Creepy photos take you inside ‘haunted’ abandoned water park

It closed just two years after opening, but there’s a pretty haunting reason why this theme park was shut down so abruptly and without warning.

A tourist shared some of the creepy photos he took when he went inside an abandoned water park in Vietnam, believed by locals to be haunted.

Jeffrey Van Sluijs, 31, a freelance digital marketer from the Netherlands, had been travelling around Asia for nine months when he discovered the spooky attraction, New York Post reports.

He first heard of the abandoned park when he was staying at a hostel and other guests had mentioned the “dark tourist” spot, according to Jam Press.

Built in 2004 by the Hue Tourism Company, the park was open to visitors before it was even completed, Mr Van Sluijs explained.

A dragon statue guards the observatory deck.

Dirty and stagnant water fills the theme park.

“Some locals warn that the place may be haunted and this may have caused many investors to stay away from giving it a new try,” Mr Van Sluijs told the digital publication, Need to Know.

“This bold decision didn’t work out very well and after two years of being operational, the park shut down forever in 2006,” he said. “The reasons of its failure is unknown up to this day – but visiting the park is a shady endeavour.”

In a video later posted to TikTok, Mr Van Sluijs pans across the dilapidated park where a series of children’s pools, brightly coloured plastic slides and sprinklers are shown covered in graffiti. There is also a river filled with green water, lounging areas muddied with broken tiles and overgrown plants.

Only the sounds of crickets and other insects can be heard.

“The first thing I saw was the giant dragon head,” Mr Van Sluijs said. “This climbable structure used to be some sort of viewpoint, although it was unclear for me what other functions this structure had.”

A now-empty seating area built with concrete.

A bridge over one of the water slides.

Mr Van Sluijs took a photo of himself standing inside the mouth of the dragon statue that guards a three-storey observation tower.

“When going a little bit further, I came across a pool for children with a typical ‘water umbrella’ or ‘mushroom’ and some sort of artificial current, as well as a wave pool,” he said. “Everything was heavily in decay and the water inside had turned dark brown and muddy. There were plants all over the place, and lots of insects.”

Graffiti has been plastered across the attraction.

A double water slide sits vacant and filthy.

“When walking through the children’s pool and past the wave pool, I tried to imagine what the place would have looked like when it was operational.”

The TikTok video has since amassed thousands of views.

“Sure it’ll look a lot scarier at night,” one person commented.

“Dangerous! This abandoned work is not maintained, probably damages everywhere which might cause collapse and unexpected accidents,” another user said.

But the park itself wasn’t the weirdest part of the trek.

One of the larger water slides at the park.

Locals believe the park is haunted.

As Mr Van Sluijs was making his way out of the abandoned attraction, he had a strange encounter.

“I stumbled upon an actual cafe inside the abandoned park,” he revealed. “Right across the street where I found the abandoned theatre, I suddenly noticed quite a new sign saying something like ‘cold beer, cola’ etc. At the cafe, there was a group of about six Vietnamese people, looking quite rich in terms of how they were dressed, and enjoying an extensive lunch with an abundance of beers.”

“It was such a strange thing to encounter in the park.” Mr Van Sluijs added. “Any abandoned place always feels like a present unfolding to you – around every corner, something new can be found.”

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was republished with permission