The Snake Farm

My Dutch friends from Mae Sot are flying back to the Netherlands this week for the next seven months. They spent the last week in Bangkok, so on Sunday, my boss Geoffrey and I met them for lunch at Central Chidlom Food Loft, Geoffrey's favorite restaurant. It's where he takes all the new teachers the first weekend after the arrive in Thailand, and it's incidentally where I took my family for their first dinner in Bangkok.

But I was up early on Sunday morning, so I decided to head downtown to Christchurch for the 7:30 service. After breakfast at the church and coffee at Cafe D'Oro, there were still a few hours before we were supposed to meet Martien and Gerda. To pass the time, Geoffrey and I decided to head over to the Bangkok Snake Farm.

Thai Red Cross HQ

I've never been overly fond of snakes, but I'm at the same time fascinated by them. The Snake Farm is based at Thai Red Cross HQ, and is the biggest antivenin research and production facility in southeast Asia.

Geoffrey antagonizing a king cobra

We got there just in time to watch the morning show. Parts of the show made me super nervous to watch, because all of the snakes they show are extremely venomous; they all have their venom glands and fangs, because they are milked of their venom at this facility in order to produce the antivenin. At one point, one handler tried to manage two cobras, while another calmly told facts about the snakes.

two cobras at the snake show

I've been lucky not to have run into these snakes, which the handlers told us live in Bangkok. Suzie, who works in my office, told us that twice she's found highly venomous green vipers in her flower garden in Bangkok, and that the province just north of her home has been having trouble with cobras recently. That's just part of living in the tropics though. It makes me feel a lot better knowing that they are constantly researching and producing so much antivenin here in Bangkok.

a deadly green viper

Of course, you've got to take the classic Burmese python photo. Surely this was one of the best pictures taken at the Snake Farm:

one of my finer moments