Skulls, anyone? At Lome. Picture: Julius Cruickshank, Wikicommons Source: Supplied
THE WORLD is a big, beautiful place. However, scattered among the man-made and natural wonders of the world are terrifying pockets of terror where no rational person would ever knowingly venture.
And now you don't have to, cause I've lost more than enough sleep in order to warn you where the most bloodcurdling locations on the planet are.
From voodoo to UFOs, here's the list, by AskMen.com.au.
10. Miyake-jima
If the creepy image of thousands of people wearing gas masks doesn't freak you out at least a little bit, then by all means, book a trip to Miyake-jima. A postcard from this volcanic rock of post-apocalyptic doom would have more in common with a Mad Max publicity still than the Land of the Rising Sun you're used to. Back in 2000, the island's main volcano, Mount Oyama, spewed toxic gas everywhere, forcing the evacuation of every person who lived there and turning Miyake-jima into a ghost town.
When people were finally allowed back in 2005, they were mandated to carry gas masks at all times, should levels of poisonous gas rise unexpectedly.
Besides active volcanoes and creepy children running around wearing gas masks, there's a disturbing amount of sulphur that leaks out of the ground everywhere, causing the entire place to reek of farts — a flatulent warning sign imploring you to get the hell out.
9. Lome Bazaar
Chances are if you've travelled all the way to the West African nation of Togo, it's because you're looking for a type of cultural experience you won't get on a guided tour of European hot spots. And that cultural experience will likely include a trip to capital city Lome's Akodessewa market.
While it's labelled as a voodoo fetish market, locals think of Akodessewa as a place to cure what ails you — a voodoo pharmacy if you will. And their brand of medicine is likely to induce vomiting among tourists. Animal sacrifice plays heavily into their medical practice. It's a safe bet your doctor never prescribed that you grind up elephant feet and human heads into a fine powder and rub them into open wounds on your chest as an effective cure for ... well, anything. Such amazing rituals are commonplace in Lome, the birthplace of voodoo. The stench of death permeates the air thanks to the rotting corpses of countless beasts — dogs, snakes, leopards, humans — and local healers confer directly with the gods to determine your sickness and its cure.
8. Centralia Mine
Similar to its more photogenic cousin — the Door to Hell, found in Uzbekistan — Centralia earned its spot on this list under similar, though far more dangerous, circumstances. What was once a bustling mining village is now an abandoned ghost town thanks to a deadly fire that's been burning below its streets since 1962. Because no one wants to admit they made the mistake that turned a quaint community into a literal hellhole, the specifics as to how the mystery blaze began aren't clear.
Centralia Mine. Picture: Lyndi and Jason Source: Flickr
It's widely thought that burning trash in a landfill ignited a coal vein from a nearby mine that's been impossible to snuff out, despite several attempts by local officials. There are only nine residents left in spooky Centralia, and for good reason. In addition to the resulting Silent Hill vibe that now defines its rundown buildings, not to mention noxious fumes that are constantly escaping in to the air, keep in mind that at any given time, the ground could literally open up and swallow you whole. Something about a constant fire burning just under the streets you're walking on will do that. To be perfectly safe, you'd have to wait about 250 years before visiting, since that's how long experts estimate the coal fire can keep burning under Centralia.
Centralia Mine. Picture: Matt P Source: Flickr
7. Body Farm
Contrary to its name, this is not a place where bodies are grown for food. And while that may come as a relief, the truth is almost as creepy. Body farms are where anthropologists and forensic scientists study how corpses decompose under a variety of different circumstances. This particular body farm is located on a secure, 2.5-acre lot where up to 100 corpses can be found rotting out in the open at any given time. The understanding they gain from this disturbing practice can help crime scene investigators get better insights from actual murder cases, based on things like rate of decomposition and insect activity in and on the body.
If that seems disrespectful, it's not. The bodies used come from people who've donated themselves to science, or were donated by family members. (If my family's reading this, keep in mind, I will haunt you forever, if you lay me to rest here in this frightful, outdoor death garden).
6. Hoia Forest
Any place located in Transylvania comes with some terror baggage. This is, after all, the place most linked to the Dracula myth, thanks to Bram Stoker's influential novel which used the central part of Romania as its setting. The Hoia Forest, however, isn't known for vampire activity as much as for paranormal activity, UFO sightings and missing persons. Also, look at the strange vegetation that grows in this forest — tree trunks with strange, uniform bends, not to mention areas where nothing grows at all, for some bizarre reason.
People who've found the courage to take a stroll through these woods have reported having suffered from nausea, extreme anxiety, severe headaches, and in some cases, mysterious burns and scratches. They also claim they felt they were being watched and that they heard mysterious crying and giggling that couldn't be explained. Then of course are the countless UFO sightings that have taken place here, with people swearing they witnessed strange glowing orbs in the forest.
It all makes one legendary, undead bloodsucker seem about as scary as a box of kittens.
Hoia Forest. Picture: Cristian Bortes Source: Flickr
5. Suicide Forest
Aokighara — also known as the Sea of Trees, or Suicide Forest — is the second most popular place to commit suicide worldwide, after San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. It becomes the final resting place to dozens of Japanese citizens every year — so much so that the government has taken to downplaying the statistics to avoid encouraging copycats and has placed numerous signs all over the forest pleading with people not to do it. But the vastness of the woods and their eerie quiet still tempts many in their ultimate moments of despair to wander into Suicide Forest with no intention of ever wandering back out.
With decades of the dead among the trees, it's no surprise that people claim Suicide Forest is haunted. Japanese folklore dictates that a body left alone is very bad luck, causing the spirit to suffer and linger close to where it lies. Hence, forest rangers, whose job it is to find and arrange last rites for those poor souls. But in the massive expanse of Suicide Forest, only a small number are ever found.
4. Snake Island
The only way this island could be more terrifying is if it were actually made of floating snakes. And for all intents and purposes, it may as well be. Ilha da Queimada Grande is a restricted island 93 miles south of Sao Paulo, Brazil and its home to an species of lethal pit viper known as the Golden Lancehead, which is one of the most venomous snakes in the entire world. When you factor in the conservative — but still mind-boggling — estimate that there's one snake for every square meter of Snake Island ... well, how comfortable would you be with a deadly serpent never more than 3 feet away from you, hiding in the trees, or silently slithering its way towards you? Same here.
Fortunately, even if you are some kind of super-hardcore, snake-loving adventurer, you can't go to Snake Island. It's so dangerous that the Brazilian Army has forbidden anyone but maintenance crews and scientists access to it (and they're probably looking for new jobs as you're reading this).
3. The Ridges
If you've ever seen Shutter Island, Halloween, A Clockwork Orange, or even One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, then you know that mental institutions are freaking creepy. But that's fiction, right? What about real life? Well, asylums like The Ridges make a good argument that these movies represent art imitating life. What started as an earnest venture to help Civil War veterans and the elderly suffering from mental illness quickly became an overrun carnival of horror where the definition of mentally ill grew to include unruly teenagers and epileptics, and the methods of help varied from electroshock therapy to ice baths to lobotomy.
Other insane asylums practised similar repulsive techniques, but The Ridges went one step further when dealing with the overwhelming amount of corpses they had to deal in the face of families who couldn't pay for funeral services. They simply buried them on the grounds in numbered graves. Last I checked, that's a major horror-movie no-no. Steer clear.
2. Island Of The Dolls
La Isla de le Munecas, or Island of the Dolls, is a bone-chilling place because someone spent decades making it that way. Don Julian Santana Barrera left his wife and family one day to go live on the island located in Teshuilo Lake, Mexico. While there he reputedly came across a young girl who had drowned in the lake, though it's possible he imagined the whole thing. Anyway, he later found a doll that may have belonged to her and hung it up the trees as a show of respect. And thus began an obsession that would last almost fifty years. Barrera scrounged up dolls wherever he could and continued hanging them throughout the island, converting the place from a nondescript nature reserve to a full-blown, crazy-sauce tribute to the dead girl. Dolls are already creepy by default. Half decomposed dolls with eyes and arms missing hanging around you everywhere is just a whole other level of twisted and strange.
The story comes full circle in 2001 when Barrera was found drowned in the same place he believed the young girl had died.
1. The Catacombs
Beneath the streets of Paris is a complex system of tunnels and caverns fashioned from the bones of between 6 and 7 million dead Parisians. Ossuaries are inherently creepy because they involve building something like a box or a building out of bones. When what you've built is a poorly lit, underground labyrinth with walls made of skulls that leer at you, you'd be forgiven for having some kind of claustrophobic panic attack.
In fact, the Catacombs of Paris are so elaborate that in 2004 French police discovered a secret movie theatre and fully stocked bar operating in a section that was off-limits and thought abandoned.
And while it remains a popular tourist attraction, you definitely wouldn't want to find yourself alone in there.
Catacombs of Saint Giovanni.
Skulls are everywhere. Source: News Limited
Read more intriguing stories at AskMen.com.au.
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