A Floating Head with Dangling Entrails — the Southeast Asian Krasue

The delightfully gory female spirits look normal by day, but at night…

As a journalist in Bangkok I was given a lot of articles to write on a wide variety of topics. But an 800-word piece about Thai ghosts fascinated me so much that I ended up writing a short book about them.

The following is an excerpt from my book Haunted Thailand: Ghosts and Spirits in the Land of Smiles, which, as you may have guessed, is about ghosts, spirits, demons and the folklore of Thailand and Southeast Asia. Thais love a good ghost story, and the following is particularly gory and fun.

(Side note — I still mostly live in Thailand, and Thai friends loved this. I am not disrespecting anyone, I just enjoy a good tale.)

Some of the following is a little unsavoury. Enjoy.

A Krasue, sometimes called Pii Krasue, is a spirit that haunts most of Southeast Asia. It has also been the subject of numerous films that occasionally try and give a bit of backstory - but generally speaking, any woman can become a Krasue if they are not careful. The Krasue (which is the Thai name) doesn’t just hang around Thailand. It is feared around the entirety of Southeast Asia under a variety of names, including Ahp in Cambodia and…