Abandoned Unique Islands & Haunted Ghost Tower in Bangkok | Mystery Places | Free Documentary

[Music] [Music] so [Music] our journey begins in hong kong in south korea we are about 100 kilometers east of seoul there is supposed to be an unusual prison koreans go here out of their own free will into tiny cells without any contact to the outside world do they want to punish themselves what secret is behind this prison in a luxury van a prison employee brings the new inmates we are meeting naman a 51 year old korean from seoul three days of prison lie ahead of him out of his own free will hello hello hi i'm really hi how are you thank you yeah how are you doing right now how are you really good i'm good happy yeah the inmates are issued with uniforms just like in a prison so to speak they have to sign up and get changed so this is really not a joke everywhere there are cameras what is naman doing here why am i here to put myself actually my body into the prison [Music] right not an explanation but at least this really seems to be voluntary the inmates pack their possessions into special jute bags no letter [Music] and the others have to hand in their phones an employee locks them away for three days i'm not not allowed to use my phone so anything might happen but i have to accept it it is friday 4 sees his room for the first time or to be more precise his cell 28 of these are next to each other here all furnished rather simply so this is going to be your new home yeah my prison what do you think about it the a little narrow though is good to me and where is the bed in the wardrobe naman finds a thin mattress i can put this here this is my bed the other inmates too are moving into their cells all the rooms are only five square meters plus a small toilet but why are the rooms so small the inventor of this voluntary prison explains [Music] this sounds almost a bit like a detoxification center prison boss guan shows us the garden the 51 year old has fulfilled his big dream with this prison he used to be a state prosecutor but why did he have the dream of building his own [Music] the working world is strictly hierarchical and 15-hour working days are the norm the inmates are escaping this stress here i have nothing to hear nothing to think about my life my wife my family anything just think about pure ingredients in my mind myself and so that this really works the hotel manager and the boss's wife lock naman and the others in at 5 pm on the dot the doors are bolted shut also lets himself get locked in by his own wife isn't that a bit strange locking up your own husband for the next 21 hours naman will stay in this 5 square meter small room without any connection to the outside world without any distractions in complete silence will he really feel better tomorrow in a way he wants to force himself to let go of the hectic city life and finally relax just before six in the morning we have arranged to meet here but everything seems to be shut but manager min ho is already up so that he can wake the inmates there is no sleeping in here at the anti-stress prison but at least minho wakes everybody gently he does so on purpose [Music] begins with making tea and meditation exercise how he is feeling we don't know he is and will be without contact to the outside world for a while longer we look around a bit more onokwan has created a real oasis of peace here for two million dollars only in the kitchen there is life it seems to be time for breakfast soon but the food on offer looks very healthy rice porridge with spicy cucumber and pickled vegetables and the portions are pretty small for a reason [Music] to get breakfast is served by the boss's wife through a small opening in the door another four hours are ahead of the inmates of doing nothing can this really lift a person's mood being locked up for 21 hours [Music] at 2pm the doors are opened the inmates go outside immediately the first fresh air after 21 hours inside a tiny room this is really uncomfortable place i have no freedom inside that room actually i don't like it if any one of us say is i'm happy inside this prison many people will not agree i will not agree with that too but this experience precisely made me happier outside i'm happy just by standing here and looking at that just be and exactly that is the concept of the prison when you make overworked people calm down and cut them off from the outside world they are forced to concentrate on the essential things [Music] they have three hours before it's back into the cells and they spend the time gardening voluntarily even weeding the potato fields seems to make them happy [Music] happy or not at 5 00 pm it's back to the cells the inmates pay about 130 for two nights and three days a prison for de-stressing and to become happy at least for the overworked koreans it seems to be working [Music] we are leaving south korea and move on to the ila mujeres in mexico off the coast here a man has realized his dream of his own island [Music] but he didn't buy it no he built it the dropout richard sower has been living in mexico for 15 years and for the same amount of time he has been working on his lifetime project well we have a lot of trash around the world building up more and more and it's polluting the oceans and everywhere and i came up with this idea because i really believe it's the solution to actually creating more land that's green the trash becomes the treasure empty plastic bottles a treasure for the 59 year old they are what other people just throw away is the basis for his island joycy island richard came up with the name himself for four years he's been working on the 20 times 30 meter large plastic platform by the way officially it is classified as a boat 150 000 plastic bottles fastened to wooden planks give it buoyance on top of that plywood cloth and sand garbage walls insulate the house the roots of the mangroves are intertwining with everything over time and are holding everything together joycey island is richard's third island hurricanes had destroyed the previous ones but richard keeps continuing he is convinced of his idea [Music] these bottles are totally preserved when they're underneath the water when i turn this pallet over and there's no sunlight getting in the bottles are totally preserved they can last for hundreds or maybe thousands of years richard's goal to build ecologically the most important thing is that the bottles are not damaged and also properly closed the fruit sacks stop them from floating away and really waste is turned into new living space this way so this is a bottle that came out only after a couple of months and it's got corals growing on it look so the corals grow over the whole thing and it becomes encapsulated and like mummified right so everything is totally preserved once in a while richard has to do some maintenance and put in some more bottles then i get my fork and i push it under especially after it has rained then the sand and the house get very heavy and the island sinks down by up to 10 centimeters for richard this often feels like sisyphus work [Music] the trained carpenter also built the house himself richard lives by himself and he rarely sees his four children who are back in england instead he is living his dream of a 100 percent self-sufficient island with the sawdust on here on top of a cloth this opens the cloth and allows it to go through with the weight it's pushing through this cloth the excrement goes down to the garden with the shavings and is composting for the roots of the mangroves and then when it piles up too high i take it out when it's turned to real soil and i take it around and it feeds the plants like real great fertilizer the locals tolerate richard he's allowed to moor in the bay free of charge lucky for richard as in his job as a street musician he doesn't make a lot of money and his income is also very irregular [Music] so this is so this is the little pathway going down and these are few different plants growing out from all the trash that doesn't float so like glass bottles aluminium cans plastic bags cardboard carton one day richard wants to go out into the open sea with his plastic bottle island but that might still take a while we continue in greenland the biggest island in the world it is almost completely covered in a layer of ice farming fruit vegetables not a chance but still people live here in the one thousand people strong village of tasilak we're meeting inuit julius on his daily food procurement this multiyard no not so many of seals there are many better hunting places in uh far away it will come to 45 kilometers from here only in the summer months to ships or helicopters bring imported foods from denmark the only own source of nourishment for the inuit is what they can catch themselves but even for most fish the water north of the arctic circle is too cold some many times we need to make five holes to find the fishes and when we find them good changes to cuts but like so often julius doesn't catch anything no fish will bite in order to feed his wife his four children and his in-laws he has to continue further into the icy desert to catch seals you need to know what you do you need to know a lot of nature about about the about the area and the ice conditions so yeah it's dangerous because we need we every time we need to come out from the from the village or city so that's why it's dangerous if something were to happen to an inuit out here he would be as good as dead only a couple of weeks ago julius's best friend passed away out here how this happened nobody knows but still julius comes out here all by himself every day we fall if i fall down to the water i need to come up very fast because the feeling of the cold it's extreme it's like a thousand thousand of small moons sticking in the body it's uh it's dangerous no radio no electricity no mobile phone mast if you go hunting in this wasteland you are completely on your own i see a seal in this direction far away ah right we can't see anything not even using the binoculars we can catch a glimpse of what julius has discovered with his naked eye if you haven't learned to hunt like an inuit in your childhood out here by yourself you would starve without a doubt but the inuit and the inhabitants of greenland didn't have any other chance to survive if they don't catch a seal or some fish there is nothing to eat seeing a seal doesn't mean that you will catch it they are extremely shy and very fast the white suit is supposed to help not scare the prey away ah [ __ ] missed and the chances of finding two seals in one day are more than slim the view was too close it's just from there the seal was here and the ball come up there by now it's the afternoon and still hunter julius hasn't caught any food for his wife and children on the biggest island in the world if he doesn't find something soon the table will stay empty tonight it's always 50 50 to find the seals only the indigenous people of greenland may hunt as many seals as they want for their personal requirements this is permitted by law as there obviously aren't that many alternatives [Music] against all odds julius actually finds another seal in the late afternoon [Music] this time it's a hit the animal is dead immediately the inuit use every part of the seal from the meat to the fur we have some food for dinner tonight despite the ice the cold and the loneliness julius never wants to leave here again [Music] i leave denmark in in denmark but it was enough so east queensland are my home that's here i feel home maybe 10 years more i will think other ways but now i feel home here if you live in such a hostile environment you have to stick together i give this some of meat for local some of logan people they need there are some friends and they don't cut a seal today so that's why everyone takes care of each other the best parts for the family the bones for the dogs this way the inuit have provided for themselves for centuries on this hostile island for us our journey continues off the coast of nagasaki it is five o'clock in the morning captain boba san is getting his boat ready for a trip to the former coal island gunkantshima whenever the rough seas permitted he takes the historian dotuku sakamoto back to his former home [Music] forty years ago about five thousand people inhabited the island which is as big as eight football fields but one day the residents had to leave the island visiting his former home is always difficult for dodoku [Music] young the abandoned houses in the north of the island have been in danger of collapsing for 10 years therefore access is strictly prohibited visitors may only go to the south of the island we try to land in the south of gunkanchima but no chance the waves are simply too high but dutoku knows a secret mooring place on the north side in the restricted zone here the sea is much calmer futoku wants to walk to the south from here [Music] we accompany him and film without an official permit the japanese call it the island of ghosts dutoku tries to calm the ghosts of the town with holy water and a prayer he is the only former resident who is allowed to enter the exclusion zone and also the only person that wants to for the others it is too sad and too creepy for decades typhoons are sweeping over the unprotected island and the water masses are slowly washing everything away the ruins of a once flourishing mining town with over 5 000 inhabitants a school and a hospital is fighting for the recognition of the island by unesco as a world heritage site a memorial against exploitation of resources we leave gunkan chima and travel on to bangkok at 17 million visitors per year it is the metropolis of southeast asia the many temples of the city are part of every sightseeing tour and a visit to the infamous khaosan road is an absolute must but we are looking for bangkok's most notorious attraction the ghost tower at one of the best addresses in bangkok the saturn unique tower stands at 49 stories high but why is there a haunted house in one of the most expensive areas of the mega city [Music] the haunted tower has a twin that houses mainly luxury apartments and offices and was also used as a set for the hollywood blockbuster hangover too the ghost tower itself is still just the shell it is closed off and guarded around the clock still many try to access it somehow the sign clearly states photography filming and entering strictly prohibited but why is the 185 meter high apartment building in one of the best areas [Music] empty in 1997 thailand experienced a serious economic crisis and dragged the surrounding countries down with it the type art lost 40 percent of its value within a very short period of time more than 300 building sites in bangkok ground to a halt back then the ghost tower was one of them we are meeting a couple that prefer not to be recognized they have found a way into the tower [Music] as it seems to be tolerated at the moment we enter the carcass of the building but soon we face the next obstacle steel doors [Music] the view of bangkok from above is what drives the two adrenaline junkies up to the top the pictures will later be uploaded to facebook as proof the couple are in luck with a ladder they can bypass the steel doors but they aren't completely comfortable as in these shafts five men are said to have died during the construction bring water a good tip the pair have brought two bottles per person not even halfway and the adventurers have already worked up quite a sweat but for this view it is all worth it but they don't take a lot of time to rest it is too eerie in the dark stairwell i feel like i'm scared a swedish guy committed suicide here on this floor the night when one photographer went up there and took photos and on his way down he smelled something and he sort of followed the smell and he said that he hurt or he felt something calling him so he walked on the floor and then that's how he found the body as if this wasn't enough the young woman tells us that the tower was built on an old graveyard the legend says that the ghosts of the dead still haunt the building therefore the name ghost tower even though the two don't really believe in ghosts the countless horror stories that they have heard about this place do give them the creeps but then it is finally done the ascent took a whole 45 minutes will the tower ever be finished no one knows as the building shows some serious construction defects that would make a further development extremely expensive therefore the ghost tower of bangkok will probably stay this way for some years to come but it should definitely not be climbed [Music] we leave the thai capital and move on to iceland iceland the remote volcanic island in the icc has the reputation of producing the strongest humans on earth and this since the age of the vikings with the successes of their strong men the icelanders have proved that they are true giants what are they doing different to the others we set out to discover this secret [Music] we are in the so-called nest of giants the owner magnus bear magnuson is four times the winner of the title strongest man in the world there's no point giving these crazy guys new equipment they'll make it look old very fast i'm actually a mechanic welder that's what i learned in in profession so uh i met i know how to build stuff out of metal wood whatever this here has nothing to do with the gym as we know it here only training equipment for real men can be found made from steel and concrete as big and as heavy as possible i designed this thing to look like a mooring bit you have to pick this up and and walk with it [Music] and the only way to uh you know basically make it get to be a good strongman and everything i believe is you know you have to have that hardcore gym the hardcore surrounding but it doesn't matter how you dress it's how much you lift [Music] iceland's giants train daily at magnus's gym this is arygon he's another strongman here so this is the mecca of strongman he will go to train harry is a professional heavy athlete and is officially among the strongest man in iceland therefore also in the world he only trains here nowhere else is there a studio of this kind that is especially equipped for the strongman disciplines and a human body so it's amazing this competitive discipline is called the farmer's walk harry has to walk as far as possible as quickly as possible with two huge 150 kilo weights in his hands then it is the cameraman's turn do you want to try it challenge accepted 150 kilos per hand no problem for the 2 meter tall cameraman right when the professionals do it it looks so easy at least he earns harry's respect but back to the pros they are currently training for the next world championship we are only three hundred thirty thousand and we have eight whole strongest man titles i think that's pretty unique the extremely tough training and the high level of performance at the giant's nest makes the icelanders so strong but this could be applicable to strong men in other countries too we want to understand more precisely what is behind the incredible strength of the icelanders we ask around in iceland's capital reykjavik the question what makes you so strong i don't know maybe [Music] on a building site we get another tip eat meat and work every day you're waiting your writings the most typical answer would be that we are like vikings many icelanders still see themselves as vikings we want to find out more about this and arrange to meet magnus he takes us to an especially mythical place it's uh it's like a sacred place and there's a big rock you always go there and pay your respects magnus leads us to a remote graveyard one hour away from reykjavik here a famous viking is said to be buried [Applause] iceland was a very hard country to settle in and to you know live in you know only the uh strongest and toughest survived the other ones died and i think that's one of the heritage that [Applause] makes people strong do you also recognize yourself as a viking still or i'm i'm i'm a viking yes everybody that's you know comes from long old families they come from the vikings a real viking was also iceland's first famous strong man [Music] to me and many others you know john paul sigmarzon was like the pioneer uh icelanders in in world strongest man and in the strongman i'm a viking of iceland [Applause] he made the icelandic strongmen famous in the 1980s he won many world championships you know i i actually like the old old traditional kind of viking thing with strongmen they were lifting big rocks uh and even in the older days over here when uh you had to go to be a fishing man you had to prove yourself they had you know a couple of rocks laying around and if you couldn't lift lift the the big rock you were not allowed on your boat you couldn't become a fisherman to summarize viking culture and the hard living conditions on the harsh volcanic island make the icelanders strong but what does this mean for the daily lives of the men we are allowed to accompany strong man ari to his job oh this is fine brother you're supposed to be walking tonight so this is a footwear for me [Music] ari may be one of the strongest men in the world but unfortunately he can't make a living from it would be a dream come true if i just lived on a strong man but it's very hard in iceland so small country and small population so it's it is what it is we just have to do it being a strong man in iceland doesn't only cost a lot of strength but also a lot of money and for this arri has to like any other person work his super strength here is only good for the amusement of his colleagues this is the first time of the day for her yeah [Laughter] she always hangs out and waiting for me the giant works as a lifeguard at a small swimming pool in the center of reykjavik his job to sit at the side of the pool for 10 hours and watch the swimmers my life is pretty simple i work here in the doorman and i have three kids and a wife it's just the simple ring that i do so i like what i do harry's highlight in eight years he once saved a man from drowning but mostly he tells us it is very quiet here at least he can recuperate here the hard training and the competition don't pass by the giant without leaving their marks i tore my back when i was taking bench press i tore it and it's like a big hole here [Music] and then i tore my bicep tent on here i was i was flipping tire 400 kilos and i had to go to surgery and recover from that so it's not always sunshine but you know you have to step down and to recover from it you have to work through the injuries and then just come back and fight again ahri doesn't only have the strength to lift hundreds of kilograms of steel but also the willpower to do so and a stoic tranquility about him is there something else behind the strength of the icelanders probably just cook good food natural food lizzy drink easy probably because of the lisi lisi is that a secret magic potion it's the icelandic easy this is the leasif and this is made out of like the liver the this is called liver music full day vitamin shot like that and many icelanders have it every day it's made from the livers of cod and other species of fish it contains a lot of nutrients especially iodine and high quantities of vitamin a and d it is very good for the immune system and a strong body [Music] in the evening we're invited to audi's house to have dinner with him and his family in order to keep his body as strong as it is the giant has to consume up to 10 000 calories per day that is about 75 pork chops we are skeptical if he can really achieve this all purely with a healthy diet of course help but we all want ready very good chips [Music] no illnesses so you can always you know people always plan to stare steroids cards so easily people don't know how this works heavy athletes time after time have to battle with doping accusations harry distances himself from this if that really is the truth we cannot tell at least he has a reason [Music] strong man records personal records jim doesn't mean anything this this this matter means everything in life i'll never risk my health imagine them growing up not without me harry's explanation for his superhuman strength so it's a combination of many things but mostly you train eat sleep so the sheer strength of the icelanders has many reasons yeah true viking viking power [Music] the concentration of strong men the incredibly hard training the gravitas of the viking tradition the isolation the harsh living conditions in iceland as well as the amazing willpower of its giants to go right up to their personal boundaries makes the icelanders invincible we leave the isle of the strongmen and travel on to china the province of ching chang covers an area of 1.6 million square kilometers in the capital urunchi we are asking about a mysterious picture three hours later we arrive in anshiihai at the edge of the town a huge canyon and from about a height of 300 metres the picture that we are looking for huge fields of countless chiles [Music] but what are the spicy pods doing here in the middle of nowhere [Music] and who brought them here 20 kilometers on instead of a barren stoney desert chile fields it is autumn and therefore time for the harvest china is the biggest producer of chiles 60 million tons per year that's about 46 percent of the global chile production most of them come from remote regions such as shinshan mawa kyung is the boss here the 28 year old is responsible for 10 fields with a total size of 130 000 square meters it is the biggest it the harvester is only borrowed the price of fifty thousand dollars to buy their own is simply too high for most farmers [Music] 110 horsepower and 3.6 meters of cutting width 10 000 square meters of field in only one hour [Music] but after just half an hour everything suddenly comes to a halt the harvester has broken down very bad news for maui if he doesn't manage to harvest in time the chilis lose spiciness and consequently he loses money the problem in the small town there are only 30 machines in total and all the farmers need to harvest at the same time [Music] his last chance his farmer friends crisis meeting in a close by restaurant because there are so many muslims in the region everything on the menu is halal the speciality of the house oyga chicken with of course lots of chili the hot paprika is the most used spice in the world [Music] chili powder or homemade chili paste in this restaurant there is not one dish without the spicy pods dinner among farmers maui asks for help another four of his ten fields still need to be harvested as quickly as possible luckily his friend is prepared to lend him some migrant workers tomorrow the solidarity among the farmers is [Music] stronger [Music] nine am in one of maui kyung's fields the migrant workers have already been harvesting for three hours by hand twenty workers reap a field of ten thousand square meters in two days in comparison for the harvesting machine it only takes one hour the advantage this way fewer chiles are destroyed and the yield is higher unfortunately the farmers can only employ a certain number of migrant workers the reason political disputes with the chinese government in the region xinjiang is regarded as a conflict area in china still lee comes here from her home village two thousand kilometers away in order to make money she can pick up to three hundred kilos per day [Music] 12 o'clock lunch time as it is too far to go into town maui supplies his workers with food right on the field he is very grateful that his friend has let him borrow his workforce otherwise he could have lost a lot of money [Music] the first part of the chili harvest is completed [Music] after the harvest the chiles go on a small trip 20 kilometers along the b road already along the side of the road everything is red everything here is about chili's about an hour later arrival at the anshihai canyon every couple of minutes a fully loaded tractor arrives migrant workers continuously unload them with pitchforks for 10 hours per day among them yauchou the 58 year old owns a chili farm himself please the number of chili farms has doubled in the last years on the one hand the farmers can support each other on the other the growing supply is making the prices drop [Music] hundreds of workers spread the pods out on the ground the desert climate dries the chiles quickly and makes them keep for longer but there is one more problem the harvester can't remove the stems from the fruit they have to go otherwise the chilies can't be sold but the laborious manual labor doesn't ruin most of the workers appetites [Music] foreign now the chilies have to dry on the hot ground for 10 days every two days the workers shift them about while doing so great care needs to be taken as they may not contain any moisture anymore [Music] farm owner marui kyung regularly checks that his workers are doing a good job after all his yearly income is laid out here in this year the yield was almost 1 000 kilos that makes about 150 000 a lot of money in this region um foreign now we know what these red fields are each year about 200 000 tons of chilis are produced in this region lots of it ends up in factories and then goes to supermarkets all over the world as chili powder paste or as sauce because the spice is growing ever more popular you

Channel: Free Documentary

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), lost places, mystery places, Abandoned places, Abandoned, abandoned house, mysterious places, abandoned buildings, explore with us, abandoned island, strongest man in the world, strongest man, Chili harvesting, abandoned places, ghost tower, haunted tower, ghost tower bangkok

Id: UQgkSJe5wn4

Length: 52min 31sec (3151 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020