It’s spooky season, and there’s no better time to lose yourself in the myriad eerie ghost stories and terrifying tales from across the region, warning residents to stay away from derelict buildings and former execution sites.
We’ve compiled a list of some of Asia’s most haunted buildings for those brave enough, but you may want to bring a ghostbuster with you. (Just in case.)
Credit: Getty Images
The Ho Chi Minh Fine Arts Museum
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
A wealthy merchant family once lived in this daffodil-yellow mansion, but rumours about the fate of one of its members have plagued it for decades. Hui Bon Hoa, the family patriarch, fathered many sons but only one daughter whom he treasured. One day, villagers were told that she had suddenly passed. However, legend has it that she had actually become afflicted with leprosy and was locked away in a room by her family, who ignored her screams to be let out. The beautiful house has now been transformed into the Ho Chi Minh Fine Arts Museum , but visitors say they can still hear the girl’s cries or spot her wandering the halls in a white gown.
Credit: Getty Images
Wat Samian Nari
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
This beautiful temple is the birthplace of one of Thailand’s greatest urban legends – and a destination local taxi drivers dare not drive to at night. The story goes that decades ago, a taxi driver picked up two beautiful, black-clad sisters who asked to be taken to Wat Samian Nari. Once he arrived, the driver turned to speak to the women, only to find they had disappeared. He then looked outside and saw their bloody bodies cleaved in two on the train tracks, torsos crawling along the ground. Though the women have never been identified, other taxi drivers have since told similar tales about the temple, making it a popular stop for ghost tours of Bangkok.
Credit: Getty Images
Credit: Getty Images
Agrasen ki Baoli
Location: Delhi, India
Don’t let the stunning architecture of this terracotta brick stepwell fool you: its dark waters were once said to have cursed powers. Filled with arched corridors, gaping wells and the sound of fluttering bat wings, the site provides an eerie experience and stories of the evil spirits which live there remain popular. While the stepwell’s waters have since dried up, it’s said that it was once filled with toxic black water and spirits would call out to visitors – luring people into the water’s depths, never to emerge again.
Credit: Getty Images
Kellie’s Castle
Location: Batu Gajah, Malaysia
Rising from the jungle near Batu Gajah in Perak, the unfinished mansion of Kellie’s Castle is one of Malaysia’s most atmospheric ruins. Scottish planter William Kellie-Smith began building his dream home – complete with a six-storey tower, secret passages and what would have been Malaya’s first lift – in the 1910s, but he died suddenly on a trip to Europe in 1926 and the grand house was never finished.
Left to the tropics, the roofless halls and stairways-to-nowhere soon gathered ghost stories. Visitors and staff report unexplained footsteps and shadowy figures drifting along the corridors – many say it is Kellie-Smith himself, still wandering the mansion he never got to complete. Now cared for by the Perak state government and open daily, it makes for a wonderfully eerie day trip from Ipoh.
Credit: Getty Images
Sai Ying Pun Community Complex
Location: Hong Kong
Behind a striking granite facade on High Street stands one of Hong Kong’s most famously eerie addresses, the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex – known to locals as the “High Street Haunted House.” Completed in 1892 and later used as a hospital, the building was left empty through the 1970s, and its gaunt, abandoned shell soon gathered ghost stories of flickering shadows and strange sounds drifting along the arched verandah.
Today the historic facade is a declared monument fronting a modern community centre, and it sits on the Central and Western Heritage Trail – so you can admire the architecture (and soak up the spooky lore) from the street any time. It’s an atmospheric stop in one of Hong Kong Island’s most walkable neighbourhoods.
Credit: Getty Images
Robinsons Galleria
Location: Manila, Philippines
In the ‘90s, an urban legend began to spread across the Philippines that Robinsons Galleria – an upscale shopping mall in Manila – was haunted by a taong ahas: a half-snake, half-human monster descended from the mall’s founder. Lurking beneath dressing rooms, the monster supposedly dragged beautiful women through trapdoors to be eaten.
Superstitions surrounding the mall became so strong that customers refused to go into dressing rooms alone, and the rumour only intensified after local celebrity Alice Dixson claimed she had been attacked by the snake – though she later confirmed it was a joke, and even starred in an ad poking fun at the mall’s hauntings. In a bid to quell the bad PR, a member of the family which owns Robinsons put forth a challenge to the world: if you can find the taong ahas, then the entire Galleria will be yours.
This story was originally published in September 2023 and updated in September 2026.