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Lake Toba

added29 August 2026

The largest volcanic lake in the world, in the caldera of a supervolcano whose eruption some seventy-four thousand years ago is counted among the greatest catastrophes in the planet's history — by a contested hypothesis, it nearly finished humanity. The Batak people fill the lake with spirits and keep a tradition of a man who married a fish turned woman; breaking the promise he made her brought the flood that made the lake.

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2.68000, 98.88000

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Bukit Timah and the Monkey Man

Singapore's highest point and a remnant of primary rainforest in the middle of the city. A creature has been described here since 1805, known as the Bukit Timah Monkey Man: grey-furred, about five feet tall, moving on two legs. Reports came in waves — notably during the Japanese occupation, when people were hiding in the forest, and again in 2007, which caused a stir in the Singapore press.

567 km away

Abandoned buildingYellow

Old Changi Hospital

An abandoned hospital in Singapore, used as a prison and interrogation site during the Japanese occupation. Its empty wards and corridors have long attracted stories of voices and shadows — one of Asia's best-known haunted sites.

585 km away

FolkloreOrange

The Pontianak

A woman who died in childbirth and came back for revenge — one of the central figures of Malay and Indonesian folklore. Her presence is identified by smell: first the sweetness of frangipani, then the smell of a corpse. She is held to live in banana trees, which is why they are not planted right against a house. The city of Pontianak in Borneo carries her name: by tradition its founder laid out the settlement on the spot where he drove these spirits off.

1201 km away

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