Haw Par Villa, a Theme Park from the Past

Which theme park in Singapore doesn’t have rides but can still make you scream?

Haw Par Villa!

Alright, it won’t technically make you scream (unless you’re that much of a scaredy-cat), but the park doesn’t have rides. It did once in the 90s but the rides got shut down amfter a change of management to the Singapore Tourism Board! Now, it’s more of a tourist attraction than a theme park.

And it’s one that will make you go, “Huh?”.

Thank goodness there are plenty of signboards around with explanations of the various statues and tableaux of Chinese fables and idioms.

There are some scenes without explanations though. So we made up our own stories about them!

The star of Haw Par Villa is notably the ‘Ten Courts of Hell’, where you get to walk through the, erm, 10 courts of Hell.

Scenes depict how people are punished for various crimes from the trivial like cheating in exams to the most serious like murder. They’re quite gory so I don’t recommend bringing kids too young lest they get nightmares! Unless, of course, that’s your intention so they’ll be scared to cause any trouble in future!

You can read more about the different punishments here.

Haw Par Villa is located at 262 Pasir Panjang Road, S(118628), and last entrance to the park is at 6pm. The ‘Haw Par Villa’ station is directly outside the attraction. If you’re driving, the carpark entrance is $5 no matter how long you park for.