"hiss Of Death"

[bambob]

for uk viewers there is a prog about a town in LOS called Ban Kok Sa Nga ,serpent town, where the residents make a living training cobras for some reason .

National geographic channel ,thursday.

anyone been to this town and where exactly is it ?

never seen it in a guidebook .

[Thetyim]

Khon Kaen King Cobra Village

The show is held on the grounds of Wat Sritanma, a Buddhist temple where the snakes are kept, in a village located 50km north of the provincial city of Khon Kaen. The King Cobra Village (Ban Kok Sa-nga, in Thai) is located two kilometres down side road 2039 on the Friendship Highway Route 2 and signs posted for directions make it easy to find. The show starts whenever guests arrive and take their seats on the small bleachers, which can accommodate up to 200 around the stage

The main event was harrowing enough, but it was the warm-up show that sent a chill. After three women did a traditional dance with pythons, two one-metre cobras were drawn out of wooden boxes, and a boy got on his hands and knees and started to dance with them.

A seven-year-old toying unconcernedly with young cobras that are every bit as poisonous as an adult one is an image that will not soon fade from memory. The snakes bit his shirt and trousers a few times but he was unharmed and finished with a big, cheerful grin.

The main event was a little less terrifying but the snakes were much bigger. Several times the handler let them come to the edge of the stage and the brave viewers in the front row looked a little pale.

[fw1]

'Hiss of death'? Isn't that what a tourist gets after haggling for an hour with a street-vendor and then decides not to buy anything?

[meadish_sweetball]

A friend of mine who has dedicated most of his life to snakes, told me cobras are much easier to handle than other poisonous snakes - according to him, this is because they can never strike out further than their own length.

Hence, cobras are preferred movie snakes - they look scary, their poison most certainly is deadly, and a skilled snake-handler can make sure they never get to bite anybody.

Can anybody refute or confirm?