Snakes!

After our morning visit to the temples, we then visited the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute Red Cross Snake Farm.  At this facility, they produce the snake antivenom for all of Southeast Asia and give public presentations.  We arrived at 1:45 and saw some of the most notable and dangerous snakes in Thailand.

I'm glad we don't have these in Missouri.

The first snake they brought out was a 8-10 foot long king cobra.  When the snake handler agitated it, the snake stood about waist high to him.  

king cobra

This handler was able to pick up a Siamese cobra well down the body from the head.  If the snake would have struck him, there is no way he could have avoided being bitten.  I noticed that there are no older snake handlers.  They're all young guys.  I wonder why that is...

The banded krait is one of the most toxic snakes in Thailand.

Following the presentation, they brought out a couple albino Burmese pythons for the audience to hold.  Most of our students worked up the nerve to hold one.  Here is Alyssa.

Sera.

Hli.

Taylor.

Zoe, Alexa, and Emily each worked up 33% of the requisite nerve, so they could collectively hold the snake.

Ashley.

Brandon.

After the snakes, we finally had a chance to get dinner.  I took the students who were daring enough to one of my favorite restaurants.  Here Hli is enjoying som tom (papaya salad).

Rachael got larb ma ma gai.  Mmmmm.  I was too busy enjoying my lab moo sup to take any more pictures.  

Hope you're enjoying the blog :-)

Temples in Bangkok

Today's plan was to visit two temples and the Thai Red Cross Snake Farm.  In this post is a little about the temples; the snakes will follow in a separate post.  At 8:30, we left the hotel and walked for 15 minutes to the Saphan Kwai skytrain station and took the skytrain to the Chao Phraya River, got on a river taxi, and cruised north to Pier #9, then walked 15 minutes to the gates of the Grand Palace.  We spent an hour walking through the Grand Palace (10:30-11:30), then walked 20 minutes to Wat Pho, which is famous for it's enormous reclining buddha.  After our Wat Pho visit, we retraced our steps and cruised south on the river taxi to the Saphan Thaksin skytrain station and took the skytrain to the Sala Daeng station, from which we walked for another 20 minutes to the Snake Farm.  We did a lot of walking today, but that is by design after being immobile for so long on airplanes the past two days.

Taylor, Ashley and Alexa at the Grand Palace.

Elliott and Alexa, with Brandon behind Elliott.

Brandon and Elliott posing with a half man-half poultry statue.

One of our obligatory group photos is with the students posing like the demons holding up the gold chedi.

Lots of individual photos and selfies at this part of the Grand Palace.  Here is Kaylee...

... and Kaylee taking Hli's picture

To see the emerald Buddha, shoes have to be removed and placed in racks outside the building in which the Buddha is housed.  This is the most sacred of all Buddha images in Thailand.

Sarah and Alexa remove their shoes.

Lightning struck a chedi in a temple in northern Thailand in 1434 A.D. and a Buddha statue made of stucco was found inside. The abbot of the temple noticed that the stucco on the nose had flaked off and the image inside was a green color. He then removed the stucco covering and found the Emerald Buddha, which is in reality made of one solid piece of jade.  This is the most revered Buddha image in all of Thailand.  Only the King is allowed to touch the Emerald Buddha. Photography is prohibited in the building with the emerald Buddha.  You have to shoot it from outside the building through an opening in the wall.  Hli didn't realize the restriction and had her photos of it deleted by the authorities.

Kaylee and Sera putting their shoes back on.  Somehow I don't think Sera's method would be viewed favorably by the Thai's.

Another customary group photo near the entrance to the Grand Palace.

At Wat Pho is the 150 foot long reclining Buddha.  Here are Taylor, Sera, Sarah, Ashley (back row); Zoe Alyssa, Emily, Kaylee (front row).

There are 108 bronze bowls in the corridor representing the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha. Visitors can drop coins in these bowls as it is believed to bring good fortune.  Here is Zoe trying to improve her fortune.

... and Alexa, Alyssa, and Emily.

After visiting the temples, we got back on the Skytrain to go the Red Cross Snake Farm.

Inside the Skytrain Sarah, Alyssa, Sydney, Sera, and Elliott.

... and Zoe and Brandon.

Travel Days

The past 1.5 days were all travel; thus, fortunately there is nothing too exciting to report.  The flights were exceptionally smooth considering that we traveled around half of the planet.  The last flight (Seoul to Bangkok) was on an Airbus A380, which is the huge double-decker aircraft.  Expect much more on tomorrow's activities...

This photo was during our first flight as we are beginning our descent into the Sea-Tac airport.  Below the wing are the Horse Heaven Hills  in south-central Washington.

We had a three hour layover in Seattle.  This year was remarkably uneventful in trying to get out of the U.S. during the winter.  That hasn't been the case the past few years.

Ajarn Wayne, Elliott, Sarah, Sera, and Hli waiting for our luggage to come up on the carousel in Bangkok.

Everyone's luggage arrived even with the VERY short turnaround in Seoul (we had to run through that airport to make our connection). We arrived at the Karnmanee Palace Hotel in Bangkok at around 1:30 in the morning (Thursday), and most of the group went out right away to get authentic Thai street food.  It's 3:10 a.m. now, so I'm going to bed for 3.5 hours of sleep before we get started early tomorrow (actually today).

It All Begins Here

Our students learned SCUBA diving from Captain Nemo's dive shop in Columbia.  We will spend 5-6 days diving in the Andaman Sea while studying coral reef conservation.