooms I knew by now that something was amiss so I got up, put on all the lights, lit a cigarette and sat waiting to see what else would happen. I told Rachel who was wide awake with fright (her eyes are so lovably wide when she’s frightened) that if anything else happened we would get out of the room quick. Joking to her that in the horror movies the dumb newly moved in family would get a phone call saying “get out of the house” and would still stay there. Well the next sign arrived pretty promptly with the shower and taps all going on at the same time.
We threw all our stuff in our bags and left the room faster than you could type Ho Chi Minh. At the front desk we demanded to be moved into another room and on being told there were none available moved to RachelÂ’s apartment.
The next day, being the curious Singaporeans we were we decided to find out if indeed there was something or someone in that room or was it just our sex-tired minds playing tricks on us. At the nightly gathering we asked everyone if they knew about this hotel. Robin who works in the airlines told us that he had heard from one of his passengers that someone who had been murdered there was still lurking around.
Robin made some phone calls and found out from his travel agent contact that a government official was shot at gunpoint in the hotel. His corpse was left in the bathtub for a few days before some terrified chambermaid found him. “Quick, quick, find out what room he was in” Rachel prompted and the answer was room nine, zero something six.
Till today Rachel and me still wonder if that something was a zero. I don’t stay in hotels anymore when I’m in Ho Chi Minh, I’m a semi permanent resident in Rachel’s place now and whenever we snuggle up in bed she always jokes “Honey, go check if there’s anyone in the bathroom”.
