North Korea is an enigmatic country with many strange
things inside it they have room 39 which prints counterfeit money they have a
mysterious land hotel which has been empty for decades
but the weirdest thing in the country has to be their floating hotel this
hotel has likely traveled more than you have
in total it's moved 14,000 kilometers in seas all over the world
it was designed in sweden built in singapore and then moved to australia
it was then moved to vietnam and later on north korea but
why is this amazing and massive hotel abandoned in the north korean sea today
well it started back in 1988 with an australian man
named doug taka he lived in townsville australia which is off the coast of the
great barrier reef the great barrier reef is a very popular
tourist destination but doug wanted more people to visit
townfield so he came up with an idea he wanted something innovative and
original which used the beautiful great barrier reef
at first he thought he could permanently dock three cruise ships on the pier
basically using three cruise ships to create a floating city
but he later decided this idea was way too difficult and
scrapped it so logically he replaced it with an even more complex idea
this was a floating hotel now you may be thinking that already exists
and it's called a cruise ship but doug would beg to differ
he said that his floating hotel would not move around like a cruise ship
instead it would stay in one place and with that the floating hotel was
born the hotel was gigantic at 90 meters long it was also
seven stories it would stay stationary on the great
barrier reef but it was built so that it could be moved if it needed to be with a
carrier ship it was designed by an innovative company
in sweden slightly more difficult to put together than ikea furniture
but for a long time there was a big issue as to who could actually build a
floating hotel eventually they found a singapore
company which built offshore living quarters for oil rigs
eventually doug came to an agreement with the singapore company and the hotel
was built for 20 million dollars adjusted for inflation that's over 44
million us dollars after it was built a carrier ship towed
the hotel from singapore to australia large anchors were then connected to the
hotel and it stayed in place and with that the four seasons barrier
reef resort was ready to open the inside of the building had 200 hotel
rooms everything inside was furnished in a very luxurious manner
inside there were discos nightclubs gyms and saunas there were
also many bars restaurants and a library too
there was a conference center for businesses and a 100 seat movie theater
outside was also a helipad and a tennis court there were diving boards if you
wanted to swim in the ocean and there was also a gigantic swimming pool too
one room of the hotel had a glass floor so that you can see the great barrier
reef without leaving the hotel glass floor boats were also used to get
great views of the coral and with the two restaurants in the
hotel you could even eat the fish that you were standing on moments ago
but before the hotel even opened there were some factors which made it very
expensive for one there was a contractor speed
with the singapore company that built the hotel
this delayed building by half a year and when the hotel got to australia a
cyclone hit it was named cyclone charlie and i
promise i'm not responsible it caused quite a lot of damage to the hotel
this lost the hotel owners millions of dollars and it meant that when the hotel
opened in 1988 the ticket prices were steep
one night in the hotel would cost anywhere from five hundred and fifty
dollars to one thousand one hundred dollars per night
the operating costs of a hotel were also gigantic
cruise ships can dock on land which means they can bring things onto the
ship easily but any items or people brought
onto the hotel had to be done using boats or helicopters
because the hotel was located on the great barrier reef they also had lots of
regulations they had to abide by all sewage and waste had to be dumped
out miles away from the hotel and all trash had to be burned and then
moved to the mainland the hotel was even made to have a marine
research lab on board this was where they would study seabird
poop and this was to prove that the hotel was not feeding scraps to local
birds the transportation costs alone were
astronomical the hotel was located about 45 miles or
70 kilometers from the mainland and just to get to the hotel by boat
would cost you 120 and it would also take an hour and a
half one way or if you were richie you could pay 325
for a 20 minute helicopter ride to the hotel because of this
bad weather storms and high turbulence made many people have to cancel their
trips once one of the boats carrying
passengers even caught fire and many were injured
the best thing about the hotel was the coral reef that you could see from it
but within one year 95 percent of that was gone
that's because it had been eaten by crown of thorns starfish
but in september of the year it opened 1988 it already had to shut down
this was because world war ii ammunition was found underneath the hotel
up until 1950 it was legal to dump live ammo into australian waters
but when scuba divers found 100 tons of world war ii ammo including anti-tank
missiles the hotel had to close the hotel then sold up and it was moved
to ho chi minh city in vietnam at the time vietnam had almost no luxury
hotels so it was a massive hit and in 1989 the
saigon floating hotel finally opened up it was total luxury and had over 400
staff the hotel would charge 350 us dollars
per room per night at the time that was the average annual
salary of someone in vietnam but eventually other hotels began renovating
in vietnam and once the floating hotel or the
floater as it was known was no longer the only luxury hotel attendance dropped
so that's why the hotel was sold again and it was moved to the unlikely
location of north korea it was renamed hotel hey gum
gang and it was located on waters near the
demilitarized zone between south and north korea it opened in 1998
when relations between the two countries were
healing many people stayed at the hotel and it was also a place where north and
south korean families who were divided by the korean war could reunite
but that was until 2008 when a south korean was taken out by a north korean
this was when a south korean woman accidentally went into a militarized
zone a north korean soldier then fired at her this led to south korea ceasing
all tours in the region and the hotel became abandoned
the hotel now sits decaying in north korean waters
in 2019 kim jong-un visited the hotel he said the building looked ugly and had
no national character he also said it was not cared for i
wonder why eventually he passed a law demanding the demolition of unpleasant
buildings including this hotel but in 2020 this still has not happened
you can actually still see the hotel on google earth
and that's why north korea has an abandoned floating hotel but now it's
time to make your voice heard comment whether or not you would stay in
this floating hotel if you want some more amazing videos then check out my
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