Cambodia was still a very mysterious place around 2000.
During that time, many antique hunters would travel between Thai and Cambodian
border to hunt for antiques which would later fetch a premium price in the open
market in the Western world. Though antique trade was a lucrative business
then, there are hidden dangers. For many places in Cambodia then and even now
are buried with tons of landmines yet to be discovered. This make travelling to
villages across Cambodia a risky job. Most of the time antique collectors would
just hire local motorcyclist as their part-time drivers and guides.
Janet and James is a couple who were one of those pioneer
explorers into unchartered regions of Cambodia to collect antiques. Every time
the JJ couple returned from their antique hunting trips; they would have
something to tell me. Naturally, as avid Indochinese antique traders; they had
their fair share of encounters with the supernatural world. The JJ would tell
their stories while I helped to remove those ‘bonuses’ from their antiques.
Once I even suggest to JJ that they can just sell those items with those spooks
intact in eBay as this will certainly fetch a high price. But both Janet and
James dislike the idea of staying with those unknown spirits and demanded them
to be removed.
Once JJ ventured into a village near the Thai-Cambodia
border. The villagers there just had this weird habit to collect those remains
of war victims, burnt those remains to ashes and keep the ashes in their house
altars. Even the remains of the love ones also being kept within the house
compounds. According to the villagers, the reason they worship ghosts is that
the ghosts would bring them fortune. Since that village started to worship
ghosts, almost all of the households have something to do to earn a living
compared to other villages.
So said, Janet and James stayed in the village for one
afternoon and they had some great deals in getting some antique Buddha statue
and some half-human and Kinkara statues which are half bird like mythical
creatures. The JJ couple were extremely pleased as those were the heirloom
items of the villagers.
It was already dark when Janet and James returned to their
hotel room. After dinner, the JJ couple had nothing better to do but to inspect
their antiques and planned for next day’s itinerary. Suddenly Janet thought she
heard someone or something was scratching at the window glass producing sharp
squeaking noise. The couple turned their attention towards the window but found
nothing was there except the curtain started to swing even though there the
window was shut tight and no wind blowing.
Slowly disembodied knocking sounds started to be heard all over
their room: the four sides, top and on the ground. As the knocking sound
increased in intensity, some of the antique statues JJ put on the table started
to vibrate and moving about. Janet even claimed to have seen a Kinkara statue
winked at her.
Though the JJ are experience antique dealers, they are
novice in handling supernatural disturbances. Just before Janet and James were
facing with nervous breakdown, the couple rushed out of their room and dared
not return until the next morning. They had to take a separate room to spend a
night. Lucky for them, an empty room was available and that the couple was
homeward bound the next afternoon.
As soon as JJ couple touched down Penang, they immediately
dropped by my place and asked me to remove whatever spooks that came along with
the antiques. While I was cleansing the antiques, James asked: “Was it that the
spirits in the antiques that made noises or was it that the spirits in the
room?”
I replied: “It could be either or both. Normally spirits in
the room would not have reacted too much without outside provocations. Maybe
your antique statues had agitated the spirits in the room resulted in such a
commotion.”
I heard Janet and James went off for another trip to
Indochina again last month, hopefully they will be alright this time.
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