8 min read

Kellie’s Castle

Somewhere in the state of Perak, Malaysia, lies a half-built castle known as Kellie’s Castle. On the last trip to Malaysia, since we were driving to Sitiawan, the parents decided to stop over to see this so called “tourist attraction” or “haunted castle”. On Wikipedia, it says that this was an overambitious building project from the 1900s by a William Kellie Smith, a Scottish civil engineer who died in 1926 and then his whole family abandoned everything here and went back to Scotland, leaving the ruins behind.

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We got there and before ascending the tiny hill we decided to look for a washroom first. Next to this huge sign was a building with a sign that said TOILETS. Now I do not have any pictures of this, but I went inside this darkened, powerless building and discovered a scene of absolute horror, various horrifying smears including an open baby’s diaper with indistinct dark masses in it. Needless to say I did not stay long to document this visually or to further investigate this perplexing situation. Upon exiting this “toilet”, a few steps away, I saw ANOTHER toilet sign looming in the distance. Fortunately, this time, it was the actual toilet.

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Many people stop here because there is nothing else in the area to stop at. Its also on this big map of attractions in the area, so I suppose that many hapless people traveling through these parts look at the official maps and think, “Meh, what else is there to see here since I’m here in this godforsaken place? What, did you say there was an incomplete, half-assed attempt at building a castle on a hill? And there’s nothing else for miles? Okay I guess I’ll visit the Castle…” This is more or less the same reasoning that led us to Kellie’s Castle on that fateful day.

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We were charged a nominal RM7 because we were considered to be “international visitors” which is another word for “SUCKERS AND TOURISTS”.

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When you finally get to the top, you will soon realise that it isn’t very big to begin with.

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As you can see, Kellie’s Castle is basically a very modest sized castle accompanied by some ruins.

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The people conserving the place have made a good attempt at making some signage explaining to site to visitors. But all things considered, its mainly a pile of slightly old rocks. Not really old even, but slightly old I guess. It is maybe slightly more than a hundred years old. That’s nothing in the scheme of things. Even the building in Rowell Road was older than this.

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One of the first signs that I saw there was this thing on the corridor. Unfortunately, after I saw this, I could not unsee it. My eyes were rolling constantly after this. Yes, it has that kind of effect on one. In case you cannot read it clearly, I have typed it out here so you can share in that eye-rolling experience.

“GHOSTLY CLOISTER BALCONY”

William Kellie Smith died of pneumonia in Lisbon, Portugal, and was buried in the British Cemetery. Nevertheless, it is said that his spirit roams at night, especially the corridors, guarding his great mansion.

“Oh right so Kellie died in Portugal after a perfunctory ailment but still comes back to visit Perak all the time at the spot where he spent a little bit of time building some half-assed castle.”

But the next sign was to be even more mystifying…

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“Oh, hmm, how interesting, a European couple from Canada? Visiting a castle built by a Scottish man who died in Portugal? Hm. Yeah. Mysterious. Very mysterious.”

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And this one absolutely takes the cake.

“Ghost of a child who LEFT Perak at age 6 to presumably lead a long and unremarkable life elsewhere, coming back to Perak to haunt a castle that she has never seen since then? OH RIGHT! TOTALLY! MAKES SENSE! I READ IT FROM SOME ANONYMOUS PERSON’S ACCOUNT ON SOME BLOG ON THE INTERNET, SO IT MUST BE TOTALLY TRUE! LETS PRINT IT ONTO A METAL SIGNBOARD RIGHT NOW!”

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Depressed by the signboards, I stopped reading them. I went outside and tried to kick this “wooden dustbin”, but it was made of concrete.

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There was a mysterious thing with blank sign. How sad, now we will never know what this is.

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I found a dead bat on a window sill. I guess it just died of old age, or from the perishing embarrassment being a serious bat living in a not-really-haunted castle. Who knows, bats, and what they think.

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From a distance I saw an interesting assemblage of things.

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When I got close up, it said “BEAR”. I think this was the highlight of my trip there.

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For shame, even the dustbins are trying to escape.

Debbie’s Review of Kellie’s Castle:
“A whole load of baby’s shit.”


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Oh and on the way out we passed the Hindu temple which William Kellie Smith was said to have contributed towards building because during the construction of his Castle, his indian workmen were struck down by the Spanish Flu.

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For his contributions towards their temple, they made a little statue of him besides the other deities standing on top of the temple wall. Cute stuff.