Halloween: 5 of Asia’s most scary and haunted destinations, for ghosts, spirits, monsters, possession and a giant snake
- As Halloween approaches, and thoughts turn to pumpkins and trick or treat, we look at five places in Asia that will send shivers down your spine
- Among them are a buffalo blood drinker in a Thai temple, shape-shifting jinn in India, a haunted shrine in Japan and a giant snake in a cave in Bali
Halloween may have become a kitschy festival devoid of any real terror beyond the fear of rotten teeth after too much sugar, but there are places that can send a chill down the spine of even the most sceptical adult.
Here are five of Asia’s most haunted destinations.
1. Doi Suthep (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
The devils this aims to pacify are a grandfather and a grandmother, and the annual ceremony takes place in June, at the Pu Sae Ya Sae shrine, on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. But these are no ordinary grandparents; they are gigantic and cannibalistic.
The worship of elderly maneaters Pu Sae and Ya Sae predates the existence of Thailand, having originated with the Lawa people who inhabited Chiang Mai 1,500 years ago.
One of the Lawa’s legends is that of the gruesome twosome, who stalked Lord Buddha, intending to eat him, before coming under his spell and morphing into ghosts that forever roam these mountains.
