Country file · Asia & the Middle East
Haunted places in Thailand
What are the most haunted places in Thailand? The best-known is Mae Nak Phra Khanong.
In Thailand, spirits – phi – are part of the furniture. Almost every home, shop and office has a spirit house where offerings are left for the guardian spirits of the land, and Buddhist merit-making for the dead sits alongside a lively folk belief in ghosts such as the phi pop, which possesses the living, and the phi tai hong, the spirit of someone who died a sudden, violent death.
- 1 haunting
- 5 recorded sightings
Haunted places in Thailand
The ghost lore of Thailand
The country’s best-loved ghost is Mae Nak of Phra Khanong, a young wife who died in childbirth but kept waiting for her husband to come home from war. Her story, set in the reign of King Mongkut, has inspired more than twenty films – including Nang Nak (1999) and Pee Mak (2013) – and her shrine at Wat Mahabut in Bangkok is visited daily by devotees seeking safe childbirth, exemption from the draft or lottery luck.
Thai horror cinema is one of the most successful in Asia, and ghost stories are a staple of TV and conversation. Many “haunted” sites are temples, shrines or memorials, so the respectful approach – dressing modestly, making a small offering, keeping voices low – is also the local one.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Phra Khanong and On Nut, Bangkok
The canal-side district of Mae Nak’s legend, where her shrine stands at Wat Mahabut.
- Ayutthaya
The ruins of the old royal capital, sacked in 1767, are the setting of many stories of lingering spirits and buried treasure.
- Kanchanaburi
The town of the wartime Death Railway and the Bridge on the River Kwai, where war cemeteries honour prisoners and labourers who died building it.
Timeline
- 1851–1868The reign of Rama IV Mae Nak Phra Khanong
Folk tradition sets the story in the reign of King Mongkut, when Phra Khanong was a village of rice fields and canals east of the capital.
- 10 March 1899A newspaper names the real Nak Mae Nak Phra Khanong
An article in Siam Prabhet by K. S. R. Kulap identifies the ghost as Amdaeng Nak, who died while pregnant, and claims the haunting was a hoax staged by her son.
- 1959An early Mae Nak film Mae Nak Phra Khanong
Rangsi Thatsanaphayak’s Mae Nak Phra Khanong is one of the earliest in a long line of Thai films, TV series and stage works based on the legend.
- 23 July 1999Nang Nak premieres Mae Nak Phra Khanong
Nonzee Nimibutr’s retelling becomes the first Thai film to pass 100 million baht at the box office, reviving Thai cinema. The Bangkok Post later called it the film that changed the face of Thai cinema.
- 2013Pee Mak Mae Nak Phra Khanong
Banjong Pisanthanakun’s comic version, told from the husband’s side, becomes a phenomenal hit, earning around a billion baht.
From other news sites
Latest from Thailand
No recent paranormal headlines from Thailand. See all the latest paranormal news.