The House Of Ghosts

This story takes place about four weeks into my stay in Thailand. I was there as a combined vacation and job research.

Luck has it that I know a Thai businessman who has married a woman from my country, or rather, I know his daughter, she is a good friend. He owns a couple of houses in the Chon Buri province, somewhere in between Bangkok and Pattaya which I was allowed to rent for my six weeks visit in Thailand. I liked it a lot, being able to live in a house, nothing very big, it was perfect for a couple I would say, three rooms and a kitchen with a maid that came in once a week for cleaning, what else could one ask for?

After a few weeks I was at a party where I met a nice girl, dated and so on, very nice. Once my job part was over I had more time over for myself and one day I decided that I wanted to go shopping a bit, getting some presents for my family and some new clothes for myself. I had been in MBK in Bangkok once before and so help me God, Allah and Buddha I will do anything I can not to have to go there again. So instead I got a taxi to come pick me up in the morning for a daytrip to Pattaya and go to the shopping malls that are located on the beach road. I also called the girl, who is going to hold the lead role in this story, and asked if she wanted to go with.

She naturally said yes, I doubt there is any woman anywhere who declines an offer of a day spent shopping?

The next morning we went off, the taxi came on time and we went over to her apartment to pick her up. I don't know why but I seem to get a real good rapport with taxi drivers in Thailand, we talked on about this and that, he asked about my job, place of origin and work and I retaliated asking him all the same questions back, I guess when I asked him what he did for a living was a meaningless question but I like to practise my Thai. So far I only know the basic phrases in a ground level course but its fun anyway, although my pronunciation probably is horrible.

We arrived at the northern end of the beach road and made a deal with the taxi guy that he would pick us up there in the afternoon. By the way, do all Thai girls really hate walking that much? This one didn't complain at all even though we walked the length of the beach road and then back. We were as far south so we could see the sign of the Walking Street.

To be fair though we took a great many stops and had drinks and something to eat every now and then.

So after some shopping we arrived at the large mall, it looked really great, not so many people at the early day but not so few so you felt alone either. It was very clean, I have not seen a mall that clean anywhere except from Harrods in London. Very impressive to say the least, and the quality of the stores and the staff inside was just great. After a few hours of shopping we decided to go eat dinner, as always the food was excellent, I really like Thai food. The only thing that I miss is potatoes from time to time, only eating rice gets boring after a few weeks.

After we had eaten we went up to the top floor where there was entertainment. Games, a cinema I think and some other stuff which I don't know much about. I think there was some kind of simulator and a House of Wonders but I'm not sure about that, it was a lot of stuff to do if one got a few hours to kill and are into games and stuff anyway.

The most interesting thing though was Ripley's Haunted House.

The girl in this story was really interested in it, we went back and forth of the windows and she looked, peeked and listened as much as she could from the noises that came from the inside. It was so obvious that she was curious so after our third walk by I asked her if she wanted to go inside.

Now a warning; If you ever take a girl to this place it is hilarious, I haven't laughed this much since I don't even remember when, BUT do not, ever, ever force her into this if she really doesn't want to go herself. And by force I mean try to talk her into it or using something like group pressure to get her inside. Her reaction was way beyond anything I could ever think was possible.

Anyway, she was very curious but she needed some time to gather strength before venturing inside a house filled with ghosts so off we went to get something more to eat, even we had just finished dinner… Strengthened by the food she bravely decided that she was going to face the horrors of a haunted house! She nearly fainted when we came to the counter though, the girl who you bought the tickets off wore makeup, deadly white with a gashing wound on the side of her head. There was no double pay for me being a foreigner though, I had already set my mind that I was probably be forced to pay the double but to my surprise that didn't happen, perhaps it was since I just gave the counter girl the exact amount of money that two adults coasted or maybe there is no extra price for foreigners, I don't know.

As we followed the male actor into the door I noticed that we were standing on an iron floor, I could not understand for my life why that was until he hit the floor with his shovel, creating a very loud bang and sending sparks flying!

That little episode caused the girl to jump a good feet in the air and let out a piercing scream that nearly burst my eardrums.

"Holy Lord" I thought to myself. "If she screams this high by now what in the world is going to happen as we enter the house itself?!?"

The actor with the shovel then held a brief safety instruction, it was basically that do not go separated, every once in awhile in there you will walk though a door which are one-way doors. Those are actually really good since passing one means that you have finished a "section" of the house and you can never make a wrong move and backtrack. He did also speak good English, which surprised me a bit but I was impressed! As you might notice from my writing style I am not a native English speaker myself but I understood what he said clearly. As we then were let inside the actor he shut the door behind us with a loud bang! Again causing the girl to let out a scream.

The house itself was actually nothing to brag about, the scare tactics that was used was of the most basic kind and I myself was not scared one second in there, and I am afraid of the dark mind you. But the girl was absolutely terrified, she screamed, yelped, squealed and clung onto me like a koala baby clings onto its mother.

It was GREAT!

At some points I almost dragged/carried her past the scarier parts, she buried her head into my stomach, clasped her hands tightly over her eyes and kept repeating; "No no no, no more, please let me out, please give me light!" And she spoke a lot of Thai too which I couldn't understand. We had to take many pauses where I comforted her and told her repeatedly that we had to push forward, there is no going back so the only way to make it end is to go to the finish.

I don't want to tell you to much about the house itself if you decide to go there someday, I don't want to ruin the surprise, but one thing is worth mentioning.

Down at the floor there is motion sensors place here and there, and when you break one of them a high-pressure gun shots out a stream of air, its down at the floor so all that happens is that you hear a PHSSSsssttt kind of sound.

Pretty loud when it is released but goes away quick as the pressure goes away. Very funny but the girl jumped into my arms each time they went off, in her mind they were the most scary things in the house.

Also at some points, mainly in the corridors it is completely black, not a single light source, you can literally put your hand on your nose and you will not see it. So if you get lost, meaning that you for some reason lose contact with the wall it is a good thing to have a cellphone with a flashlight built in. I didn't use mine but at some places it was almost necessary, we spent about 10 minutes in a room trying to find a wall and then follow that wall around until we came to the door. Some kind of light along the floor should actually be installed so you can get a clue where to go.

So I don't know exactly how long time we had been inside but I'm guessing we had managed to walk though about half of the house when she froze completely. She just wouldn't move, not one inch. I'm guessing that the experience was a bit to overwhelming for her or she had simply had to much. I couldn't talk her into going another step, she just kept calling in Thai for the staff to come and let her out. Unfortunately at this point we happened to be inside a corridor leading from the bottom floor to the top floor and there was no staff anywhere in the vicinity that could hear her.

I tried to hug her and reason with her that we at least had to go to the next place where there would be more actors waiting to scare us before she could be let out but there was nothing to do. At that point I was partly laughing so hard I had to sit down, this made her even more scared/furious! I swear, in the dark I could almost see sparks flaring in her eyes, I think the only thing that saved me from certain death was that if she did kill me she would be alone and that she didn't, cries of being let out was mixed with cries of; "stop laughing, mai sanuk!"

Our saving came from two Arabic guys who walked into the corridor where we were standing, the had their cellphone lights on and when they came to us we talked a little. I explained why we were standing there and they had a good laugh too.

The girl now got a calculating look on her face and she quickly asked for the Arabic looking guys help, she wanted one to walk in front of us and shine the way and the other one to walk behind us to give us a little light around our feet.

They quickly agreed and we continued our trek inside the haunted house, now she was a lot calmer and could actually smile a little at the kind of things that happened. There was skeletons rising from barrels and stuff like that which she now smiled at, even though she still jumped a little when the pressurised air went off every now and then. I asked her why she was so calm now? Did it feel better with more people around?

She answered something like this; "One guy there, one behind. Now we have no problem, if ghost come they take them first and we can run away!" That comment made me laugh hard again.

The rest of the house went without incidents and it took us a few minutes to finish it off. As we emerged out in the shopping mall she was very relived I could tell. Inside the house at four locations there had been cameras placed, at the most scaring places I reckon with took photos of your faces, she had to look at them and maybe buy one to show her sister that she had actually been really brave and been in a ghost house for real. But on each and everyone of the photos she was curled up against me with her hands over her face or ears so there was no good one and she decided against buying one.

Overall it was a great experience, I had a lot of fun and even though she was scared to the point of freezing she liked it too, but when I offered to let her go inside one more time she refused…

Oh, once we had finished at the house she needed to collect herself with some food…again! I don't understand how Thai women can be so slim?! They eat more than I do.

It was a really fun day, the taxi waited for us where it should, and all went well in the end. I have now a really good memory to cherish. If you ever find yourself in Pattaya it is definitely worth checking out this house, don't be discouraged if you are older, my own father likes haunted houses a lot and he's 49. There is nothing more fun than allowing oneself to be a kid again, even if its just for an hour. But again, don't force a Thai girl into this place, for someone who knows about scary houses it was nothing special but she was seriously scared. Just be prepared that you might have to drag her or get the employee's of the place to let you out.

Happy Haunting.