I was a former student of St Hilda’s Secondary School. I was in secondary 3 back then when the school organised a History field trip to Bangkok.

Part of the tour was staying a night on a floating, electricityless chalet as they called it, on River Kwai. River Kwai is river which separates Burma & Thailand and there we were on that River.

The place was really beautiful. So serene & peaceful without the hussle and bustle of the city but at around 6 in the evening, the place was already dark partly because we were in between forest & to top it up, there weren’t many lights & we had to use oil lamps.

Anyway on this particular night right after dinner, the whole group of us sat outside our rooms in the open to talk. Then one of my friends suggested we tell ghost stories. Maybe it was pure coincidence but the moment he said that there was a really strong heavy sweet scent of Frangipani. Everyone literally froze till the scent diffused away.

Soon after sometime, i felt that i really needed to stretch my back. As i stretched to face the river, i wasn’t sure if i was just imagining or was it real but i actually saw 3 white figures floating cross legged on the waters & looking at us. I couldn’t speak for a moment till one of my friends had to shake me for me to realise what happened.

I think by that time everyone else was already feeling uneasy so we decided to go back to our rooms to sleep and just as i was about to get up from the floor, i felt sumthing pulling me down. I couldn’t get up, i tried to pull myself but to no avail. I remembered trying to call for my friends but i just couldn’t. Anyway somehow or other, i managed to pull myself up when the elastic band around my shorts snapped. I thought to myself probably my shorts got entangled to some nail on the floor. I rubbed my palms on the floor to feel if there’s any “nail” but there was nothing.

I was running high fever the very next day which lasted about a week. Till now i still wonder what pulled my shorts & if the figures i saw on the river was purely my imagination.