My Life in Vietnam part 8: The Part You Have Been Waiting For

Ly left a UV pen light in my hotel room one night. Before she left, I had been cleaning and trying to lighten up my load for the trip home. I threw several things away including the old harddrive from the Samsung Laptop I came to Vietnam with, a deactivated credit card which I had cut into little pieces, receipts, cds, virus infected usb flash drive, and various other things. 

While cleaning, I opened the drawer to the wardrobe and found something strange. There was a grey man's long sleeve shirt, a plastic wrapper for some sort of electronic equipment, and wait for it --- a cardboard box that contained the battery for my IBM Thinkpad sl400 laptop. Except, there was a battery in my laptop.

I never bought a second battery. It turns out, the battery in the bottom of my wardrobe was the original one that came with my laptop. The one currently inserted in my laptop had come in that box and it had been modified to include a second mini harddrive, mini wifi card, and an IR receiver. (I opened it.)

By chance, I took the UV pen light that Ly left in my room and pointed it at the fake battery. WTF? I saw a scan code and serial number that I didn't notice at first. Long story short, I began looking at everything in my room: my clothes, electronics, papers, toiletries, etc. UV markings everywhere!

Then on top of the wardrobe I found drug paraphernalia. There was more under the mattress of the bed, behind the mini fridge, behind the toilet, under the sink, under the trash bag in the waste bin, (which is where I also found the cut up credit card that I had thrown out hours earlier.) This is by no means an exaustive list. Just know that I spent about 3 hours going through my things, throwing out anything that looked altered, and packing the rest away.

Once I packed my bag, I went right downstairs, checked out of the hotel, asked them to call the police and have them seach the room because I felt like something was wrong, and then got on my motorbike and found another hotel. 2 days before I fly. What have I gotten myself into?

Also, during this 3 hour clean up period, I found my old harddrive in the bottom of my bag. The harddrive that I had thrown out with the cut up credit card.

More to come.