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Supposedly, the spooky season rears its spectral head when the end of October rolls in, but if you’ve been in Indonesia long enough, you’ll know that the supernatural is as perennial as the tropical humidity.
From public transportation to private properties, stories about phantoms and ghosts can be found all over Jakarta if you know where to look and are sufficiently brave enough, so we’ve compiled five of the most notoriously haunted places around the city.
Amidst the towering structures of steel and glass dotting the city, you’d expect that Jakarta's modernity has no place for old-world beliefs, but ask any cleaning staff and security guards, and they’d probably tell you some tales from the graveyard (shift).
Arguably the most notorious of the bunch, the 28-story Menara Saidah in South Jakarta has attracted thrill seekers and rumors alike since its closure in 2007, reportedly due to tilting foundations and poor management.
Even as the building lies abandoned, locals have told stories about delivery drivers receiving orders from the empty building, sightings of a lady in red, to mysterious lights from certain parts of the tower.
As scary as the stories of phantom workers and floors that shouldn’t exist, just ask any recent graduate, they’ll probably tell you that between waiting for an interview that never materialized and the inflation siphoning their savings, the job market is terrifying enough as it is.
With millions of commuters in a city that never truly sleeps, ghosts shouldn’t really be attracted to places with this much foot traffic. Or do they?
One urban legend from the early 2000s, when the KRL Commuterline wasn’t yet modernized, involved a local who lived around Manggarai Station in South Jakarta, who came across a train moving by itself with its lights turned off during a time when none should be operating.
Another popular story is of another local helping a confused commuter who apparently just stepped off the train, which wouldn’t be noteworthy if said commuter didn’t show up well after the last train had left the station.
One other tale relates to a stretch of railway between Pondok Ranji Station in South Tangerang and Kebayoran Station in South Jakarta, where the Bintaro Tragedy of 1987 claimed the lives of more than 100 commuters after two trains crashed head-on. Whispers told of how passersby sometimes see the victims’ spirits and hear cries for help near the accident site, particularly after sundown.
However, if you’re looking for something more material, you can glimpse what a real life zombie apocalypse might look like by visiting any station at rush hour; like the Train to Busan-esque hordes at 5 p.m. in Manggarai, or the shambling mindlessness of Tanah Abang, where people are seemingly impervious to signs and announcements telling them to walk on the right side of the escalator.
Haunted houses are a fixture of any neighborhood, and Jakarta is no exception.
In the 90s, one abandoned house that has since been demolished in South Jakarta’s upscale Pondok Indah district gained notoriety for ghost stories, which eventually inspired a movie. Supposedly, a wealthy family was massacred in a home invasion, while another related tale told of how a fried rice seller apparently went missing after going inside the house to deliver a meal.
Another similarly grisly tale came also from South Jakarta, in which a house in Dharmawangsa was notorious for its wafting smell of boiled potatoes. Depending on who’s telling the story, a little boy either accidentally fell into a boiling pot of potatoes, or was thrown in there by a disgruntled domestic worker after one too many antics.
But just between us, the true horrors lie in the property market, where you’d need holy water and a prayer from the Pope just to look at the rent in some of these neighborhoods.
As a location that’s closely linked with death and dying, hospitals are often associated with horror and sadness, especially past visiting hours.
As one of the oldest hospitals in Indonesia, Cipto Mangankusumo General Hospital (RSCM) in Central Jakarta has its fair share of ghost stories. One of the most popular tales is of a university student named Romli encountering a disembodied head and a limbless torso after exploring its halls near midnight.
In a more general sense, the suster ngesot urban legend of the 2000s has been linked to numerous hospitals, which often change names depending on the narrator but has also been linked to RSCM. As the spirit of a nurse who died in mysterious circumstances, she often appears during quiet evenings, giving patients, visitors and medical staff a good scare.
If you’re visiting without insurance, though, that hospital bill is scary enough to set you on the straight and narrow.
While the scariest thing you could probably think of is your bank balance rapidly dwindling after a post-payday visit to Jakarta’s myriad malls, one mall in particular has gained a reputation that comes with a dark backstory to go with it.
During the May 1998 riots, Plaza Sentral Klender in East Jakarta became a target of widespread looting, just like many other businesses. According to eyewitness reports, a group of unidentified men set fire to the mall, which resulted in a blaze that killed more than 200 lives.
Despite its renovation and renaming into the present-day Ciplaz Klender, many still believe the mall to be haunted, with some of the more popular stories including inexplicable phenomenon ranging from a burning smell to apparitions of the mall’s former employees.
Yet at the end of the day, the specter of violence is always the scariest. As the mall’s history has demonstrated, it’s the living you should be scared of.
