Cobra Village

Some might say that planning an entire weekend around going to see what ended up amounting to a roadside attraction is silly. They, however, are wrong, for seeing a man fight a cobra is anything but silly.

The cobra village, called Ban Kok Snga, is an hour busride outside of the city of Khon Kean, which itself is 6 and a half hours from Bangkok. So after Thai Language class we packed our things and headed to the bus terminal.
Our taxi driver apparently needed to fill up gas before he took us to the station, but left the meter running, we were sure to pay attention to it and deduct that from the total we paid him when we got out of the cab. Luckily there wasnt any disagreement about this.
The bus ride started out rather unpleasant as we were quite crammed into the back, but eventually one person was able to move into a different open seat and it made things easier.

Eventually we pulled into a bus station, but not everyone got out so I could tell we werent at the end of the line yet. It felt like we stayed at the station forever. Now, its not uncommon for busses to stop for as long as 15 minutes before heading off again. But this felt like it was going on an hour. I bought some chicken and rice from a lady (at lots of stops people jump on the bus to sell food and other wares) as the light waned, making it hard for me to read my book. Finally we got moving and someone asked me where I was going. Khon Kean i told them. They looked confused and said "This Khon Kean". I figured it was about time to get off of the bus.

We hopped off of the bus in the middle of traffic and scampered to the side of the road. Since we werent by the bus station there were no taxis conveniently standing by to take us to our guesthouse. So we started walking down the road, not sure exactly where we were going, but heading towards what looked like civilization. Eventually we came upon a gas station and asked the attendent where Thanon Klang Muang was (Klang Muang Road). He said that it was the direction we came from, but it was rather far. So we asked him to call a taxi.
After a little while a motorcycle with a handmade sign that said "taxi" clipped to the front. Given that we didnt really have many other options we both hopped on.

When we got to the guest house he told us the charge was 100 baht. This was def too much for the distance we went (It should have been a 50 baht ride at the most) but we really had no choice.
We checked into our room (250 baht per night, 2 beds, private bathroom, fans, no hot water) and got settled and then headed onto the street to find a noodle stand to eat. After that we both read for awhile, and then turned in for the night.

The next moring we woke and headed to the bus station. It took a while for us to get them to understand where we wanted to go, because Ban Kok Snga is also writen as ban kok sa-nga, and either way is pretty tough to pronounce. Finally they figured out what we wanted and put us on a bus.

About an hour into that busride the conductor motinoed to us to get off and pointed down a long dusty road. Luckily for us there was a Tuktuk that we were able to share with a family heading back to the village.
A few miles down the road we arrived. The village was dusty, and was pretty small. They had a new temple that they had just built and were very proud of it. They asked for a donation towards food for the snakes, and then showed us all the snakes that they had in their little zoo.

Then it was time for the show. First they had some girls doing thai dance with snakes on thier shoulders. Then the little boys fought non poisonous snakes as training, and then the cobra was brought out and his handler taunted and fought him. After that...a BIGGER cobra was brought out.
On the side of the ring was a picture of someone who had died from a snakebite while doing a performance similar to the one we were seeing. A thai person sitting next to us informed us that it was the brother of the man who just performed.