Snake Farm in Bangkok
Trip Start
Unknown
1
14
27
Trip End
Ongoing
Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand
Sunday, April 27, 2008
The highlight of any visit to the Snake Farm in Bangkok is the demonstration of snake handling and also how to milk a snake! More on that shortly. There is an exhibition building at the back of the site but when I went there at the weekend it was closed for renovation. As there is then not much else to do other than watch the shows, I strongly advise you to come at one of these two times. Entrance was 70 baht for me though I noticed a sign written in Thai script that said it was "20 baht". I presume that was for Thai people as it didn't actually say.
The demonstration show was actually quite informative. As was the slide show. Our guide spoke good English and kept us well informed on the subject of snakes. But, don't be fooled into thinking that he was just your normal run of the mill guide. We were shown quite a variety of snakes and how they should be handled. The highlight was the milking of the venom as you can see in the above picture. This is then sent to a special horse farm in Hua Hin where small amounts of the venom are injected into the horse. Over a period of time more and more of the venom is injected into the horse until it builds up immunity. Blood is then drawn from the horse. The blood plasma is then sent back to Bangkok where it is purified and tested before being sent out to hospitals around the country and world.
Update: The entrance fee has just gone up to 200 baht for foreigners and 40 baht for Thai! They have also canceled the show I mentioned above which I thought was the highlight.
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