The Diplomat Hotel is one of Baguio's darker locations.  It sits atop the Dominican hill, one of the higher parts of the Baguio.  Reportedly haunted, the abandoned hotel looms ominously over the city. 

The structure has a long history associated with it. The Dominicans, intending it as a rest house, completed it in 1915. It was then converted to a school, and then back to a vacation house. The hauntings, supposedly started when the building was used as a shelter and was bombed, killing a number of persons inside it, during the second world war.

By 1973, a local faith healer rebuilt the place and renamed it Diplomat Hotel, using it as lodging for his foreign clientele that consults him for healing. After his death, the place was abandoned.

Researching the place, we decided to check the place out just before the sun rises hoping to catch it enveloped in mysterious frosty mist.  The road was still dark and the taxi we rode in was zigzagging along the upward path to the abandoned hotel.

5:30am, our cab quickly dropped us off in front of the Hotel’s gate and zoomed back down the hill as if hurrying to get out of the area. The streets were deserted and the place was still dark, no hint of the comforting sun on the horizon.

Unfortunately the gate of the Diplomat was still closed at that moment.  To bide the time, we camped on a radio station nearby.  The music coming from the outside speakers of the local jazz station helped eased our tension a bit.

Once the gate was unlocked, the guard on duty asked us not to wander upstairs especially if we have a third eye.  According to him, accidents sometimes occur especially to those that can see.

The Hotel is totally abandoned. The exterior wall paints are peeling. Doors are totally non-existent and all the windows are broken. The interiors are stripped bare. There are no tiles on the floor, the wall finishes stripped, the ceiling bare.

On both sides of the main hall are two courtyards guarded by crumbling angel statues atop on what used to be fountains.  On one side of the lobby looms the spiral staircase leading to the rooms upstairs.  The place is deathly still, the only thing you can hear are your echoing footsteps, the wind passing through the hollows of the windows, and an occasional chirping from the birds that made the hotel their home.

However, far from my expectations and what I have read on the various pieces written about the Diplomat Hotel; the place does not seem haunted at all.  Although it does give a sense of creepiness especially when you’re all alone inside; I did not experience anything out of the ordinary.  I did give heed to the guard's advice though and did not foray along the second floor of the hotel.  Better safe than sorry I guess hehe.

The Diplomat Hotel may have had its share of dark past, but it seems that the spirits lingering at this place has now gone past. The place seems peaceful as warm morning sunlight filters in through its many broken windows. Of course I say this now since we visited the place during the bright morning hours, but it may be another matter entirely once the sun sets down and darkness starts to envelope its many abandoned rooms one by one.

I dare not enter this place after dusk.

   

        PART OF A 3-DAY BAGUIO SERIES
        BURNHAM PARK | PIZZA VOLANTE | UKAY UKAY | OH MY GULAY! | THE DIPLOMAT HOTEL | BENCAB MUSEUM 
        MINES VIEW PARK | CAMP JOHN HAY | FOREST HOUSE BISTRO & CAFE | STARBUCKS COFFEE AT CAMP JOHN HAY