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The Ghoulish Trail
(6th Stop) |
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Fort canning Park
Kampong Java Park
Bukit Brown
Cemetery (Kopi Hill)
Mt Pleasant
Cemetery
Devil's Bend
Old Changi Hospital
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History
Built in 1930's, together with an A/E opposite the road and
several blocks of commando barracks cum Changi prison nearby, the
Old Changi Hospital (OCH) is situated at Netheravon Road in Changi
villages. It has quite a long and rich history for being the
former hospital of today's modern Changi General Hospital in Simei
and Toa Payoh Hospital equipped with world-class facilities.
With its classical design, one can see that OCH is a
typical replica of buildings built by British Colonial architects
in the early 20's. Surprisingly OCH was not meant to be a
hospital when it was first built (same for the A/E). The
British was planning to have a heavily guarded military location
in the east of Singapore. The site was strategically
selected for it is high on top of a hill overlooking the sea
surrounding most of the east side and the south side of the
island. For about 10 years before the war, this classical
7-storey high building compound was used as military command quarters
and barracks.
During the assault of the Japanese aggression from Malaya in
February 1942, Changi was targeted as one of the first attack
points. In a day or two, it was occupied by the Japanese
army moving from Puala Ubin. Soon after that OCH was converted to a
military hospital where all the wounded soldiers and civilians
were attended to. After the Japanese Occupation ended, it was
converted back to its original self, as a public hospital and
later with a Military ward on the third level.
From February 1997 onwards, OCH was closed for its hospital
operations were replaced by the new Changi General Hospital.
It got isolated and left vacant there since then.
According to some insider sources, the abandoned OCH will remain as it is but
it will be re-open for the 'public' soon during 2005 for the Army
Camp or for the Officer Cadet School (OCS) Trainees.
However, stories about the building being haunted started
in the early 40's. The Hospital itself had 70+ years of rich
history when it survived from the dreadful World War II that took
place from 1942 to 1945, witnessing the fall of Singapore and the
brutal tortures towards the prisoners of war (POW) that happened
there. Therefore, seeing spirits of all races
and of different nationals wandering around in the compound would
be a common sight.
If you are thinking of visiting the hospital in the hope of bumping into a
spirit of any nature, go with 2 or 3 friends. If you go
beyond that, you will never see it as they are all hiding behind
the window pane or the back of the door WATCHING at you.
But of course, you can go there alone, however you will never find
yourself ALONE.
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The look-up view of OCH,
the entrance, and the long steep stairs leading up on the slope.
Nowadays OCH is a restricted state land and trespassers will be
prosecuted. Entering needs a special permit from the government. |
Playground for the rumbles
We stepped into Detroit? Close to it. For it has been
abandoned for several years and initially was quite loosely
guarded, OCH has become a wonderland for many adventurers.
It is such a famous 'must see' landmark for Changi Chalet goers at
night when they get tired of TV and chit-chats. There was a
joke saying that on Saturday evening as soon as sunset, there
would be more people queuing up to go into OCH than to Golden
Village Cinema! It is not hard to see groups of people
carrying torches marching along Netheravon Road to the direction
of OCH. With much curiosity, most of them want to get a
chill on this reputed haunted place. However, some
"talented" rumbles have vandalized the interior by smashing the
windows, cracking the walls, burning trashes, and painting
Graffiti all over the wall. To exploit this antique building
further, some even performed Satanic
cults on the top level room! As a result, this has forced
the government put on more security guards at the front and back
entrances, more policemen and dogs on patrols... There were
police reports that people went missing at OCH. Looking at
the physical dangers filled with that place, we wouldn't be
surprised.
 
Most of the detachable
items have been torn down. Look at that antenna which is about
to fall in the 1st photo. Almost every wall has got sprayed
Graffiti. In the last photo, it was painted "Shane Died Here".
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The haunted wards
Inside the OCH compound, you can see many wards with high
ceilings. Notice that the wards and rooms are never closed
up. This design makes air ventilation easier for the wards
didn't have any air-cond but ceiling fans! Now those wards
are totally left empty except some fixtures such as fans,
wall-mounted switches, basins and some built-up platforms on the
floor. By using a bit of imagination, one can vaguely
resemble how it was like when the wards were in use. Rows of
sick-beds lined up the place, wounded soldiers and ill patients
suffered and mourned in pain. Doctors and nurses in white
robes busy walking in and out of the wards. Many patients
who could not make it had their last breath right there...
 
You can see the ceilings
are of about two storey high. The walls are not built all the
way from bottom to top. Air spaces were left there.
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The torture chamber
Perhaps this is the 2nd most scariest place in OCH after the
mortuary. Out of so many wards and rooms, we found one that
is remarkably different. Even for today it has a kind of
emergency red-and-white plastic tape barring it off from access.
It didn't seems to safe guard people from any physical danger
inside the room, but may be from something else... This
particular room (rather we call it a chamber) unlike the others
with open wall ends on top is completely self-contained. The
walls are made of thick solid concrete and unpainted.
Further inside you will see some concrete built-up structure as if
it was used for securing something tight on the floor. One
of the horrible signs is the metal chains with one end set loose
and the other end securely fixed on the wall. It seemed
strong enough to tie up a tiger. And, you can see maroon
colored blood stains are still left on the floor. Absolutely
horrible. One would expect to see such a chamber in a prison
but never in a hospital! But don't forget, this is a military hospital
used by the Japanese. There are many undocumented stories
saying that during the war many "important" citizens and POWs were
detained at OCH. Most had never been seen again, and they
were believed to be tortured to death over here.
 
The torture chamber;
ruined toilet; and (amazingly) a computer server room with equipment
found intact on the rack!
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A mystery of underground bunker
There are rumors saying that OCH has an underground bunker under
the hill that connects to the barracks nearby. We found some
suspicious spots that very few people know about. The first
spot is the main lift at OCH inside has a button for going
underground. But the lift now is immobilized. The
second and third spots are the hastily sealed up mound by simply
dumping plenty of concrete at the ground floor staircase, and the
exit door at the other end of the building got tightly nailed shut
respectively. This clue suggested us to believe firmer that
such an underground bunker exists. Throughout the 70 years
of history from pre-war British occupation to post-war Japanese
occupation, it would be beyond our imagination on what secret
treasures may have hidden down there. Having those main
entrances to the underground bunker completely sealed up on the
ground floor and the fact that we were not able to break in (and
we never wanted to do that), we had to look for a secret passage
if there is any. A bold idea though it turned out as a
failure is to try search for the secret passage from top-down.
Right on the top of the building there is a small open look-out
space. From there we found a chimney which we suspected is
connected to the underground bunker. People who were in
underground did need some air vent for breathing. Ok, true
enough, this was
what supported our believed. However, like a long tunnel,
the chimney was so narrow that can barely allow one person climbing in
and out. By using some special equipment we descended our
camera deep down to the tunnel and captured some photos. We
were counting the depth as the camera went down: 1 meter, 2 meter,
3, 4, 5 ... The tunnel was long and deep even our strongest
halogen light could not reach the bottom. It looked as if it
were leading to hell. After 20 meters or so, we had found
bats resting on the wall of the tunnel for one moment, but they
were gone for the next. What does this suggest? The
tunnel was not dead-ended and down there may live a kingdom of
bats! A thought of it made us shivered. So for our
safety, we called off this exploration, and we do strongly advise
people PLEASE DON'T TRY IT. If you can ever get in, there
will be more likely to have another police report of man missing
in OCH than you can safely walk out in one whole piece.
 
(1) A horrible sight of
unreachable deep far darkness in the roof.
(2) This is the small door exit from which one can climb to the
roof-top void deck. Its size allows only one person to go
through at a time
(3) tunnel that we speculated leading to the underground bunker
(4) Roof-top of OCH connecting two adjacent look-out void deck
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Finally, a beautiful scene at the East
There is no exaggeration to say this is one of the most beautiful
scenes in Singapore. Facing east, we could have grasped the
first beam of morning sunray high on the roof-top void deck.
Magnificent views of Johor and Puala Ubin can be seen from there
in a way that could never be seen elsewhere. With such far
reaching sights under our eyes, we further
reinforced our belief that OCH was originally built with the mind
to keep a look out on enemy ships from the eastern and northern
sea shores. Decades ago, where we were standing are used to be
surveillance posts that had soldiers on duty guard.
 
(1) Observation
void-deck, now a victim of vandalism
(2) A sense of serenity before dawn
(3) The first beam of sunlight - Good Morning Singapore
(4) Puala Ubin soaked in morning sunlight
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And, an eerie scene at the West
Most people who went to OCH would have asked this FAQ: where is
mortuary? Although they looked up and down, level by level
and corner by corner in the OCH compound, they would never find
it. The mortuary is not located in the main buildings but in
a small timber house at the most west side of the OCH territory.
There is a small road that connects to it from behind the hill.
Most people wouldn't notice about it. And that is the idea.
Just like we don't prominently see vehicles that deliver corpses
running around the roads. With the kind permission of the
security guard and our privileges from NHB, we were allowed to
walk near the mortuary to take a picture. "There is nothing
special there, my friends. All the fridges are now empty
ones", the security guard exclaimed.
"The compound was or rather is really haunted. The spirits are
especially active on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” according to
the security guard with a definite voice tone. "Usually we can
only see them with their back facing us, they seldom show their
front," he added. Door slamming, lady screaming in the middle of
the night is already a norm thing for him.
On one particular incident at around 1:45 AM, a strong gust of
wind blew suddenly when he was reading the paper, making his hair
stood on ends. As he raised his head to take a peek at the
surrounding, he saw two ladies, a Malay and the other Chinese,
standing just 1 meter beside him. When asked about how he feels
about his job as a night guard, he said that it was scary in the
beginning but he is used to it now. Up to now, the mortuary was
still well maintained. It allows accommodation up to a maximum of
four corpses.
The white quarter on
the left is the mortuary. The green light that looks like
ghost light is actually the light from the guard house. It
certainly takes a bravo to night guard this eerie place.
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 Answering
Mysteries |
1. Did an underground bunker ever
exist in OCH? Where is the entrance?
2. Were the self-contained rooms in OCH the rumored tortured
chambers?
 Come
share your view with us! |
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