Kellie's Castle

When traveling, I like taking the chance to do and see things I'd never get to do and see at home. Makes sense, right?  On this trip, I visited Kellie's Castle for the first time. Now, it may very well be that there are broken down mansions from the early 1900s scattered throughout the United States of America. It may very well be that the current owners of such mansions have realized  that such broken down mansions could provide them with a steady profit if they started letting visitors in for a fee. And yet somehow I doubt that any versions of Kellie's Castle in the United States would seem like quite the same thing. I can imagine taking a tour of an old, neglected mansion in the US--I can imagine that you would have to follow a tour guide on a predetermined tour route. The tour guide might point out a secret passageway or a hidden staircase, but you probably wouldn't actually be able to walk in it (the secret staircases are such a liability for falls, being that they have no lights, and all). There probably wouldn't be dead bats lying around, and you probably wouldn't be allowed to climb up five stories and wander around on the railing-free roof. I wouldn't mind someday touring an old, neglected mansion in America...but Kellie's Castle is simply something different. I wanted someone to take a picture of a sign prominently displayed on a wall in the castle, but neither of my photographers did. The sign said, "The construction of this castle was never fully completed, so safety features were never installed. Please take care of your own safety."
I think that sign rather epitomized the Kellie's Castle experience. We discussed at the time how, actually, we probably wouldn't have gotten along too well with William Kellie Smith, the man behind the castle, because from the stories we read, he seems rather like the kind of expat we dislike the most, but we appreciated the adventure his house offered us.
Interesting fact: Part of the movie Anna and the King was filmed in Kellie's Castle, and, in further interesting notes, the real Anna and Thomas Leonowens of The King and I fame lived in Malaysia once upon a time, and last week, we visited the Catholic cemetery when Thomas Leonowens was buried. Sorry, no pictures of that.