Thailand Part 2 of 3: Snakes and Phi Phi Island

Our first afternoon/evening in Thailand, we went to the Krabi Snake Park and King Cobra Show.  It was in an open air hut and catered to tourists and budding herpetologists like Derek.  There is no way anything like this would be allowed to operate in the U.S.  The handler would get in to the arena and toy with various snakes, including the venomous king cobra.  After the show, we asked if he had ever been bitten and he said only once in the several years he had been doing this.  He wound up in the hospital for a few days.  I thought it was crazy and probably a little cruel to the snakes, but I was still very interested in seeing it.

 

 

Here are some of the videos of the handler with a cobra.

 

 

 

We even got to go into the pit too with less dangerous snakes.  Derek was nervous but brave and got in to touch this mangrove snake - we were assured that while this one was venomous, the venom wasn't "that bad", apparently its venom can cause intense swelling, but there has never been a human fatality from its bite...  Lydia went in too.  Hopefully Child Protective Services doesn't come looking for us after endangering our children.

While I also went into the pit with the mangrove snake, this next picture was too crazy for me.  That is not staged fear on my part or a fake snake.  A handler brought a king cobra out and wrapped it loosely around Derek's neck.  The fact that the handler pinned its mouth closed with his hand and kept the cobra's head pointed away from Derek's face is still dangerous since king cobra's can strike at a speed of 14-29 feet/second.  We told Derek he could now win games like Two Truths and a Lie because not many people are going to believe that he had a live cobra around his neck.

Cobras photo bombing our family portrait - or maybe us photo bombing their picture.

 

We got turns with other snakes around our necks - here's Lydia with a mangrove snake.

 

This is the giant python enclosure. 

I don't remember what all these different snakes were, but we enjoyed getting up close and personal - everyone except Tanja who perhaps smartly avoided the snakes.

Derek was thrilled with all the snakes.

I love Karina's expression as this python slithered around her neck and shoulders.

Our third day in Thailand, we booked a trip in a speedboat to go tour around the nearby Phi Phi Islands.  At Ko Phi Phi Le, we took a short walk from the dock to the beautiful Maya Beach (the setting for the DiCaprio movie "The Beach") within Phi Phi National Park, which is a breeding area for blacktip reef sharks.  It would have been even more beautiful had it not wound up as a funnel from the ocean currents bringing so much plastic and garbage into the protected harbor.

As a family, we started doing our best to try and clean up some of the trash we found floating and I was very proud of our kids as they helped with the cleanup efforts without hesitation or complaint.

We made a pile of our trash that we moved up and away from the tide.  Surprisingly, there were no trash cans along the beach which likely didn't help the trash situation.  They did have some workers going around and filling bags with trash that I guess they packed out.  While we were cleaning, one of our guides came up with a camera recording and interviewing us about what we were doing and why we were doing it.  I don't know if he was intending on posting online for marketing or a documentary or what.  He seemed to agree the trash was a problem and thanked us for doing something about it at least.

The bay is gorgeous if you crop out the garbage.  It was a popular spot for selfies, though there were a few annoying "influencers" that might have had dozens of followers trying for the perfect pose and taking longer than they should.  One of them yelled at me as I was cleaning up trash and looking off at the scenery that I was ruining her shot.  I imagine it looked better after I got rid of some of the garbage floating in the water, but what do I know? ;-)

In 2018, the authorities closed off Maya Beach from the water out to about 300 meters and blocked boats, swimmers, etc. which is why we had to walk to it from the dock where we parked the boat.  This created an ideal habitat with coral and rocks in a protected bay, and the number of black tip reef sharks within the area quadrupled in a year now that they had a safe space for breeding and feeding.  We had lots of fun walking along the beach and seeing the juvenile black tip reef sharks and other fish swimming around in the shallow water.  There were many baby sharks swimming near our feet as we walked through the water.

The cliffs and the turquoise water are an awe-inspiring contrast.  The water was also very warm, and even though we couldn't go deeper than our knees in it due to the protected nature, it was still refreshing in the hot humid summer air.

We left Maya Bay and went to the narrow Pileh Lagoon where we could swim in the warm emerald water surrounded by towering cliffs.  We snorkeled here and saw lots of fish darting around as we were swimming and relaxing.

There were a couple other spots we swam around on the trip.  We also saw another small cave from the boat, had a buffet lunch at a restaurant we stopped at briefly, and overall had a wonderful day trip exploring the Phi Phi Islands.