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The Drowned Ghosts of Mae Ram Phueng Beach in Thailand

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On the picturesque Mae Ram Phueng Beach east in Thailand, there have started to be whispered that ghosts comes out from the sea at night. What really is behind these haunted legends?

The beaches in Thailand are certainly well known around the world, but what about its haunted legends? There are so many ghost stories being told about this summer paradise, and some of them are also thought to be about the beaches as well. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Thailand

Mae Ram Phueng Beach, located in Thailand’s Rayong province east by the Siam bay, is renowned for its picturesque coastline and tranquil ambiance. However, beneath its serene surface lies a history steeped in tragedy and tales of the supernatural.

The Danger of the Sandy Beaches

Over the years, Mae Ram Phueng Beach has witnessed numerous drowning incidents. Nicknames such as the man-eating beach or the cannibal beach have made people think twice before planning their beach day here. But what exactly is happening on these shores? 

The nature of this is that strong winds and waves and the sandy bottom under the water sink into a deep pool. Even if you play in shallow water, you can easily fall into the pool of death, especially during monsoon season. Even with red flags and guards warnings, accidents still happen.

Tales of Ghosts at Mae Ram Phueng Beach

The frequency and nature of these drownings have fostered a belief that the Mae Ram Phueng Beach is cursed or haunted by restless spirits.

Visitors and residents alike have reported unsettling experiences along the shoreline. Some recount feelings of unease, sudden chills, or the sensation of being watched. Others claim to have seen apparitions or heard unexplained whispers carried by the sea breeze. 

Some reports have taken the ghost stories further. The ghosts reportedly had darkened faces, almost black and eyes glowing red. There are also those claiming to have felt the grasp of ghostly hands, dragging them down the deep and sandy pools.

A Word of Caution

Perhaps its worth noting that most of the haunted legends of this beach, comes from a certain account that has made its rounds on forums and online sites. In 2019, the beach came into the spotlight of another gruesome tale. One of two headless bodies was found on this beach after being dead for a week.

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While Mae Ram Phueng Beach continues to attract tourists with its natural beauty, it’s essential to approach it with respect and awareness and take head of the red flags and guards warnings. Whether one believes in the supernatural or not, the beach’s history serves as a poignant reminder of the tragedies that have occurred there. 

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หาดแม่รําพึง หาดที่ขึ้นชื่อว่า ผีดุ เชื่อว่าเป็นหาดผีสิง หรือหาดกินคน 

Shock horror: headless bodies and woman’s head wash up on popular Thai tourist beaches – Travel Weekly 

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The True Story Behind Death Whisperer — The Hit Thai Horror Movie of Tee Yod

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After being a hit movie in its native country, Death Whisperer came to Netflix for the international audience as well. But did you know that this story is supposedly based on a true story that really happened in rural Thailand decades ago?

Death Whisperer: Released in 2023.

“Death Whisperer,” also known as “Tee Yod,” (ธี่หยด) is a 2023 Thai supernatural horror film based on Krittanon’s novel of the same name. Directed by Thaweewat Wanta, the movie “Death Whisperer,” features a cast including Nadech Kugimiya, Rattanawadee Wongthong, Denise Jelilcha Kapaun, Karj-bundit Jaidee, Peerakit Patcharabunyakiat, Arisara Wongchalee, and Paramet Noi-um. 

Set in a remote village in 1972, the plot of “Death Whisperer” revolves around a farmer family plagued by mysterious deaths and the illness of a young girl, Yam, in a remote village in Kanchanaburi province. 

Read More: Check out all the ghost stories from Thailand

They then have several encounters with a ghostly woman in black and keeps hearing a mysterious voice, sounding like something resembling a prayer or unintelligible words like “Tee Yod…” As the supernatural threat escalates, the eldest son, Yak, a former soldier, returns home to confront the chilling forces at play and protect his family.

The Story Behind the Movie “Death Whisperer”

“Death Whisperer” is based on a horror story posted on Thai discussion forum, Pantip.com in late May 2015, which had over 2,000 comments and forwarded 130,000 times. The original thread still looks like it is up, although it has seen some modification. Check the whole thread in Thai here.

The story was first called “Ghost Fever… Let’s Hear My Secrets” and was rewritten into a novel released in 2017 by the same author, Kittisak Kittiwirayanont under the pseudonym “Kritanon”. A few months before the film “Death Whisperer” was released, it was also told again on a popular ghost program on the radio station. 

The term “Tee Yod”, originating from a mysterious woman in black dress, remains enigmatic in both its meaning and linguistic origin. It has been suggested that it might be the Mon language, in connection with the Ohm mantra, and the story itself has many parts of Thai folklore behind it. However, Ong Bunjoon, an expert in Mon arts and culture says that this word has no meaning. Moreover, he himself had never heard this word before.

It is said that Khun Kit’s own mother who the story is told through was also unfamiliar with the source of the noise and the mantra that sounded like Tee Yod, and although it has persisted all this time, it is likely that the spellings of the word “Tee Yod” have become distorted over time. Even if they didn’t know what it meant, they kept insisting that they heard it being called by an entity, over and over again. 

Death Whisperer: A family is tormented by an entity after one of the daughters falls ill. The story is now a movie known as Death Whisperer, otherwise known as Tee Yod,” (ธี่หยด) , and is allegedly based on a true story.

The True Ghost Story of Tee Yod

So what really happened that time? Although we don’t really have it retold before it appeared in the internet forum, the story follows the “Death Whisperer” pretty closely. Krittanon, the author behind Tee Yod claims that it is a true story that happened to his mother’s family in the past when she was 15 or 16 years old in a province in the central region. And although speculations online have been going on, the actual place has remained pretty secret.

His mother had a lot of siblings and they would walk through rice fields and wilderness for kilometers for hours every day to get to school, as they lived out in the countryside and were a part of a farmer family. On their way there was a tree with an old wooden shrine they had to walk past and his mother raised her hand for worship every time they walked by it. 

One evening while they were walking by the shrine, they saw a woman standing next to it. She looked middle aged with shoulder length hair and wore black clothes. Although the girls didn’t think much of it at the time, the mother claims that the woman was staring at them, smiling. 

The Woman in Black: In the movie, Death Whisperer, we follow a family going through something strange. After seeing a strange older woman watching them by a shrine, she kept coming to the family, haunting them as if wanting to possess one of the daughters.

Her younger sister Yam got ill that evening and the next morning, it didn’t get any better and had to stay home from school. During the night Yam started to behave strangely, startling and screaming to her mother that someone was coming for her to harm her. When they got her to the doctor, they told her it was a flu that would pass. It didn’t though. 

They then called for another medicine man, more on the traditional side. He started to give herbal medicine, at first not believing when she kept insisting that someone was out to hurt her and said it was all a dream.

The medicine man did advise to not let strangers come by though, as their extended family came for a visit. Then Yam saw her again, the old woman standing outside their door, still smiling. But this time, the doctor saw her as well and started shouting at her, telling her not to smile and never come back. 

The smiling woman walked smiling away and the family was left shocked. Had it not all been a nightmare caused by her fever? The medicine man asked if they knew the woman, they told him they did not. 

The medicine man then said that the old woman most likely was used as some type of vessel, distorted and unnatural and if she ever came back, they had to chase her away. Under no circumstances could she enter the house. Could she be possessed by something evil?

Then strange things started to happen inside of the house. Yam started to sleepwalk, her fever gone, but her personality somehow… changed. She went for long periods without speaking to her family members, refused to go to school and stared at her siblings as they tried to sleep, freaking them out. She had the same strange smiling expression as the old lady had given them and it scared them all. 

All the while the daughter in the family acted strangely, they started hearing this sound, almost like a prayer or a mantra being repeated in the night, although no one was to be seen. The mantra sounded something like Tee Yod.  

One night, the parents had to travel out of town for a wedding, and left the eldest brother back from the military in charge of the rest of his siblings. During the night they heard laughter and whistling in the house as well as the same mantra being repeated over and over again. Tee Yod… Tee Yod…

The older brothers went outside and the little sisters were inside the house, listening as they fired gunshots against a woman standing still in the dark, only seen when they pointed a flashlight at her. The old woman appeared every night, etching closer and closer, only seen in the light of the flashlight, leaving only footprints in the grass. Even when they shot at her, she still came back. 

Tee Yod: The woman that kept haunting the family in the movie Death Whisperer as well from the original story on the online forum kept repeating a mantra that no one has ever figured out the meaning behind.

Now, she started to come even during the day, and one day when the parents had returned they found her standing over Yam in her room. The mother threw a bucket of water at her, screaming she had to leave her house. The old woman obliged, smiling her creepy smile and left. 

They brought the same medicine man back and when he asked Yam how she felt, she told her she wasn’t Yam. He then told the parents he suspected that Yam was being eaten by a sort of spirit or ghoul of a woman who lived not far from there and that he had heard stories about this woman wearing black from others as well.  

When they visited the old lady, they found her lying on the mat with a cloth covering her face with her family around her. She was dead, covered with bruises and cuts. 

But the death of the old lady, was not the end of the strange things happening. And the same mantra was whispered in the night, and the family had to protect themselves against the danger lurking outside of their home, wanting to get in. They would hear the voices of family members, claiming to be them to open the door. 

The haunting continued until they found the source of the bamboo bush that had appeared when the old woman appeared. When they cut it up, they claimed something rotten and slimy, like organs hidden inside of the bamboo fields around the house. Humans or animals, who knows. They burned it all down.

This together with taking her to a bigger hospital looked for a couple of days to be helping. They started to wonder about her pains could be something physical, not the paranormal theories that had consumed the family for the past weeks. They did however find that her organs were severely damaged.

That was until one day at the hospital, the strange symptoms that had consumed Yam returned, this time she would not recover. And in the hallway of the hospital they saw the woman wearing the same dark clothes, smiling. 

The Enduring Mystery of Tee Yod

Yam never made it back from the hospital and sadly died of her injuries, and rumors about what had happened spread. What really happened remained a mystery and the truth perhaps will get even more diluted when “Death Whisperer” was released. What illness did Yam really have, who was the old lady that kept coming to their house, and what were the things they found in the bamboo field?

Also what really did Tee Yod means, and did it have any connections to the strange shrine they first saw the old woman, that eventually got torn down according to the author. 

Many of the answers will never be given, especially since the author himself doesn’t have all the answers.  

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References:

Death Whisperer – Wikipedia

The Terrifying Legend of “Yod Tee”: From Pantip Thread to Novels, Ghost Programs, and Movies – One of Thailand’s Best Ghost Stories – News Directory 3 

กระทู้ผีฟีเวอร์…ลองมาฟังเรื่องลึกลับของผมบ้าง – Pantip 

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Fighting The Widow Ghost With Cross Dressing and Erect Penises

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When unexplained deaths of seemingly healthy and young men occur around the same time and same place there are many Thai people who believe it is the Widow Ghost who is after their men, and they have their own way of holding the seemingly paranormal death at bay. 

In some parts of rural Thailand, especially in the northeastern parts, men are afraid of falling asleep in fear of dying because a ghost sought them out as a mate. There are sometimes waves of panic where a fear of the widow ghost trying to take them during the night, are keeping them awake. 

But whether it is a paranormal explanation or a scientific one still has the local villagers and medical personnel divided. 

Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome or Lai-Tai

From time to time, there will be cases where more than one man in a geographic area will die during the same time, perhaps under mysterious circumstances at first glance. Like in the 1990s there were many unexplained deaths of a group of Thai workers in their sleep in the northeastern parts of Thailand. It was referred to as ‘Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome’ by Thai doctors. 

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This particular syndrome (SUNDS), is a disorder found in southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, Japan, Philippines and Cambodia, which causes sudden cardiac death, mostly during sleep. In Thailand it also goes under the name lai-tai Lai (dreaming, screaming) Tai (death). It is however not the name of the Widow Ghost as it is cited as in many articles. But what is this ghost?

The Widow Ghost

The unexplained deaths got a more paranormal explanation to it and the legend of the vengeful spirit or the widow ghost fitted the narrative. She is an evil spirit that hunts men at night and steals the men from their bed. 

Protection from the Widow Ghost: A scarecrow dressed in red with an erect penis was considered the remedy when the fear of her reached Nakhon Phanom in 2018 // Photo: AsiaWire/thairath

The story about the widow ghost is not a particularly new one, but it definitely is one of the more persistent ones. Around the same time as this was happening in northeastern parts of Thailand, more of the same mysterious deaths occurred among Thai workers both in Malaysia and Singapore. What was this thing that took the lives of so many of their men? Over the years before there was anyone trying to explain this in a scientific way, they had figured out ways to protect themselves from the sudden deaths.  

To protect themselves from this, the men themselves as well as their mothers or wives took measures according to superstition to defend themselves and their men. Some put on lipstick or nail polish, or even dress up in womens clothing before going to bed. By doing this, they hoped to fool the widow ghost into thinking they were in fact women and would leave them alone. 

There was also a very traditional Thai way of protecting their home where they hung phallic symbols around their necks, over the doors and at the village gates for protection. Many Thai people believe that phallic symbols bring good luck and good business. The bigger the penis, the better the business. There is also the habit of putting scarecrows with erect penises to distract or even hunt the Widow Ghost. 

This is the case in Thung Nang Oak, a rural village in Thailand where they have a very phallic symbol for their commune, more than 3 feet long and weighing 22 pounds. One of the reasons for putting that on display was because of the terrible nightmares to the local men that was an indication that the Widow ghost was on her way. 

Deadly Health and Diets

However, even with this protection, there would still be death, and a man died in his sleep, even though he wore red nail polish. The Thai public Health Ministry concluded the deaths were not caused by a spirit, but a bad diet of carbohydrate and sugar worsened by both physical and mental strain. This was after the Thai health authorities investigated over 700 of these mysterious deaths from Thai  workers in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei since 1983 to the 90s, and many more back in Thailand. 

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This seems extreme, but the fact is that at least back in the day, the Thai workers from the northeastern provinces lived on just white rice with a sweet syrup, overproducing insulin and lacking both potassium and vitamin B-1. 

Since then, the Public Health Ministry launched campaigns where they tried to advocate for the value of a more balanced diet with more nutrients to stop the panic. But did it work?

Fighting Ghosts with Phallic Symbols

Seems like this is not a problem that only existed, ‘back in the day’. In 2018, there was another wave of panic after five young men died in a few weeks. This was also in northeast Thailand in the remote Nakhon Phanom province. In a small village of 90 people, they resorted to old ways when five of their healthy and young men died suddenly in their sleep. 

They were otherwise seemingly healthy and went to bed after taking a bath as per usual. They were all found dead by their families the next morning. 

There are no man here: Red shirts are hung up in the fences, trees and doors. They are all trying to tell the widow ghost that there are no men in the house and urging her to pass on over to the next. //Photo: Sanook

The legend of the Widow Ghost came back and so did the old remedies to fight her and protect the men. Huge scarecrows with an impressive 80 cm erect penises were placed on the gates. They hung signs saying ‘There is no man here’ ( “บ้านนี้ไม่มีผู้ชาย”)  to confuse the ghost. Often they also hang out red t-shirts as it is a color for women and alludes to the fact that there are only women at home, in the hope the ghost will ignore the house and move on to the next. The men were dressed in dresses and painted with makeup to protect them from being stolen by the ghost in their sleep. 

As not a single man died the following week since the scarecrows were put up and the nails painted, they thought that it must have worked. 

However, in neighbouringing villages and other cities there were similar cases and panic about the widow ghost. Most of these deaths most likely didn’t have an official autopsy, as it often is. But authorities claim that there is a more logical explanation to it all. In many cases where they have done autopsies, there is the case of malnutrition as well as heart diseases, respiratory failure and other illnesses or accidents. 

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Thai villagers fears evil widow ghost will kill their men | Daily Mail Online

`SPIRIT` WON`T LET THAI MEN SLEEP – Chicago Tribune

Men Die Mysteriously In Thai Village, Locals Blame It On Ghost

Lai Tai, the Mysterious Death of Young Thai Men | SpringerLink

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The Lady Nak of Phra Khanong — Thailand’s Famous Ghost Mae Nak

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The story of The Lady Nak of Phra Khanong or Mae Nak Phra Khanong is a very popular ghost story in Thailand about a wife waiting for her husband even in her death. 

Mae Nak Phra Khanong (แม่นากพระโขนง), meaning The Lady Nak of Phra Khanong is one of the most famous Thai ghost stories. Her hauntings are retold in countless movies, books and series and even today, you can visit a shrine in her honor to give offerings in Thailand. 

The Story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong

During the reign of King Rama IV in the mid 1800s, there lived a woman named Mae Nak. She lived together with her husband, Mak on the banks of the Phra Khanong Canal in Bangkok until he was conscripted to fight in a war. 

In many versions of the story it was a war against the Shan tribe where he was wounded and had to spend time away to recover. He was sent to central Bangkok where he was nursed back to health before being sent home. 

During this time, Mae Nak was pregnant and waiting for her husband’s return, but the birth of their child would be struck with tragedy. While in labor, she died together with their child after a long and difficult birth. But instead of going to the afterlife, she turned into a powerful spirit called Phi Tai Hong Thong Klom (ผีตายโหงทองกลม), a vengeful and restless spirit of a person that suffered a violent or cruel death.

Finally when Mak returns home from the war after being healed from his injuries, he finds his wife and their child waiting for him and thinks they are alive and well as the news of their deaths never reached him. When neighbors try to warn him that they have already died, he refuses to believe them and lives together with his family in blissful ignorance.

Ghost Legend in Movies: The legend of Mae Nak Phra Khanong has been made into a movie on several occasions. Here actress Davika Hoorne in ‘Pee Mak Phra Kanong.

One day Mae Nak is preparing nam phrik, a type of Thai chili sauce, she drops a lime on the porch. The house was built in a traditional thai way with piles, so the lime fell on the ground under the house. Being a ghost, she makes her arm longer and picks it up from the ground. This is the moment when Mak realizes that his wife is in fact a ghost and his undying love turns to fear. 

He tries to flee the house without her noticing and manages to slip away when lying about going to the toilet. In the dead of the night he escapes. When Mae Nak notices that her husband has left her, she goes after him. Mak hides behind a Blumea balsamifera (หนาด) bush. According to folklore, ghosts fear this bush and he is protected. 

He finally reaches Wat Mahabut temple, a holy ground where ghosts cannot enter and is finally safe from the ghost of his wife, whose undying love for her husband is turning to anger and grief. 

Mae Nak’s Spirit in a Jar

Mae Nak uses her anger and in her grief, she starts to terrorize the people of Phra Khanong for helping Mak to see the truth and leave her. She is finally captured by an exorcist, trapping her spirit in a jar that is thrown in the canal. 

From there, the story has several versions for the continuing haunting of the ghost. In all versions though, some finds her jar in the canal and opens it and thereby freeing her. 

This time it was the famous monk  Somdet Phra Phutthachan that captured her spirit and trapper her in the jar. He was a widely recognized monk that they said possessed magical powers and confined her spirit in the bone of her forehead. He then binded it to his waistband. Legend says that the waistband is actually in possession of the Thai royal family. However, in other versions, the monk promised Mae Nak that she would be together with her husband in the next life, and she chose to go to the afterlife herself. 

The Shrine of Mae Nak Phra Khanong

The Shrine: Mae Nak Phra Khanong shrine in 2009, part facing the canal// Source: Xufanc

The shrine to Mae Nak was built at Wat Mahabut until it was moved in 1997 to central Bangkok near the Suan Luang District and is located next to a large temple on Soi 77 by the Sukhumvit Road.

The Mae Nak shrine has a statue of her and her infant son. People often make offerings to her, giving her clothes, toys for her child, fruits, lotuses and incense sticks. She even has a display of beautiful dresses behind her. The people giving these offerings to her often ask her for help, either to have an easy childbirth or to help their husband be exempted from military conscription. They also asks her for the lottery numbers. 

The Story Behind the Haunting

Although the legend of this Thai ghost story is well imprinted in the culture, there are no historical evidence of it being nothing more than a myth. But there are however, some similar stories.

In 1899 there was a story about the legend in the Siam Praphet newspaper. The author claimed that the story of Nak was based on the life of Amdaeng Nak (อำแดงนาก) that died when she was pregnant. Her living son was worried that his father would remarry and that he had to share his inheritance with his stepmother. 

To prevent this, he invented the ghost story and dressed in womens clothing. When boats passed the house he threw rocks at them to make them believe it was the ghost of his mother that did it. 

No matter the origin of the story, it continues to scare and inspire people and is an example of a living legend and Mae Nak’s story that refuses to die. 

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The Lady in Red of Bang Pakong River

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Sitting on the railing in her red dress, the ghost waves her victims closer, urging them to jump to their death. This is the tale of the Lady in Red of Bang Pakong River. 

Over the river, there is the bridge Saphan Bang Pakong. Over the years, this has been a place where a lot of jumpers have tried to kill themselves according to legends as well as the local police force. And local police reckon that there has been over 60 suicides since 1992, at least that they have record on. 

The legend is believed to be of a spirit who drowned in the Bang Pakong River which is situated in east Thailand. Who she can be and if she is real at all, is still speculated on by people crossing the bridge in the dead of the night. 

The Wave to Their Death

The legend of the Lady in Red drew attention from the media when the story of a 25 year old lady who was pulled from jumping from the bridge in 2018 was published in the local papers. Afterwards, the lady claimed that although feeling stressed, she had no intention of killing herself that day. So what happened then? Why did we then find her at the edge of the railing? 

According to the woman herself, she was driving home when she noticed someone sitting on the railing of the bridge. She parked the car and followed the person, as it was something that drew her towards it and the bridge. A waving motion, a feeling of despair growing. At the same time the woman had this vision, another man came by on his motorcycle and saw the young woman approaching the railings of the bridge. He stopped and came to her rescue. He called out to her, but she wouldn’t answer and he knew immediately something wasn’t right. 

Both the woman herself and her rescuer o n the bike talked about seeing a middle aged woman with shoulder length hair, waving at her trying to make her jump before she herself threw herself in the water. 

The Many Victims

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This was however not the first report on the matter, and might not be the last. Over the years iI i is often from the bridge witnesses claim to have seen her spirit at night. Many of these legends also tell of a middle aged woman, often seated on the railing, waving the people towards them, urging them to jump. The victims often describe a sense of blackout or a trance like state until they hopefully are helped by a person that can pull them back from the railing. 

Rescue teams have also told stories about people they have helped that told the story  of a lady in red they tried to help when she jumped from the bridge. All with the same story, either waving at them from afar or looking like she is jumping to her death. 

Who is the Lady in Red?

The legend of the Lady in Red is a fairly new one. Many connect her to a case from 2006, where a body of a woman was found floating in the river on November 23rd. She was wrapped in a green sheet, with her hands and feet tied up and her mouth covered with a rope around her neck. After this it is said that her spirit is seen sitting on the rails of the bridge, or hitchhiking underneath it, waving before jumping in the Bang Pakong river. To this day her death is still not cleared, and the mystery surrounding it all is just as when she was first found.

The Lady in Red in History

She is sometimes said to be dressed in white, but most often, it is the stories of the red clad lady that are mostly reported on. Something that quite often pop up in ghost stories.  

When talking of ghosts that are described as a woman clad in red, it is often in the same street as a lady in white or lady in black. The one difference is that often, the lady in red has a story of a jilted lover, being a prostitute, often killed in a fit of passion or a vain woman. All in all, a woman victim to objectification. Especially in western ghost stories. 

However, in Asian legends particularly, the lady in red is sometimes connected to jumpers. Just like this story, as well as in the Malayan legend of the red woman on the ninth floor in an apartment building in Little India in Malacca, an area known for jumpers. Can this be a trend of the ghost stories itself or the nature of the ghosts? Only the Lady in Red has the answers, and it looks like she doesn’t want to share.

A Scary Ghost or Cry for Help?

In the case of the lady in red on the bridge over Bang Pakong river, we can only speculate what the truth is. About the origin of the story, or if the countless cleansing rituals that have been done to purify the bridge has helped at all. Or if the ghost story is more of a solemn reminder of the importance of an open conversation of mental health, not only in Thailand, but everywhere a legend of ladies in red is told. 

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ผวาวิญญาณหลอน บนสะพานบางปะกง