There's something particularly eerie about an abandoned shopping mall.
Perhaps it's the stark contrast from its intended purpose: to see such a
sterile place once designed to entice throngs of shoppers into its
doors, now so completely devoid of any human life, dilapidated and
darkened with time.
It's basically the very definition of
post-apocalyptic. But in the case of the (now ironically named) New
World shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, abandonment by humans doesn't
equate with lifelessness. The mall, which reportedly caught fire in 1999
(rumored to be arson by a competitor), has since flooded with several
feet of water and become a paradise for koi and catfish.As seen in these
photos from chef / travel writer Jesse Rockwell, the resulting "urban
aquarium" is at once delightful and surreal.
Rockwell writes on
his travel, photography, and food blog A Taste of The Road that someone
deliberately introduced the fish into the vacant mall, but that locals
in Bangkok's old town "discourage people from visiting it." He says he
had to wait for a policeman to leave before entering, which makes his
resulting images all the more breathtaking.
/TheVerge.Com/