We had just explored the Sathorn Unique abandoned building (google it) when I made my last post and I hadn't quite had time to write up what all had happened, but the story goes a bit like this:
There is a MASSIVE building right off of one of the BTS (sky train) stops in Bangkok that looks incredibly spooky and deserted. After a bit of research, it turns out that it IS in fact abandoned. Left to rot in 1997 during the Asian Financial Crisis, all construction of the project halted and everybody just went home. The building hasn't changed much in that time, it seems, as you can still find much of the building equipment scattered throughout, though anything of value has been looted. It is a 49 story behemoth that changes from an off white, mostly finished bottom, to a completely rotting away (or whatever you call it when concrete starts to fall apart) dirt brown structure exposing its rebar to the sky up at the top.
Here is an image from google:
We were wandering around the bottom of it looking for a way in when we stumbled across a few Russians sitting outside of a Pizza Hut that looked out of place. "Are you trying to go up that building?" I said, pointing behind the Pizza Hut.
"Yeah..."
"We are too. What do you know?"
"Not much, they have locks on the stairwells and are trying to charge us money to let us in."
Sarah, noticing a couple big bags the guys had asked, "Are those BASE rigs?"
"Yeah..."
Sweet! So we met some BASE jumpers that were trying to go up there too! After a 45 minute slightly intense conversation with the people that have inhabited the lower floors (who had a few 7 or 8 year old kids with machetes running around) we got them to unlock the lower and upper gates blocking off the steps all the way to the 8th(?) floor.
It was about 95°F and we only had 41 floors to go! We stopped to take some pictures at a couple points on the way up...
The top of the building was home to one of the coolest views I have ever seen! You had a full 360° view of the city and only a couple buildings stood taller. The Russian guys were packing their parachutes up there while we ran around and took a bunch of pictures and just enjoyed the view from the top of the city...
Anyway, the two Russians jumped off, had a safe landing off in a concrete field across the street and we made our descent down the building. A quick phone call to the lady downstairs to unlock the gates again set us free and for some reason they had no question as to where the other two guys in our group went (thankfully).
Twelve gallons of sweat later, we made it back out of the building and back down to the bustling city streets below. It was an incredible sensation to find such peace and tranquility amidst this city, and I never would have expected to find it on top of a 50 story deteriorating skyscraper. To this day this has probably been the most interesting exploration I have ever had... Caves, waterfalls, rivers, oceans and more from mother nature will always be fascinating, but to experience this feeling of wonder and awe from a man-made object was just amazing.
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