A tour of Bangkok’s spookiest web pages

Bangkok (CNN) — “You are not coming dwelling in advance of you’ve cleansed you at the temple,” my wife suggests. She may well not be Thai, but has observed enough Thai horror flicks to know that 1 does not mess all over with the regional spirits.

And that is specifically what I was about to do, on the strolling tour I signed up for: “Ghosts, Spirits, and a Tiny Bit of Dim History” led by Justin Dunne, a Californian who, for extra than 10 several years, has been scouring Bangkok’s back again alleys for ghostly encounters and, in his phrases, “vibrationally challenged destinations.”

In the electronic mail exchanges top up to the tour, Dunne warns me no considerably less than 5 periods that his walks are “extremely draining — the two bodily and emotionally.” They’d consider all over 10 hours, and would convey us to spots that “just do not experience great.”

In spite of staying a staunch non-believer in the supernatural, these recurring warnings leave me with a amusing emotion.

Security 1st: spirit safety

So, with a slight knot in my belly, I satisfy Dunne on a Sunday morning at the Saphan Taksin pier, a single of the key transportation hubs in Bangkok’s oldest district.

Ahead of we established off, I sign a waiver confirming that “any ghosts or black magic that attaches themselves to me will be my possess duty.” Dunne also palms me a black crystal, “billed with excellent ju-ju” by his Reiki-master spouse, and instructs me to retain it in my pocket.

Shrunken heads on display at the Tha Prachan amulet market.

Shrunken heads on display at the Tha Prachan amulet market place.

Chris Schalkx

Our 1st stop is the Tha Prachan amulet market place, a labyrinthine network of market stalls on the banks of the Chao Phraya river.

At a person shop, hundreds of collectible figurines stare me down from rickety shelves. Clay infants with pink diamonds for eyes. Black picket creatures with long fangs and witch-like hair. Deformed lizards preserved in vials of brownish oil. A luk thep, an unsettlingly real looking toddler doll considered to convey very good luck to its proprietor, guards the good deal.

A darkish historical past lesson

We cross the street to Thammasat University, the web page of just one of the bloodiest chapters in Thailand’s modern historical past. Listed here, on the early morning of October 6, 1976, suitable-wing militia violently cracked down on a leftist pupil protest, resulting in a massacre with an approximated loss of life toll of additional than 100.

Some college students sought refuge from the violence in a single of the elevators of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, only to be shot when the military uncovered them. Afterwards, the college painted the elevators purple to mask the blood stains. Rumor has it, Dunne tells me, that numerous previous college students and professors have experienced otherworldly encounters when having the elevator at night.

09b 4 Chris Schalkx Bangkok haunted places

Is that a confront spying on you from the forest?

Chris Schalkx

Haunted hotels and spirit properties

The tour carries on with a tuk-tuk experience to a resort not much from the Grand Palace. Dunne tells me its conference rooms were being employed as makeshift morgues throughout a violent pro-democracy protest in 1992. At yet another time, a 6-year-old girl disappeared here in the course of a bathroom take a look at. She has in no way been uncovered.

The resort continues to be in operation, even though it has evidently noticed better days. Tripadvisor evaluations describe it as “Bangkok’s variation of The Shining.” To this day, Dunne suggests, visitors and personnel hear bogs flushing all through the night or see deceased protestors looking back at them in the mirror.

A several blocks absent, a clandestine “shorter-time” resort features an even more hair-boosting backstory. On some nights, the tale goes, the notoriously feared spirit Phi Krasue, showing up as very little much more than a floating woman’s head with dangling entrails, roams the grounds to feast on flesh and feces.

Drawing on Buddhist beliefs and folk tales, these spirits, or phi as they are termed in Thailand, are broadly believed to lurk all-around abandoned buildings and historical trees. There are dozens of them, missing limbs, heads, mouths or eyes. Some have very good intentions. Quite a few do not.

To continue to be out of religious trouble, Thais established up spirit residences all all over the nation. Tiny temple-like shrines on stilts, they are placed in close proximity to workplace buildings, markets and auspicious corners all-around the house. They’re festooned with flower garlands, joss sticks and colourful figurines. Quite a few Thais make every day food items choices (normally accompanied by a bottle of pink Fanta, a far more humane alternate to blood) to hold the spirits appeased.

Even though we scan the lodge grounds hunting for clues pointing to Phi Krasue’s visits, I see the personnel getting visibly agitated. At instances, it feels like we, two white-skinned farang (foreigners), are viewed as the curious spirits roaming the premises. “It is part of the enjoyable,” Dunne says. “Sometimes we get kicked out — folks relatively not have us poking about for ghosts.” This is why he retains his groups compact, 4 persons at most, and from time to time slips the stability guards a couple of baht.

Modern Thais leave red soda -- an alternative to blood -- at "spirit houses."

Fashionable Thais go away purple soda — an substitute to blood — at “spirit homes.”

Chris Schalkx

Alleyways right after dark

We stop at desolate searching malls, previous prisons, abandoned nightclubs and an allegedly haunted cinema with a screening place so dim and fetid, it feels like I’m getting smothered by a moldy towel. Dunne tells me that on 1 of his excursions, a guest noticed another person stare at her from the balcony.

It truly is nearing 8 p.m., and our final stop is an aged stroll-up condominium setting up on a dimly lit facet avenue. Dunne informs me that one particular of the rooms used to be a back-alley abortion clinic. “A person of my former guests felt a thing pull his hair listed here,” Dunne suggests, pointing to a wooden staircase. “He went household appropriate away.”

As we climb the stairs, I avert my eyes from the wall-sized dusty mirrors beside it. Upstairs, a row of windowless doorways line a hallway lit by fluorescent tubes. Some have footwear in entrance of them, some others appear vacant. A wooden contraption with a major lock closes off the stairwell to the pitch-black upcoming flooring. If we were carrying a ghost frequency detector, I’m sure it would’ve been beeping excessively by now. I comprehend what Dunne meant with “vibrationally challenged locations.”

At dinner, I discover that a bowl of slippery noodles just isn’t as delicious next an afternoon of tales stuffed with disemboweled bodies and bloodied corpses, and I reward myself with an added dessert in an endeavor to shake off the jitters.

On my way property, my spouse checks in to make confident I prevent off at a temple to start with. I did not. But I did provide a bottle of red Fanta to our neighborhood spirit household. Just in case.

Bangkok Haunt hosts Ghosts, Spirits, and a Minor Little bit of Dark Heritage excursions on chosen Saturdays and Sundays. The tours cost 2,500 THB for every particular person, and can be booked via [email protected], or +66 813 41 3206

Chris Schalkx is a Dutch writer and photographer based in Bangkok and Taiwan. He writes about travel, sustainability, and design and style — if possible all three merged.