Haw Par villa

I had heard about Haw Par villa from my previous boss Tsin, who regaled me with tales of when he was taken there by his parents as a child in the 70s, when the place was all the rage for scaring kids into shape. Particularly gross sounding was the ten levels of hell, I knew I had to check it out for myself!

Built by the Tiger balm brothers (yes, the folks who invented tiger balm), it is a strange sort of Buddhist / Chinese theme park, where there were no rollercoasters but ethical and moral dioramas taken from old Chinese stories. As Singapore became more developed, it became less and less of a tourist attraction, slowly crumbling away in the south western corner of Singapore.

I was surprised to find that the new MRT line actually had a Haw Par villa station - I think it was meant to be. Some effort had obviously gone into restoring the place in recent years, and there were a fair number of families with little kids wandering around on the Saturday morning that I visited.

Most of the park consists of story dioramas and a really random assortment of statues which are just dotted around the place. Some of the staircases are fashioned into waves or caves and it was sort of eerie to walk around amongst these plaster statues that were built almost a century ago.

I had a great deal of fun making up captions for some of these dioramas:

Yellow and red don't go together!

Life is more fun with three!

You never know what skimpily dressed woman you might find inside a giant clam shell

 
There was also the most bizarre animal park, where three giant gorillas (about twice my size) sat down one side on a fake log, and the rest of the park was dotted with scared looking animals including some real menacing looking kangaroos (!), a few kiwis pecking at the lawn and this tree of koalas.

A few monuments to the Aw (Tiger balm) family were scattered around the park, and the centre of attention was this lake filled with turtles.

Other surprise finds included the weirdest diorama of a badger hospital (this badger doctor is obviously a vampire)

And also this Tiger car, I guess it'd be hard to lose in a carpark!

But of course the real attraction was the Ten Levels of Hell, which was inside a dark building of its own. It was barely lit inside by a dim red glow, which made everything look extra bloody. I think the sign outside warning that the place is PG should probably be extended to adults, especially after I'd read that being stuck on a mountain of knives is punishment for tax evasion!

It's so oddball that it's almost not gory, but there sure was a lot of blood in hell...

The solution? Well, one could dance around some Tiger balm 

or alternatively just follow this helpful plaque at the exit (topped by a skull with daggers coming out of its eyes): The sea of suffering is endless, just turn around and the shore is there.

What a weird place. I loved it!