mengrai

As of a few months ago - You can go, but ever since the Kokang Incident you're required to have a guide with you at all times. There's a set fee of 1000baht per day per person in your group and you need to pay for the guide's food and accommodation. I don't know if you can get to Mong La on the Chinese border anymore, but it's worth a shot.

Oh, also - do you know anything about that airstrip immediately north east of that mooban? It says "NOK" on it but it doesn't look like it's used very often...

rebo - wonderful, those look great. Extra points for exact coordinates. The first one must be what jaideeguy and Flatouthruthefog are talking about - I would have never guessed that place is abandoned from the satellite photos. Thanks!

MrBrad:

I was thinking of the same site. It's been unfinished since at least 1994. Seems to be leaning off center...maybe that's why it's abandoned. Here's the location on Wikimapia.

Yep, that's it! I went and checked it out yesterday. You can't go in through the golf course/housing development because there's a big wall and a security guard in front of it, but I think he's just there to make the rich people feel safe. If you follow the road around the outside you can just walk right in. I ran into some Tai Yai dudes drinking whiskey on the second floor, but they were just hanging out and didn't mind at all.

The building itself is super cool. There's a lot of rebar and crap sticking out of the floors and the walls so you have to be really careful about where you step, and on the higher floors there's no railing whatsoever, but on the whole it seems structurally sound (I didn't feel like I was going to fall through the floor). The roof is amazing at sunset. The golf course is beautiful and you can see Chiang Dao. Photos attached!

Special thanks to CobraSnakeNecktie for pointing this out. There's no way in hell I would have found it otherwise.

Flatouthruthefog - That sounds totally awesome. Do you turn left or right off the Chiang Rai rd if you're coming from Chiang Mai? I think I found the last pedestrian bridge on Google Maps, but I can't find anything that looks like what you're talking about:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=18.847614,99.081311&spn=0.002589,0.005284&t=h&z=18

Ah! I didn't mean to, uh, abandon the thread. Thanks for all the great suggestions!

wolf5370 - I've been in the big green condo skeleton immediately across from Empress (it's like 15 storeys tall but still kinda hard to see from the street) and there's a totally bizarre abandoned crematorium behind it, but I hadn't noticed any others around there. I'll have to check it out again. I know that there's an old movie theater catty-corner from Pantip Plaza, but the front is all bars and I've heard the inside is an illegal gambling den now. Still, next time you're down there take a peak behind the ugly billboard and you'll see a fantastic fresco depicting Lanna life:

http://seatheater.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-approaching-intersection-of-chang.html

OlafStapleton - Awesome, thanks! I'll go take a look at those.

CMSteve - Holy crap, I don't know how this one evaded me. I drove past it last night, and man, is that place sketchy (especially with the active brothel next to it). I'll have to check it out in daylight but I'm not sure I want to set foot in that place.

keo - I used to live over there and I've seen that house before, but I totally forgot about it. Have you noticed any guards or anything walking around, or is it totally empty? I've heard about the Sathorn Unique too, and I'm dying to check it out. There are a couple others right on Sukhumvit (I think) that you'd totally miss if you weren't looking for them.

jaideeguy - Yeah, I need to go down there again. The roller rink I mentioned is in that area and it's super cool, but it seems like there's a lot more.

Greenside - Totally. All you ever hear is "somebody died" and "it's haunted!" I try and ask the people who live around places what the story is but most of the time they act like they just noticed it.

CobraSnakeNecktie - Oh that is perfect, I'm definitely going to take a look. That's pretty out of the way and I don't think I ever would have found it. And nah, I think ghosts leave you alone if you don't believe in them (I've also heard they don't bother farang because they afraid you don't speak Thai).

Atmos - Chanthaburi's a bit far for me, but that's an awesome picture.

Starrysky - Are those derelict or are they just under construction? I coudn't tell.

Thanks again everybody!

I like to explore abandoned places - apartment blocks, houses, never-finished moo baans, the like. Has anyone spotted any good ones in Chiang Mai? I've been here a while and explored all the obvious stuff, like the roller rink by Arcade and that creepy faux-greco-roman thing on the northwest corner of the old city (does anyone know anything about that place, other than some dude supposedly murdered his family?), but I'm sure there are dozens more that are harder to find. I'm willing to go outside of the city as well, and extra points for places with good stories.

To preempt the inevitable grumbling, I promise I'm not a dipshit. I don't tag, vandalize or stumble around vacant buildings while drunk. Thanks!

Centipedes are certainly nasty (though I don't necessarily buy the amputation thing), but they're also way too fast for cats - they were probably playing with these enormous millipedes, which are totally harmless:

http://www.life.illinois.edu/ib/109/Insect%20rearing/photos/millipede.jpg

Hey dudes,

I want to rent a cheap house outside of Chiang Mai purely for the purpose of throwing parties/barbecues/whatever, but real estate agents don't really understand what I'm going for and internet listings are useless. My Thai friends all think it's totally possible and are asking around for me but nothing's come up yet.

I'd like it to be in a quiet, wooded setting with a river or stream running through the property (or nearby), far enough away from other houses that it wouldn't be a problem to play music until two in the morning. The house itself can be totally bare-bones - nobody is actually going to live there, so as long as it has power and water it could be unfurnished and airconless (I'll probably get some mattresses so people can crash on the floor). Wood or concrete doesn't matter much, but I think teak would be pretty sweet.

I've heard there are places like this near Chiang Dao, but that's a little too far - it needs to be less than an hour away by motorbike because all my friends are wusses and won't drive any further than that. I drove west on the 1269 out of San Pa Tong yesterday and saw a ton of houses that would be absolutely perfect, but near as I could tell none of them were for rent.

Do you think it's possible to get a place like this for under 4000/mo? Any ideas on how I can go about finding it? I'm assuming this won't be any more difficult than renting a place in Chiang Mai, but are there other considerations/complications I'm missing?