A DESERTED theme park that once boasted a crocodile pit, fake volcano and the country’s biggest swimming pool is now considered the most haunted place in Bali.
Taman Festival was built off £70million and the dreams of a future surge of tourists – but it was mysteriously abandoned in 2000 before ever truly opening.
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For years, the Bali park has been attracting tourists – but not for any of the reasons it hoped – as thrill-seeking explorers come to check out the spooky 23-year-old wreckage.
Its haunting and apocalyptic remains are coated in glass, graffiti and the shattered hopes of making the area rich.
A price list from 1997-1998 lies on the floor, a wedding chapel’s sunken roof pokes out from the trees and an unused inverted roller coaster rusts in the distance.
Nature has reclaimed lots of the site but between jungle vines and foliage, you can still see the grand entrance, ticket booths, temples and artwork that was set to stun visitors.
The park opened quietly in 1997, while some construction was still going on but was still seen as a lavish display of futurism and luxury on the island.
Yet, the park was very soon deserted – forever trapped in the 20th Century.
TikToker @wandering__around shared one incredible video showing her exploring the eerie location.
She showed the incredible artwork, now often overgrown or daubed with graffiti.
And the carefully themed buildings which are now overrun with with vines and dead leaves.
Plenty of theories surrounded the park’s closure, but it’s believed financial difficulties were responsible.
In July, 1997 Thailand’s government had ended up crashing their national currency, which led to economic pandemonium across southeast Asia, known now as the Asian Financial Crisis.
Bali suffered and tourism dropped as political unrest swept up the nation.
At Taman Festival days were said to be slow and empty and it limped through six months before tragedy struck in the form of a lightning strike in March, 1998.
Insurance companies refused to cover the irreparable damage and its the gates – never fully opened – closed for good in 2000.
A superstition now hangs over the amusement park as Balinese legend states that abandoned sites play host to “roaming spirits”.
A gatekeeper still tends to the park and leaves offerings to the dead, although other locals are far too scared to roam anywhere near it.
He claims that he’s seen tourists cameras mysteriously stop working at the site and that he often shares the space with spirits.
He sees ghosts “everyday”, he told Vice. “Sometimes the kid ghost sits with me.”
The crumbling and weather-beaten Taman Festival might very well stay there for years to come.
“It’s just too complicated and expensive to remove it,” its caregiver said.
“Far simpler to let it sit.”
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