Oh JB, that ghostly towne...

This blog has taken a decidedly non-linear turn...something to with being away from a proper connection and a firewall problem at the Damansara Utama Starbucks. So this is actually coming to you straight outta Bangsar...and these photos actually date back to mid-July, when we were in Johor Bahru...

Spotted this crumbling old colonial villa near Aunty Pat's place, built near the beginning of the last century for one of the Sultanas (Sultans' wives). Tess and I wandered past it our first morning in JB, then decided to take a look inside the same evening.

In the 80s, the villa went through a phase as a notorious local nightclub...well, strip-club actually. Apparently Kas and our cousin's used to go there to oggle this special house attraction...some form of erotic gymnastics involving ping-pong and Newton-defying physics. The club-owners had tacked on this new extension, hinging this incongruous modern addition to the side of the old villa, sprouting all these cubby-hole 'private' rooms. Continual pay-offs and palms-greasing ensured that the authorities left the place well off the radar, till somehow, sometime in the 90s the club was shut down.

So now it's an abandoned lot put up for sale.

Went in when the sun was just starting to set. Mosquitoes, whole squadrons, nipping at our heels and necks.

The roof of the new structure has collapsed. Vines, trees sprouting everywhere in cracks and mossy walls. The floor was covered with a glass-thin layer of water in a sediment of old leaves; tiles coming loose and crunching underfoot. A bit like wandering through a Tarkovsky film...couldn't count the number of rooms, as the lay-out was somewhat labrynthine.

We approached the old house, went in the front door, looked up the staircase (pictured below) and quickly chickened out. Strange, strange vibes --- 'stay away'-type vibes. You know, being typically superstitious in the Malaysian way, thought it best not to take chances.

Aunty Pat gave us the low-down over dinner that night...the night-club days, and before. The villa had passed hands from the Sultana to her son, a young prince. Moved in with his young wife, a real stunner, apparently. Anyway, the young prince started harbouring suspicions over his new wife's fidelity; plagued obsessively by these thoughts, he shot and killed her and then himself one night many years ago.

So of course, like typical idiots (you know, like the ones who enter unlit passageways in horror flicks), we went back, after deliberating slow-footedly for several days. The stairs were the hardest part to negotiate. On the second floor there are all these darkened rooms, some with ornamental openings to the overgrown foliage outside. Light had a strange, displaced quality, as if the exterior didn't quite match the interior.

Went to the bottom floor, the one with all the concrete collumns. Thought I saw a strange yellow room at the back --- it was very dark down there --- screened by a thin drapery of cobwebs. So we slowly wandered in, then realised it was a mirror reflecting an unseen part of the room. We looked left, and there was a wall-to-wall mirror casting our reflections back at us...the silvering coming off in spots and yellowing. The mirror was kind of displaced in this strange way...sort of split in the centre and down the side, so it looked like it was slicing our bodies in half. So we quickly chickened out again...

Tess and I started entertaining the idea of beginning a new project, documenting various infamous abandoned houses and 'hantu' mansions around the country...but would need a coterie of 'doctors' (shamans and bomohs) capable of addressing possibly malignant spirits in various local tongues and dialects...just for back-up, you know...

Maybe better not to take the risk...