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BANGKOK X-FILES is a day tour for
travelers who think they've seen it all. While appearing thoroughly modern on it
exterior, Bangkok still retains enough secrets, Fortean phenomena, and magical
mysteries to keep Mulder and Skully working overtime. Westerners rarely confront
the facts of death, but the Siamese are true Anais, fascinated by death in all
its manifestations. Your personal guide will help you gain admittance to a
number of rarely-visited shrines, temples and museums, and is fully adept at
preventing inadvertent possessions.
Visit two of Bangkok's most famous spirit shrines:
Nai Lert Park, piled with hundreds of phallic offerings, some of
startling dimensions, and the
Erawan Shrine, with its four-faced wish-granting Brahman idol.
Travel up the Chao Praya River to Siriraj Hospital, home to some of
Bangkok's forgotten museums (well, not forgotten by Japanese honeymooners
who seem to flock here). The Museum of Criminology offers up a dusty
collection of organs pierced most foully, and moldering corpses including
the Thai boogie man, a cannibal with the appropriate name of See Oooey. The
Museum of Anatomy displays the preserved bones of former
Doctors-in-residence alongside monsters in formaldehyde and an impressive
feat of surgical skill - the radiating web of an entire human nervous system
removed from its body. Also open for viewing are the Museum of Parasites,
and the Museum of
Thai Traditional Medicine and Massage.
After lunch on the river (what, not feeling hungry?), visit shops that sell
spirit houses. These charming miniatures are placed on most properties and
kept well-tended to provide an attractive alternative for spirits who would
otherwise move in with the living.
If there's time, take in the "Body Snatcher" Temple, home of one of
Bangkok's competing corpse retrieval societies. Besides exhibiting
mortifying photos from their midnight runs, they occasionally display their
"golden child," a gilt stillborn possessed with fearsome supernatural
powers.
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