Pasir Ris! A peaceful, tranquil town located in the eastern side of Singapore. The town is adored with fishing ponds, river canals, shady trees and little park walkway, making it have quite a laid back kampung feel. With about 96,000 residents, it pales in comparison with its nearest cousin Tampines Town, which is Singapore's largest town with more than 216,000 residents. Pasir Ris Town also has only 1 simple mall - White Sands Shopping Mall, compared to Tampines whose Tampines One, Tampines Mall and Century Square are filled with people to the brim on weekends.
Pasir Ris is also home to Pasir Ris Park. The term Pasir Ris means 'beach bolt-rope' in Malay, or implying a narrow beach. Bicycle riding, pony rides, boardwalk, fishing and a children's playground are some of the activities that people flock to Pasir Ris Park for. There is also a 6-ha mangrove swamp being preserved in Pasir Ris Park, emphasizing the nature and flora importance of this park.
Huge shady trees can be found everywhere in Pasir Ris Park, offering a nice cool escapade from sunny Singapore. There are different kinds of trees grown here, from coconut trees to Palm Trees, and the many birdwatching towers around attracts many animal watchers.
There are also many chalet facilities located in Pasir Ris, from government holiday chalets to Costa Sands Resort, the PA Holiday Flats and many corporate chalets that occupy a stretch of bungalow houses. The smells of BBQ from the many pits around fill the air every weekend, making Pasir Ris a getaway for many park goers.
The many rivers and canals look really peaceful and serene in day time. At times, you can spot a monitor lizard swimming through these rivers, or a majestic white heron flying from tree to tree. It makes you wonder if these big birds fly from tree to tree at night, don't they look like ghosts?
Uncles also like to fish from this little bridge over at Pasir Ris Park, the flowing stream of water from the sea often causes the fishes to swim with the flow. On seasonal days, you can also see school of jellyfishes swiming across these streams, leading to a really interesting and captivating scene.
At times, some weird finds can be seen inside some of the bushes along the canals and rivers - including this little scary chair inside some bushes. At night, when one is tired or scared, this little 'white' thing may easily look like some apparition! Pasir Ris Park is indeed an intriguing place in day time, just as it is at night...
The sunset at Pasir Ris is pretty too, although you cannot see the sun, the changing colors add to the whole wonder of this place. Pasir Ris Park is less visited by people compared to East Coast Park, and it leads people to wonder why. At night, this place is transformed to a quiet, almost haunting place, totally different from that of East Coast Park.
Pasir Ris Park is home to a host of various haunting stories, and also crimes of murder and suicide in the park. Various spots in Pasir Ris is rumored to be haunted, and this leads us to explore one of this parts of Haunted Pasir Ris.
The part for contention for this exploration is Sungei Api Api, a swamp area located near to the western end of Pasir Ris Park, nearer to where the PA campsite is. This part is notorious for many sightings of Pontianaks and we have heard many stories of people having strange experiences, and even being possessed after visiting this swamp.
Sungei Api Api means "Fire Fire" in Malay, and we wonder why is a little swamp area called fire fire. Did something sinister happened in the past? Do people who walk through this swamp get 'torched' by some sort of evil and paranormal experience? We wonder. As we started our walk through the part at night, the front entrance looked brightly lit.
Just beside the entrance of the swamp, there are a line of nice swank looking private houses located just up a slope at the side of the swamp. It is a tranquil and serene location to be located! But not if there are stories of Pontianak sightings though!
2 beach chairs are placed on one of the walkway, probably from the nearby private houses. Of course, at this time, it is empty. One wonders if a shadow is seen now on the chair, it will just freak the hell out of anyone!
The 2 chairs at another angle. It is a little strange that these 2 chairs sit in lonely isolation out from anything at all. The 2 chairs are just there. It is as if it is deliberately placed there, like the first row of chairs placed before a chinese opera play during 7th month. These 2 chairs looked interesting.
As we walked on, the little swamp gets darker. The big bungalows beside the swaps lit up the dark parts significantly, providing some respite as we started our walk down the swamp board walk.
And then, the private houses slowly stopped appearing at the sides of the swamp board walk as we continued on about 200m from the entrance, and as we walked on, the park really became so much darker. The long tall swampy trees started to take over, and their long branches looked like hands and arms extending out from the swamps. It looks a little scary.
We spotted a little pavilion shelter. We half expected a couple romancing in this area, but did not find any. Could this spot be a hot spot for apparition sightings? Nothing was captured as we took a picture.
Looking from the board walk area, we noticed a murky dark river of water. It is really 'dirty' and seems to reflect some potential 'dirty' presence. Over at this part of the part, there is absolutely no one at all. No human presence even though it is only about 10 plus at night. Seems like many people avoid this part indeed. We continued on, without seeing or hearing anything paranormal.
Then towards the end of the canal is a cross over bridge that leads to another part of Pasir Ris. This little cross over bridge seems to be the link from netherworld to the human world, as on the other side of the bridge are HDB flats and immediately, i could see people.
This part of the cross over is certainly very brightly lit and very new. Probably just built as part of the Park Connector Network. But underneath the bridge where the river still flows, it is a look of stale and choke. There is also a little stench across the river. From this angle, you can see from start till end of the cross over. If a shadow appears at the end, it will make us dash towards it and attempt to catch it!
Another angle at another picture, you can clearly see how dark and murky this stretch of the river is. It does not move at all and it seems to represent yin engery being stuck here. We peered hard to see if we notice anything in the river, at the side of the river or in the bushes. Nothing much noted.
The cross over bridge and you can see the HDB blocks opposite the cross over. Somehow, from the cross over side, you feel a sense of relief and positive human energy there. It is quite a different feeling from being on the yin side of the swamp.
Long trees fill the side of the swamp, making it a good 'hiding place' for Pontianaks or other female ghosts. Can you see anything hiding behind the leaf?
Another look at the murky water and the totally 'dead' river flow. It does not move at all.
Crossing over the other side, the human side, it feels quite scenic and pretty. The picture below even looks like it resemble some where in Venice with the HDB on one side and the river on the other. You can just imagine gondolas moving along the banks of the river!
Instead of walking to the yang side of the swamp, we crossed back to the original side and walked across to ther other side of the swamp instead, opposite from where we walked along just now. we wanted to see if that side is equally quiet too.
A trolley lies in one of the side swamp. It is so perculiar as we would imagine it will take alot of effort and energy to heave a big metal trolley over the railings and then toss it down into the river! why would anyone do that? Are they trying to get rid of something? We wonder whose trolley it belonged to - NTUC or maybe Shop and Save?
The underside of the bridge looks stuck, heavy and dark. Without flash, the whole area underneath looks really dark and suspicious indeed. A white little orb shines from the walls of the under bridge, could it be a lingering spirit?
Crossing over and starting the walk back, again, we are transported into darkness and plunged back into the other side. It looks spooky all over again!
The big, long trees provided for some intrigue and it makes us concentrate on the long branches for any wierd shapes or figures. It is quite a nervy feeling as we slowly looked up the tall branches. At times, while looking at the trees you seem to spot little white spot of things up on the branches,including this picture above. See if you can spot it?
More white dots and a big orb can be found at the picture above as we continued to walk through this very deserted path. There were absolutely no human activity at all, and the whole place is silent. No cricket sounds as well.
Pitch dark!
Suddenly we felt something come towards me and we almost had a shock! What was that?! I took a picture instantly and we caught this strange attack on photo! It was just a little bat on the top right hand corner of the picture. Notice its wings.
We got on and continued our walk as nothing much is seen or felt except for the bat attach earlier on. Several simple orbs are seen, but other than that, nothing out of the ordinary.
The tree below looked like a palm with its fingers pointed upwards, like almost beckoning you to come towards this part of the park.
And on this picture above, the trees seem to again play tricks on our eyes as we concentrated on the branches of the trees. Pieces of whitish looking leaves seem to keep making us wonder if they were apparitions or just part of the tree. Without the flash from the camera and looking dark, anything seems suspicious!
We walked on to Pasir Ris Park, leading to where the pony riding area is. This whole place is totally deserted and quiet. It is interesting how this place transforms into a total ghost town at night, compared to the many families and people in day time. No one at all now.
Attack of the UFOs?! Strange lights hover above the skies as we look up onto the night skies. Haha. Ok, just joking. Is just the park lights somehow appearing blur when the camera was trying to take pictures. Somehow it is unable to focus and it kept blurring. Is something trying to manipulate the camera??
As we walk on, certain parts seem to be heavier than others. Certain parts of the park, we seem to be able to detect some strange feelings within us. Though not obvious, these little fleeting feelings come and go. And this little thin long tree somehow gave us that feeling as we walked past it. It is eeriely similar to the Kent Ridge Park Expedition we had where we saw this long thin tree just behind the flag post. This particular tree looked odd and out of place. As we took a picture, we noticed an orb hovering around this tree. Somehow, it is not malicious, but it is just there. And as we continued walking on, the feeling grew distant and finally it was too far off.
We continued our walk - by then we have walked more than an hour and must have clocked at least 4km through all the walking! We cannot help but be amazed and awed by some of the huge big majestic trees we noticed all over Pasir Ris Park. These trees must have been here for ages, looking at how big their trucks were and how well developed they were.
The long hard thick branches that extend from the tree truck also makes is so ideal for ghosts and Pontianaks to hide and hang around. But on this night, we did not see, hear or feel anything really of attention.
We finally reached the bridge that connected one side of Pasir Ris Park to the other. This location is even more pitch black and even with the flash from the camera, we are not able to see anything at all, and visibility is almost zero. We had to enhance and brighten the images captured digitally to catch a glimpse of what we saw, and the picture below is the enhanced version. Dark and quite spooky indeed. Any water ghosts sitting along the banks of the river?
The few enhanced images at times seem to throw out some shadows and shapes that are hard to tell if there is something, because the image is so pixelated. But this is one of the places that are rumoured to be haunted at night.
And as we walked along, the tall trees stand up to us and remind us what interesting flavour and environment Pasir Ris Park really is. We have not found anything significant here, but with more stories of the Haunted Pasir Ris Tower and others, we await for a Part 2 of our Haunted Pasir Ris Expedition where we will bring in our proper gears and paranormal equipment to see if we can detect anything strange in our next follow up trip.
But until then, stay tuned for more investigations and expeditions as we dig deeper into the world of paranormal and conduct research to document more information about the places we explore, in an attempt to bring everyone a better understanding of the place and stories being told.
In the meantime, we leave you with your thoughts of our exploration trip at Sungei Api Api this time around. Remember: be open and stay objective while being curious! Signing off for GHOST Club SG.
