I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there’s a five hour time difference between South Africa and Thailand. When it’s 10AM in Thailand and I’ve already done pilates and chugged my first iced coffee, it’s 5AM in Cape Town and my employers are all asleep. As a freelancer that’s great, because I get a big head start. For example, I can ignore a ‘I want it in my inbox at the ass crack of dawn on Monday morning’ deadline all of Sunday and then smash it leisurely on the actual Monday itself. As long as I’ve sent it off by 12:30pm in Thailand (just in time for lunch) then my producer/editor/traffic manager/whoever’s whipping me that day has got it by 7:30 in the morning.

Anyway, my plan was to use this morning (it’s currently Monday morning in Thailand) to finish up my Yangon post and take advantage of all that sexy Monday blog traffic but nooo, I’m busy packing up my bags to leave my hotel room, check into a new one and force in a little more sleep to ensure I’m not useless for the rest of the day. Turns out the hotel room I’ve been staying in probably isn’t haunted (if there were troublemaking ghosts here I’d be the first to see them) but it’s definitely a bad, bad place and I need to get out of here fast. I’m very sensitive to this kind of crap and picked up on it the first night but tried to explain it away and be as rational as possible because I didn’t want to make a loss and was trying to be brave. I’m acutely aware that spirits and spooks roam around but I know that, 99% of the time, they’re not going to hurt you. So I was just going to tough it out. But last night I woke up screaming at 1:10AM like a big girl and had to whip on all the lights and chat to my mom via WhatsApp until my sleeping tablet kicked in. Lekker tough cookie, ne? For the record, I have no idea what woke me. I don’t remember the dream or if something touched me while semi-conscious. I just remember sitting up bolt upright shouting ‘No! NO! NOOOOOO!’ in an absolute panic, clawing and pounding at the wall next to me until the lights switched on. There was a sense of ‘I’m suffocating, I’M SUFFOCATING’ but that’s literally all I can recall.

Creepy, right?!

I might expand on this post a bit later but now I’ve got to get into the shower so I can finally run away. I’ve left the showering bit until last because, quite frankly, it scares me. And I keep thinking something bad will happen. Like I’m going to slip. Or choke on this can of Nescafe ice coffee I’m drinking.

But ja. No Yangon today. I feel like a piece of road kill so that’ll go up tomorrow. At best, I’ll expand on this post later today.

Love, love

Leigh

P.S. Have you ever stayed at a creepy/haunted place? Do you also occasionally see ghosts? Chat to me in the comments section so I don’t feel like a complete freak.