12 days in Bangkok - day 2

Hello again and welcome to another edition of my blog!

Today I got up at 7:00, took a shower, ate the breakfast, locked away all my valuables - save for the camera - and stepped out on the street to get to the floating market, as I planned yesterday.

Of course, it was pouring rain. First thought that crossed my mind in that moment was "You idiot, you could sleep in," but I quickly calmed down and decided to take some time for myself and watch a movie, which I love to do and haven't seen one in ages. I checked the weather forecast and it said thunderstorms and rain all day through. So I went back up to my bed, found a movie on youtube and promptly fell asleep watching it.

As I woke up at about noon, one of the roommates just came in and told me that it stopped raining, but it still doesn't look too promising. So I went to the reception and asked for instructions to get to an abandoned skyscraper my friend told me about just yesterday. I got good directions how to get there with a train, and off I went.

The skyscraper - known locally as 'The Ghost Tower' - is officially called Sathorn Unique Tower. It is 47 storeys high and it was supposed to contain luxury condominiums. Its construction came to an end during 1997 Asian financial crisis, when it was already 80% finished. The tower is officially closed for public, especially since 2014, when a Swedish tourist went missing and the police found him hanged in the bathroom in 43rd floor, but I read some recent blog and the author stated that exactly because of that Swede the owner has opened the skyscraper for visits from 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM every day, to make it safer for tourists. I had to give it a shot.

I went to the closest skytrain station, bought a ticket and I was on my way. After a short while I reached my destination, and pretty much the first thing I saw after exiting the train was the Tower itself:

I was getting excited now that it was in my sight. I quickly went down from the train station to the street, crossed it, and came up to a wall of fence. There were some local taxi drivers around and I asked them where to get in, but they just went away, shaking their heads, only one of them came to me and explained me in broken english that there's no way to get in and that if I try I'll surely be arrested.

I walked around the building for some time, looking for an easy way in, but the fence was impenetrable. After a couple of minutes I noticed a man walking around inside the fenced area. I banged on the wall and told him I wanted to go inside. He replied that there's no way, that the area is forbidden to enter and, once again, that I'll get arrested. I offered him to pay, but he still wouldn't let me in.

I knew he'll soften at the mention of money, so I loitered around for another minute, when he reappeared and demanded 1000 THB to enter (about 27 €) which is an insane amount of money, especially for Thailand, and I naturally said no and offered him 500 THB. He laughed at me and went away. I knew he'd be back though :)

Surely, he returned in about 30 seconds and finally let me enter. There were two of them, and his colleague went and opened a sheet metal doors that were locked with a padlock. He also told me which sides of the building to avoid, as the police is supposed to check it with binoculars. After I return I was supposed to knock on the door and they'd let me back out. They told me I have one hour.

As I started to ascend, the place didn't look anything special, at least not until 10th floor, where the stairway became really dark and creepy. I stopped for a minute to listen if there's anyone else in the building with me. The Swedish dude kept on popping in my mind, as I couldn't imagine someone would come here to commit suicide despite the authorities officially claiming that's just the case. I couldn't get the image of homeless people that are supposed to occupy the building killing him and taking his cash, then hanging him to wash themselves of guilt. I decided to keep close to the stairway at all times, as the storeys are quite big to explore.

I wanted to go all the way to the top first to get the pic of the vistas. As I came to the end of my stairway, I had no access to the roof. I went a bit further around the storey I was on and came to a balcony, where I could see a long way around, too bad that the weather was overcast:

As I was looking for another staircase to take me to the top, I suddenly heard something resembling footsteps. Let me just say the feeling of being alone in there wasn't pleasant at all. I said to myself to hell with vistas, I'm not ready to hang from some rebar in here, and turned back down.

After descending a couple of storeys I started to peek in the rooms closest to the staircase, where I made some pics. I don't think they need any extra explaining, so I'll just post them all:

The footsteps - by now I was certain they were footsteps - occurred somewhere around me every now and then, I wasn't sure whether in the floor above or below me. I was constantly ready to hit someone with my camera, if necessary. As I descended all the way back to the locked doors, I banged on them and as I was waiting for the guard to unlock them, I heard someone approach me from behind. "This is how I die" popped in my mind and as I turned I saw two tourists, just as freaked as me. At that point I felt like the biggest wuss in existence.

Better safe than sorry, I guess, and I plan to revisit the building after I spoke to the guys I met and they told me that there were additional 15 storeys to go from where I turned around, and it turned out that I heard their goddamn footsteps when I decided to turn around.

I'll wait for the weather to clear up and head back there. The funniest thing was that the guard that let us back out actually said "Come back again" as we were exiting.

On the way back to the hostel I snapped this pic of the railroad:

I'll finish today's entry here, as I only intend to go get some dinner in the same place as yesterday. I hope the weather tomorrow is going to be better, as I'm planning to visit the ruins of Ayutthaya, a city built in 14th century. I also hope that public transportation is available on Sunday :)

Well, whatever happens, I'll definitely chime in tomorrow evening, so stay tuned for more :)