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Largest Snake Encountered?


shygye

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Amazing, I rarely visit a national park without seeing at least one.

Well, I do look for them and the missus has a fine tuned eye for spotting them, being born and bred in rural Isan.

Plenty around the adjoining fields and forests of mubaans scattered all over the country.

When I went on a fishing trip with my brother-in-law in Isan during rainy season we spotted 7 although 2 of those were found dead caught in his net in a lake.

 

Largest one was a Python on - of all places - Phuket.

We were travelling at dusk from Patong to Kamala, (before this road was paved).

When we reached the top of the hill there was a log blocking our passage.

As we got closer, the "log" started to slither away.

That was one damn big snake, must have been a python. 4-5 metres long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Biggest one I ever saw was the night I stood next to Lizzard King at the piss trough in No Name Bar

 

 

...Man that thing was as thick as a Tuna can.....and it must have been 8 foot long...

 

He had it wrapped around his neck 3 times....and it was still trying to "eat" the limes from the trough

 

 

LOL

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While living on Koh Phi Phi in 94/95 we used to encounter snakes with some frequency.

 

One of my students had a green tree viper land on the ground behind him just as he walked under a tree. Locals said this is how the snake envenoms its prey, by falling on them with fangs drawn. They said very good luck sign to have snake fall and miss....yeah, good luck sign, sure thing Somchai.

 

The second major encounter occurred when my roommate Tom came running into the dive shop, Sea Frog, yelling that we had a huge snake in the bungalow.

 

It seems he was going into the bathroom around 8pm in the evening and turned on the light, which happened to be a dangling light bulb hanging from the ceiling with a pull chain. Upon pulling the chain he was surprised to see, not without good reason, a very large, black constrictor of some sort lying at his feet. Likely the snake was equally surprised to see him.

 

Off we went back to the bungalow with a stick provided by the Thai staff, who I might add gave very clear instructions to beat said snake to death and then carry the carcass back to the dive shop for the purpose of grilling.

 

Well, said snake was long gone when we arrived and we surmised that it entered through the ceiling, thus laying the plans for a ceiling repair the next day.

 

The third occasion was on a return to the bungalow one night from the dive shop when I was unlocking the door and Tom shown his light on the cinder block wall of our bathroom.

 

His light illuminated a banded krait slithering its way up the wall and then disappearing into a small hole in between the cinder blocks.

 

krait.jpg

 

I had to explain to Tom that although the banded Krait is indeed highly poisonous they are generally a gentle snake similar to the banded sea snakes we often encountered while diving...more to follow...

 

Encounters with sea snakes...

 

While diving I often encountered banded sea snakes, the very gentle and extremely poisonous sea faring members of the Krait family. Due to the structure of their mouths they can only bite very small thin things like earlobes and the webbing in between fingers. Unfortunately if bitten there is no antivenin, so kissing one’s ass goodbye is appropriate.

 

seakrait1.jpg

 

Being good natured the banded sea snake is unlikely to attack even when provoked by somewhat dense scuba instructors, that would be me. I often would pet and caress the snakes as they swam around me, allowing my students to watch the snake move back and forth trying to figure out what was going on.

 

Foolish? Possibly, but then again I’m typing this today, 15 years later.

 

Anyhoo, my favorite encounter with sea snakes I wrote about on this beloved forum long ago. Rough translation: I wrote this story that maybe three people read and if you are extraordinarily bored and have excellent search skills you might find it.

 

Basically the crux of the story is that we had a dive site we reserved mostly for island staff known as the sea snake cave. The cave was located along the north edge of Koh Phi Phi Don and found by some markings I have long since forgotten.

 

Once the site was located, after a trip around the island by long tail boat, we would don our gear and slip over the side for a short dive to roughly 18m or 60ft of depth where the opening to the cave presented itself.

 

A swim of 30 or so meters brought us to a chamber where we could emerge from the water into an air filled cavern. What made this cavern interesting was its inhabitants, namely several dozen banded sea snakes using the space to warm themselves, or mate. I never personally stopped to examine there terrestrial activities.

 

We would then doff our scuba gear and exit the water to walk amongst the slithering venomous throng. It was strange to be walking around a dark cavern lit only by flashlight and catch glimpses of these snakes undulating all over the walls and floor of the cavern.

 

What was even more disconcerting was donning the scuba gear with the very real possibility that one of the snakes might have taken up residence.

 

Ahhh, those were the days.

 

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I never got used to swimming with sea snakes around me. I don't care how "gentle" they are. I'm just wary of things that can kill me! :(

 

It wasn't a lot of fun either when I opened the bedroom screen in my first apartment in Bangkok to close the window, and a young banded krait plopped down on top of the air conditioner. My cat decided to investigate, so I grabbed the cat and tossed him out of the bedroom. Then I faced the krait and said, "Nice snake. Now go away, please." After a few minutes, the snake crawled out of the window. I quickly shut the screen and said to hell with turning on the a/c that day. Those green tree vipers that run straight up a coconut tree were another unwelcome sight. And this was living in the middle of an old part of the city.

 

Come to think of it, maybe I should swap my cat for a mongoose. :hmmm:

 

 

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About a year ago at the Bangkok Golf Club a 3-4 foot green tree snake dropped out of a tree and almost landed on one of the caddies. She wasn't much of a caddy for the rest of the day.

 

The biggest snake I saw was last November at Bungsamran Fish Park. It was 3-4 meters long and had been killed by bashing its head in. It had eaten someone's cat. The Thais said that there had been two of them and some were gingerly moving around in the brush looking for the second. I was sorry that they had killed it.

 

I would post a picture but that seems to be beyond me.

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"Those green tree vipers that run straight up a coconut tree..."

I have seen them go up other trees also. They can use the heavy bark as a sort of ladder. I didn't know that they were poisenous. Heavy looking things.

 

Twice I have seen beautiful golden snakes, very thin and long. One was laced around the branches of a bush in so many directions that I thought it was more than one snake but could only count one head and one tail. Someone said that it was an asp.

 

I do not have a phobia about snakes but do not mess with them and understand that people can have a phobia. I have seen snakes on golf courses that I took to be a krait because of a picture I once saw, however it was not banded but had diamond shaped markings on its back. I asked a friend if I could get 'relief from snake' and he said that I could have dropped my golf ball clear across the fairway if I had wanted.

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There are many harmless green snakes that live in the trees, but one variety is a viper. You can tell by its triangular shape head ... if you want to get that close. Thai kids sometimes play with the harmless types.

 

I'm not frightened by snakes and see them often enough. But the poisonous ones get my adrenilin flowing.

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