Bangkok has many spectacular attractions, however I arrived
looking for something a little different, something that offered a little more
excitement than the endless temples that occupy the city. I did a little
research and discovered the “ghost tower”, its actual name is the Sathorn
Unique and it’s a 43 storey, unfinished and abandoned building. The Sathorn
Unique was originally intended to be a luxury residential building but the Asian
financial crisis in 1997 left no money for its completion. The more I read the
more intrigued I was, stories of the building being haunted, suicides taking
place, having to bribe mafia, pieces of the building collapsing as risk seeking
travellers climbed the deserted structure left me desperately wanting to
experience the Ghost Tower for myself. After all I had read I was a little
concerned about visiting the tower alone so I convinced 2 fellow travelling
adventure seekers to join me. We grabbed a water taxi and made our way to the
Sathorn Unique, all three of us bringing along notions of having to scale walls
to enter the building and climbing 43 floors to arrive at a deserted rooftop.
Reality soon slapped us in the face…. As we exited the water taxi we soon
realised that we were being joined by 15 other tourists with the same idea, our
dreams of a stealth commando mission to the top of the tower evaporated.
When we arrived at the base of the building we were greeted
by the “mafia” that many people had mentioned, it was actually just two middle
aged guys who I assume were the care takers, the fee was 500 baht to enter and
they weren’t very willing to negotiate.
I was quite impressed to see a desk in front of the stairs, apparently
there was quite a booming tourist trade charging people to enter and these guys
had set up a make shift office. It seemed, as often is the case, that many of
the dangers that belonged to the Ghost Tower were slightly (at times greatly)
exaggerated by those that had previously visited the building, this was an
exciting day out but other than getting too close to the edge I didn’t feel as
though I was taking a great risk by paying this place a visit. We paid our
money and began the climb, we pretty much had the whole building to ourselves
and exploring the abandoned building felt like a real adventure. The higher we
went the larger the rooms were and you could by their sheer size that the
penthouse apartments were designed for the very wealthy. Every room had a
balcony and as we ascended the view just got better and better until we walked
out onto the rooftop which truly was breathtaking. There was about 20 other
people on the rooftop and I was pleasantly surprised to see so few, it wasn’t
the huge crowd I feared would be up here and we were all here with the same
spirit of adventure.
The roof of the Sathorn Unique was like nothing I have ever
experienced, I had seen photos of people standing precariously close to the
edge but really had no idea of the sheer drop that was behind them. Something
like this would be impossible in most countries, I can honestly say that
looking down from a ledge 43 floors up with no rail and no safety gear is a
really mind blowing experience. We were lucky to arrive in the afternoon so we
were treated to a spectacular sunset over the Bangkok skyline, the Sathorn
Unique “Ghost Tower” was not just one of the highlights of my visit to Bangkok
but a highlight of my trip so far.
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