Haunted Hotel In Palampur, Himachal Pradesh India

This was a wild experience, the kind of experience where you just want the night to pass.

This happened in June 2021, it was the peak of summer, I and my girlfriend planned a trip from Chandigarh to Dharamshala, Palampur and Bir-Billing. We have some kind of affinity with Himachal Tourism hotels (HPTDC - Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation), these are Government operated hotels and yet have unmatched hospitality (and the food is always tasty!). Most of these hotels are built in British-era buildings that were used as vacation stays by the British rulers during the pre-independence era in India. Our stays in Dharamshala and Bir-billing were beyond peaceful. However, our stay in Palampur was particularly special.

We booked Hotel Teabud, Palampur for one night - it is located at a serene spot between the Palampur Tea Gardens; the hotel looks like a proper vacation spot during the day and at night, its another story. During the day, it was all well - we checked in during the afternoon (around 2 PM) and we kept our bags in, had lunch at the restaurant and spent the day at nearby spots (including a church built in 1850s and other popular tourist spots). As night approached, we were in our room and there was a lot of noise coming from the room next to ours and a lot of talking sounds from the corridor; it was as if all the furniture in the entire hotel was being moved in this room. So many people talking non-stop coordinating the movement of the furniture and so I decided to open our room's door to request them to be discreet about it, as I opened the door, there was no one there, not one person in sight, no sound at all and darkness around both (left and right) ends of corridor. I didn't think much of it, we went towards the balcony, opened a bottle of gin we had along with us and ordered a bunch of lemonades from the hotel restaurant. After a few drinks, we decided to head downstairs to the restaurant (also if I didn't mention it earlier, we were staying the top floor room - 301, corner room with staircase on one side and other rooms on the other side). We had dinner at the restaurant and went into the hotel garden for a quick walk to digest the food a bit before going to bed.

There was a long layout of tables (similar to a conference layout) tables joined in a row and chairs all around the tables. Both the tables and the chairs were made of metal and painted white, as we would go closer to the table or pass by it, it would sound like a bunch of people are sitting at each of those chairs and chatting over dinner. As we kept experiencing this during our walk, one of the hotel staff members approached us and asked us not to go too far in the garden at this hour, for safety reasons. Again, we didn't think much of it. We obeyed and went towards our room.

And now the noise from the room next to ours was going louder and louder, like furniture moving non-stop, it seemed like, they couldn't sleep and were turning the bed in every direction possible. Continuous knocks on the walls and shaking vibrations (to the extent that the chandelier in our room was moving with certain knocks of walls). Our bedroom door would knock, upon calling who it is, no response. Later I called the restaurant to send us some drinking water, again the door knocked, opened and no one there. It knocked at least 5 times between my phone call for water and until the guy came with the water. Asked him about the knocks and sounds from the other rooms, he said, he will get it checked and left quickly.

The noises got unbearable throughout the night and we had trouble sleeping. The next morning, same thing again, loud noises in the corridor and upon opening the door to check, nobody in sight! Anyhow, while I thought all this was very strange - I did not want to get myself scared as I had to protect the woman with me; and if she thought I was scared of something, it may only make things more difficult from that moment onwards.

Throughout this experience, I kept my peace together and did not act scared by any means. During our hotel checkout, my girlfriend kept insisting me to ask the hotel manager why was there so much sound all night that we could barely sleep or rest at all.

As she kept insisting, while making the payment at the hotel reception, I asked the manager about all the noise and he responded, "Since you are a couple, we thought of giving you privacy by giving you the top floor room in the corner, so you wouldn't be disturbed (or disturb others)."

We smiled and told him we couldn't sleep all night because of the continuous sounds of people talking and furniture moving around all night, and in that moment, all the hotel staff present around made eye contact with each other and looked back at us, while the manager said, "the room next to yours is empty (not allocated to anyone) and in fact, there was no guest on the entire floor" and that's when we looked at each other (me and my partner), in deep shock of what we had gone through the entire previous night.

As we left from that place, the staff continued to maintain their silence on our feedback of the stay, we checked out from there, drove to our next destination - Bir, Billing and slept the entire day at Bir - as I was so tired from no rest during the night before.

This stay is engraved in our memory now. Please comment your thoughts on this experience or if you can help me understand what actually happened with us that night.

Thanks!