Short Ghost Stories

61) "Wonderful" Bali

Location: Bali, Indonesia

Sender: Nia

As much as we love Indonesia for their food and culture, it is also a very spiritual country. Today i will be sharing some thrilling stories regarding the "infamous" Nyai Roro Kidul aka the Empress of the Southern Sea. Here's a little back story. 

Most of us see this as a myth but some of the locals there see it as a huge culture. They say you can't wear green near the sea because if you wear green, you're gonna offend her as green is her favorite color. There have been cases of people going missing because of the fact that they wore green while they're at the beach.

There is a specific room in a few of the hotels in East Jawa that has been built as a shrine for Nyai Roro Kidul. In fact, it is more common than you think where hotels in Indonesia, they have a certain room booked as a shrine just for this culture. They use the room to appease the Empress. In the room, they will put a big picture of her, some jasmine flowers and continually burn incense. A real shrine in a hotel room. 

Let's get to the main ghost story.

A few years ago, a friend of mine went for holiday in Bali and this happened during a school holiday. She went there with her husband and her 5 year old daughter. She said she was very lucky to get a room because the hotel was almost fully booked. She got the room because there was a cancellation. Most of the people who cancelled the reservations were Indonesians. Since she's a Singaporean, she doesn't know the actual reason so she just reserved the room. 

"Madam, before you go to your room, i need to tell you something." said the front desk staff.

"Yes, what is it?" my friend asked.

"If you hear some noises or if you feel weird, don't be afraid. It's just the hotel," replied the staff.

"Why? Is the room haunted?" my friend was curious. 

"Oh no no, it's not haunted. Just that a lot of customers heard a lot of noises. I just want to let you know that they're normal sounds." the staff replied. 

Next to her hotel room, it was actually a shrine. For example hers was room 410, just next to hers, room 411 was actually a shrine. Her room was the 2nd last room at the end of the corridor. There's like a marking on the door of room 411 in Sanskrit. As most Balinese are Hindus, probably that's why there's a marking in Sanskrit but she didn't understand the writing. She did felt a little uncomfortable but she just brushed it off because she didn't want to ruin the trip.

They didn't think much about it so the family went into their own room, showered and went out of the hotel again to explore Bali.  When they returned to the hotel at night, it was her daughter who first experienced it. They were all watching a singing show on the tv and it wasn't even late at night. It was only around 9pm. Suddenly, her daughter suddenly looked at her and said,

"Mama, there is someone singing." her daughter told her.

"Ah, of course there's singing because we are watching a singing show," she replied.

"No, no mama, it's not from the tv." her daughter explained.  

She actually lowered down the volume of the tv just to hear if what her daughter said was true but she really could not hear anything. 

"Is it a man's voice or a lady's voice?" she asked her daughter.

"Lady's voice but she's actually not really singing. She's more like humming." her daughter explained again.

"Where is this humming sound coming from?" she asked her daughter.

"From the room next door." her daughter said.

She was freaking out as her husband was in the toilet showering and it's just her and her 5 year old daughter. She knows for a fact that the room next door is empty due to the inscription she saw on the main door. 

"Oh, never mind just let her sing. Maybe she's happy that's why." she didn't want to think much about it.

When her husband came out of the toilet, she told him about it but her husband didn't believe it and brushed it off. They slept peacefully on the first night as nothing else happened. The next day, they went to watch a cultural show. They're not sure whether there's possession that took place during the whole performance but their daughter kept sitting close to her and kept looking down during the whole show. They then decided to leave the show as they thought it was too heavy for a 5 year old kid.

When they returned home at night, they showered and ordered room service. Once dinner was served and they were all eating their food, her daughter looked at her again and said,

"Mama, mama, there is someone dancing." 

"Who is dancing?" she was curious.

"There, there she's behind you. She's dancing." her daughter explained.

"Can you stop your nonsense and finish up your food!?" she scolded her daughter.

Her daughter was quiet the whole time just like how she was during the cultural show. She felt like her daughter saw something at the door because she was sitting on the bed facing the door. Her daughter then kept moving closer and closer towards her but she turned her body to face the other side of the bed and she kept saying,

"Mama, mama.. she's dancing, she's dancing." her daughter started to cry.

She felt like something was not right and was disturbing her daughter but there is nothing she could do because she could not see what it was. She tried to calm her daughter down telling her there's nothing to be afraid of. They then continued to eat and went to bed. 

At night when they were sleeping, that's when it became worse. Her daughter and her husband were fast asleep. She felt asleep too but she was awoken by the sound of ankle bracelets. The same ones that she heard from the cultural show was in the room! Someone was dancing in the room but there wasn't any music. It was 2 am. She freaked out so she started to read some prayers and the dancing stopped for a while. She then went back to sleep.

She woke up again at around 2.45am. She felt like someone was staring at her even though there was no sound this time. She slept right next to the side table and she could see the toilet since her toilet had a clear see through view of the room and there were some blinds there.

What she saw next was soo scary! She saw inside the toilet, peeking through the blinds, there was a figure of a woman. At first, she was still groggy and was like thinking,

"Why is there a woman inside the toilet?"

She then looked closer and that's when she saw a pair of red glowing eyes staring at her!!

She actually said some prayer when she saw that. When she read the prayer, the 'thing' just pushed the blinds! The blinds hit the screen and she was freaking out. She shouted so loud and woke her husband up. 

"There's someone inside the room!" she kept on shouting.

The husband then got up, switched on all the lights in the room and checked but of course there wasn't anything. She was then down with a high fever for the rest of the trip. They didn't enjoy the holiday because of this whole haunting incident. They could not even switch hotels because their budget didn't allow it. They stayed in the same room towards the end of the trip. 

That's why when a deal sounds too good to be true, please double check before you confirmed it. Hope there's a lesson here for everyone.

Thank you.