I relayed this story to my VSO neighbours, they live in the same compound, the other day;
Whilst my family were visiting me for my birthday we went to J & G's house for pre-circus tea/G&Ts and cake at their house. D my favourite tuk tuk driver arrived to take us on to the circus & whilst he waited for us to gather ourselves together he stood admiring J's newly washed Honda Dream moto, he then spotted the snake. Very calmly he informed us all that there was a snake on the moto. Unfortunately there were 2 motos - G's was parked inside the gate & J's outside on the road. So we all instinctively moved towards D & J's moto - avec green tree viper i.e highly venomous.
D desperately tried to communicate with us to go back towards G's moto but it was all lost in translation & fear. Hence we all ended up within a 2 metre striking distance of said snake.
D went in search of a big stick, J picked up the toddler neighbour who was stood right underneath where the snake was coiled around J's moto's right wing mirror, G went to get salad tongs - the heroes in this story were identified.
D used the big stick to knock the worryingly camouflaged snake onto the ground where he pinned it down paralyzed by his buddhist principles which meant that he was highly reluctant to kill the snake. The local children starting to gather to see what was all the fuss the barangs were making. G returned with his salad tongs & was instantly advised by D that what he really needed was a 'very big stick'!
With all the children about & a positive ID of a potentially lethal snake plus J & my certain knowledge of the lack of any meaningful medical care or anti-venom within a 300km radius, the snake's fate was sealed.
D was unsettled by bad karma, I was more concerned about the fact that I had naively believed that these things only ever happened in the phoom (village) & like malaria, Japanese encephalitis & a life without 24 hour electricity - snakes were purely a rural experience.
'My' I told Scott & Sonia on my recounting of this story, 'it certainly has made me slightly nervous around foliage!'
And quite right it should, as I then discovered.
They proceeded to tell me that another one of our neighbours this week got onto his moto outside my house ,putting his rucksack on his back, when he felt something around his neck - yep that's right, a BLOODY venomous snake had slithered out of his ruck sack!
He wasn't bitten & (as a fellow volunteer calls it) he did the 'spider dance' so that both human & snake escaped unscathed.
This is a message to all venomous snakes living in South East Asia - you stay outside, I'll stay inside and we can both just respect each others personal body space.
Thinking about these stories still gives me goose bumps even in 40˚C heat.
Whilst my family were visiting me for my birthday we went to J & G's house for pre-circus tea/G&Ts and cake at their house. D my favourite tuk tuk driver arrived to take us on to the circus & whilst he waited for us to gather ourselves together he stood admiring J's newly washed Honda Dream moto, he then spotted the snake. Very calmly he informed us all that there was a snake on the moto. Unfortunately there were 2 motos - G's was parked inside the gate & J's outside on the road. So we all instinctively moved towards D & J's moto - avec green tree viper i.e highly venomous.
D desperately tried to communicate with us to go back towards G's moto but it was all lost in translation & fear. Hence we all ended up within a 2 metre striking distance of said snake.
D went in search of a big stick, J picked up the toddler neighbour who was stood right underneath where the snake was coiled around J's moto's right wing mirror, G went to get salad tongs - the heroes in this story were identified.
D used the big stick to knock the worryingly camouflaged snake onto the ground where he pinned it down paralyzed by his buddhist principles which meant that he was highly reluctant to kill the snake. The local children starting to gather to see what was all the fuss the barangs were making. G returned with his salad tongs & was instantly advised by D that what he really needed was a 'very big stick'!
With all the children about & a positive ID of a potentially lethal snake plus J & my certain knowledge of the lack of any meaningful medical care or anti-venom within a 300km radius, the snake's fate was sealed.
D was unsettled by bad karma, I was more concerned about the fact that I had naively believed that these things only ever happened in the phoom (village) & like malaria, Japanese encephalitis & a life without 24 hour electricity - snakes were purely a rural experience.
'My' I told Scott & Sonia on my recounting of this story, 'it certainly has made me slightly nervous around foliage!'
And quite right it should, as I then discovered.
They proceeded to tell me that another one of our neighbours this week got onto his moto outside my house ,putting his rucksack on his back, when he felt something around his neck - yep that's right, a BLOODY venomous snake had slithered out of his ruck sack!
He wasn't bitten & (as a fellow volunteer calls it) he did the 'spider dance' so that both human & snake escaped unscathed.
This is a message to all venomous snakes living in South East Asia - you stay outside, I'll stay inside and we can both just respect each others personal body space.
Thinking about these stories still gives me goose bumps even in 40˚C heat.
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| I would be lying & equally not proud if I told you that no snakes were killed in the making of this blog |
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