The Cobra Show

When we arrived at the Floating Markets, the driver informed us that we had the option of leaving early for a few other activites, one of which was a "cobra show". Say no more. Sign me up, sounded awesome. So after about an hour of roaming around the markets, I returned to the meetup point and boarded a van with a few other people. We drove for about 10 minutes through some sketch looking areas until we arrived, greeted by this ominous looking statue out front:

I paid my $5 cover and was on my way in. I entered the building, noticing that I was literally the only one in there. Weird. Where was everyone? And when the heck did this thing start? I was in a courtyard area with lots of different cages and housing with, yep you guessed it, all kinds of snakes. But in addition to that there were some other random reptiles and amphibians. And maybe I am just used to the standard of animal cages in the US, but the conditions here seemed pretty deplorable. Especially for the larger animals like the aligators, monitor lizards, and a massive crocodile. They were stuffed in tiny little concrete and chain-link pens, with virtually no attempt to furnish them in a way that would resemble the animals natural habitat. It seemed more like a prison than a zoo.

Sad.

A few people had begun trickling in, and soon it was time to head to the little auditorium area where the show would take place. I took a seat in the front row, with nothing but a knee-high ledge separating me from the little pit area below. If one of these snakes went rogue, it was pretty easy to imagine them climbing right up and over. Comforting thought.

Finally it was Showtime! So without further adeui...I'm just gonna let you watch the video and then offer my commentary after. Oh, and if you are queasy about snakes or sensitive to animal mistreatment, I would not recommend watching...

 

 

Wow, where do I even start with this...?

It started off relatively ok, until the cobra handler started slapping at it, and it only went downhill from there.

Can you feel the love?

One after another, these animals were brought on stage to be antagonized, provoked, and humiliated for our amusement. Ok maybe its a stretch to think that a snake could be humiliated but thats the best way I can describe it, because this was nothing more than a showcase of how they behave under duress. Not a fair or accurate representation of the animals normal behavior, as you could tell they weren't really looking to strike. Escape was obviously their preferred option, attempting to do so while being pulled back in and pressured into displaying their fight response. Over and over to the point where it became exhausting to watch. And then there were the theatrics...

How about that little kid, chucking the snake towards the crowd to get a nice reaction.

Or that huge python. Thing coulda been 50 years old, just getting toyed with by some teenage dude. Slapping the crap out of it while holding it's tail so that it has no choice but to lunge back at him, swinging the snake as it does so, enough that its head bounces against the concrete wall. Really entertaining.

Bravo. Take a bow, guys

But that wasn't even the worst part. That would be the part where they put a cobra and a mongoose (it's mortal enemy) into a cramped little glass container and let them go at it, while offering light hearted commentary as if it were a WWE wrestling match.

Yay, death match

Me and the guy sitting next to me looked at each other in disbelief. And as the show went on, they just rolled the cage into the background, where the animals continued to fight, presumably to the death. Unbelievable.

The missing element here was a respect and appreciation for these animals, as I did not sense that from the "handlers" or whatever you want to call them. Antagonists would be a better word. Casting the snakes as the bad guys, trying to attack them as they adeptly dodged their vicious strikes. Basically playing upon peoples fear, and even perpetuating it, while offering little to no real educational value. It truly was all a "show", and I couldn't help but feel bad for its miscast and unwilling participants.

While this would have been a cool opportunity to showcase these animals and teach people about them in a humane way, which I was naively expecting, this was just exploitation at best and animal cruelty at worst.

What a f*#king joke.

 

 

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Thailand's Floating Markets

Having arrived in Bangkok the day prior, without much of a plan, I ended up at a little Thai travel agency and figured I'd book a few touristy things to do, such as a trip to the "floating markets".

Sounded interesting enough, so why not. Plus when you do these sort of canned touristy tours, it's a good way to meet some other travelers. So, at 7am that morning, I stood outside of my guest house and waited for the van to come pick me up. And waited, and waited, and waited...to the point I was starting to think they either forgot about me, got my guest house mixed up, or had come a few minutes early before I was standing outside. Finally, around 7:45 a flustered looking Thai guy approached me and said a few things which I couldn't understand but assumed this was my guy. Voucher in hand, I showed it to him and he directed me toward a van parked down the road. I entered the van, crammed with about 12 other passengers and did my little awkward hello directed toward no one in particular and found a seat next to a nice Italian couple. We sat there for a few minutes, still parked, making polite conversation when some Thai girl flung the door open and ordered us out. Confused and a little annoyed we exited the van and were directed toward a different van parked in front of us. So in we went, for a few minutes until we were again ordered out and back into the original van. Ok, seriously? More confusion ensued as they began trying to sort out who had booked the full day tour to both the floating markets and tiger temple and / or the half day tour to just the floating markets. In very broken English. This whole operation was a mess, but eventually we got things sorted out and were on our way at around 8:30. So annoying. However the whole debacle provided plenty of comedic material to get the jokes and conversation flowing amongst the group, which turned out to be pretty cool. I'll also add that I found it a bit odd and somewhat of a pleasant surprise to be the only American in the group.

After about a 90 minute drive, we arrived at some docks and were directed toward a series of funny looking boats, which would take us to the markets. They were like no boats I had ever seen - really long and skinny with a little prop motor attached to a long pole which swiveled, in order to allow the driver to steer us around. The boats were painted up in real bright gaudy colors and looked really fun. I excitedly hopped on board for what turned out to be the highlight of the floating market experience...getting there lol. Check it out!

Really fun! After about a 20 minute ride we arrived at the floating markets. Which was a bit of a dissapointment. First off, they were not actually floating, it was just a series of canals below a bunch of massive raised concrete platforms. And after a few minutes of exploring, it was clear that this was more of a tourist trap than anything else. Hoping to find some cool authentic merchandise, it was mostly more of the same tourist tchotchkes, one stall after another, with little variation between them. The markets consisted of hundreds of stalls, but I felt like if you scoped out 10 stalls, you probably saw everything. With so many sellers, you would think they would try to differentiate themselves by selling something different but instead its a competition of who can haggle the hardest as you're walking by. Oh well, it was still a fun experience, and I did get these classy pics out of it:

Wasn't expecting that one!

:P

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First Day in Bangkok! (aka Crazytown)

I arrived in Bangkok on Thursday, July 24th without much of a plan. However I was given a tip in the form of a facebook comment from my friend Kerri, who had lived in Thailand for a while and recommended I stay in the famous Khao San Road area, where I was assured there would be lots of places to stay, yummy things to eat, and plenty to do. Perfect. As I stepped out of the cab, and into the bustling street, I smiled. I was definitely in the right place :)

But first things first - It was lunchtime and I was hungry. And this guy had exactly what I needed.

Very important first order of business :)
Second order of business was to find a place to stay. Since my bag is kinda heavy, I decided to just walk into the first place I saw, which happened to be this place:

 

Not exactly a five star resort, but for 200 baht/night (about $6), I figured I'd give it a shot. Plus the old lady running it was nice and it seemed like a nice quiet little place with a great location right on Khao San Road. More on that later...
I set my stuff down in the room and it was time to go explore. I got about 50 feet down Khoa San Road when a little sharp dressed Thai guy approached me about having a suit made. Since that was one of the things I wanted to do while I was there, I figured I'd check it out so that I could get a feel for prices and what to expect. Why not. I entered the little shop, took a seat, and was greeted by the actual tailor, Sam. After some breif chit chat we got down to business. And it was clear that I was getting the hard sell. However as someone that does a lot of research before buying anything like this, I had no intention of buying there on the spot. That was until I started to leave the shop, and the real negotiations got underway. Next thing I knew I was getting sized up for not one, but two suits lol. One black, one grey. At the end of the day I made out with two suits (with vest), three shirts, and two ties for about $480. Not bad?
Back on the streets I walked about another 20 feet when an Indian dude approached me and started reading my fortune, telling me a little bit about myself based on the lines in my face. Amused and slightly intrigued, I decided to follow him to his little spot for a full fortune reading. Stupid idea. Dude was trying to pull money out of my harder than the suit guy. And what he was telling me seemed like mostly BS, although if I do in fact move to Australia and meet the love of my life, it'll be worth a chuckle.
From that point forward I decided to throw on sunglasses and completely ignore the steady barrage of people trying to sell me shit, as I had gone from amused to annoyed with it pretty quickly. I wandered around checking out the little vendor shops lining the road but decided I should prob venture out to get a better feel for the city. A tuk tuk (little 3 wheeled motorbike taxi) driver offered to take me on a tour, shoving a map in my face and pointing at a few different spots. I couldn't make out most of what he said except for the fact that it would cost 40 baht (roughly $1.50). Seemed like a good deal, and I was kinda tired from walking around getting hassled so I hopped in.

We stopped at a few different temples, which is cool if you're into that sort of thing, after which he dropped me off at a Thai Travel agency so that I could map out the week ahead. That turned out to be a good idea. I spent a good hour at the travel agency going through all my options and decided on a trip to the floating markets and tiger temple the following day, and then a trip up to Chiang Mai in the northern part of the country for a two day trek up to a remote mountain village followed by a two day "slow boat" trip along the Mekong River to Laos. The price seemed fair and I was happy to have a nice little itinerary for the week ahead.
On the way back, while chatting with my tuk tuk driver I learned that he was training as a Muay Thai fighter. I thought that was pretty cool and expressed interest in seeing a fight while I was in town. He told me his actual fighting days were over, as he had recently gotten married and had a baby, but that there happened to be a big fight at the local arena that night. He could tell I was really excited and offered to take me there for free later that night. Sweet! I ended up sitting ringside, and what a cool experience it turned out to be, which I'll write about in a separate post.

After the fight I made it back to Khoa San road and it was rockin! The streets were packed and all the bars along the road (there were many) were pumping dance music into the streets. Vendors walked around selling the weirdest stuff, including fried scorpion on a stick, laughing gas balloons, and trips to the "ping pong show" which you'll have to look up on your own since this blog carries a strict PG-13 rating.

I quickly realized that the area I was in was all about shock value. I think that when westerners come to Thailand, that's what they expect, and Khao San road dishes it out in abundance. And trust me, I was very tempted to join in on the madness, but it was already pretty late, I was a bit jet lagged, and was getting picked up the next day at 7am to go pet some tigers. Plus I would have ample time to party in the weeks ahead, especially when my buddy Huy arrived the following week. So I decided to call it a night and retire back to my quiet little guest house...
Boy was I in for a rude awakening. That quiet little guest house was literally right next door to one of the biggest loudest clubs on the strip, pumping out high energy electronic dance music. About the worst possible thing to try and relax to, let alone fall asleep. But, when travelling like this, sometimes you just gotta suck it up and deal with it. So I jammed my earplugs in, and laid there annoyed as the beats pulsed through my body, until somehow someway I finally dozed off.
Solid first day :)

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