Thailand's First Reptile School
for Snake Charmers

Travel Story by Ivan T. Brecelic

Chiang Mai, Thailand

The midday show is about to begin at this hole-in-the-wall snake farm in Chiang Mai, a resort town in Northern Thailand. The big draw card today is one of the Kingdom's top snake handlers, Manut Oemme, 45, a.k.a. Snake Man, and his apprentice, Jay Defario, 30, a New Yorker who will soon be a certified snake-handler.

Mae Rim Snake Farm is also the first venue of its kind in the Kingdom to offer snake-handling courses. It's situated 15-kilometers outside of Chiang Mai, in the lush rolling hills of Mae Rim that's home to a plethora of animal shows, from monkeys, elephants, dogs, to snakes.

This American-Thai collaboration in the snake arena has become a recent sensation out here with the mostly Thai tour groups who are coming out in droves to witness "the mad antics of the Thai and Yankee snake charmer," as one local tour guide operator informed me.

Jay, a former engineer in the Navy SEABEES, is a big burly American-Italian from the Bronx, who says he's been traveling the world "for the ultimate adrenaline rush." While, Manut, a diminutive Thai who's a cross between Gonzo the Greek and that clown from The Simpson's, says he faces death daily "only to earn a living."

At ringside, the small group of tourists sits on wooden benches with anticipation for the midday show. Outside the arena, there's the 'Who's Who' of poisonous snakes- vipers, adders, taipans and spitting cobras- in cages secured only with chicken wire.

"Welcome to Mae Rim Snake Farm," announces the MC over a crackly speaker. "Today you are about to see the amazing cobra." Her voice trails off with a giggle, as a cheesy go-go track that is looped throughout the half-hour show now begins. Snake Man saunters into ring like he's a game show host.

"I Snake Man," screams the snake extraordinaire to the audience, and lets out a hiss and a flurry of his tongue- a pretty good rendition of Kiss's Gene Simmons. This is the cue for his assistant, the stocky New Yorker, to release the three cobras from a hemp bag into the ring.

Manut now fixes a hypnotic stare on the three cobras, whose jewel-speckled necks are flaring with anger. Then he clasps them with a lightening movement of his hands. The audience is about one meter from the action, and obviously enjoying the intimate environment of Mae Rim Snake Farm. One Australian in the audience yells out, "Hay my snake is bigger than yours." Snake Man has him mentally pegged for a surprise pretty soon.

Concluding this popular little number, the balding snake-handler sucks hard onto the cobra's head like it's a chuba chub confectionery. "Cobra spit poison in his mouth," the MC jokes, for dramatic affect, "but cobra sure complain of Snake Man's bad breath." The crowd laughs. Thai humor can be pretty dark, even when dished up as lightweight throwaway lines.

The American apprentice now takes the two snakes from around his Master's head, and throws them back into the hemp bag. Finishing this ghoulish act, Snake Man milks the cobra of its deadly venom while the audience snaps away with their digital cameras, capturing that 'whacky moment I had when I was in Thailand.'

"Here," says Snake Man, to the tourist who yelled out in the crowd. "Take picture of this," and pokes the cobra's head, fangs exposed, in the tourists face.

"It gets them all the time," says the former Marine engineer who is very passionate about snakes- he visits the snake farm four times a week, to learn everything he can from the master. "I know I won't come out of this course with a BA in snake charming but at least I'll be qualified to handle poisonous snakes."

Thailand's veteran snake charmer has been at this game for over 30 years and seems unfazed about the buzz going on out at the farm. "I just want to pass on my knowledge," he says through a Thai interpreter. So far he's trained five foreigners since the school started taking in recruits in 2001.

However, Manut is quick to emphasize, though the snake farm is registered, the school isn't. "It's word of mouth," he says. "The last thing we want is for the authorities to shut us down because we don't have a license for snake instruction."

Traditionally in Thailand the act of snake charming has been handed down from father to son, over many generations. And though this Thai version of 'snakery' might not fit the image of mystical men wearing turbans, serenading cobras to the music of gourd flutes, it's certainly a niche market that is attracting foreign students, says Boonlert Ekachai, the owner of Mae Rim Snake Farm.

"So the government should at least acknowledge that we are preserving a dying tradition with this snake school," he says. "Not only are we showing tourists a side of Thai culture, we are also saying, pay up and be part of it."

The ad hoc Snake Institute courses range from a three-day introduction course where students learn the basics like how to handle rat snakes that are not poisonous, to hypnotizing a jumping-snake. While the intensive three-month course, at 300 US dollars, covers all aspects of the industry, from wrestling a three-meter python in a pool of water, to milking cobras.

The most impressive part of the course is to spend a few rounds in the ring with the most formidable snake in Asia, the King Cobra, though very few students reach that level of 'snake charming' accomplishment.

Jeremy Cook, 25, from the UK, who's just completed a three-day course, says back packers are looking for more than "just elephant tours, and Thai cooking classes."

The Brit ranks this up there with "shooting rocket launchers at a firing range in Cambodia. Extreme tourism is the big draw card for back packers like myself who are looking for something more off-beat than an amazing temple."

Jay, who is two months into his course, says this is the ultimate extreme tourism: "But you must bear in mind, that one wrong move can mean the difference between living another day, or not. And that's the appeal of this course!"

The ex-SEVEE boy is keen to demonstrate his skills, and escorts us over to the Burmese spitting cobra pit. Before you can say Indiana Jones, he's leaped over the 4-foot wall into the pit with the five venomous spitters. The sign outside warns viewers that these cobras can spit a distance of over two meters. And more so, if the venom gets in your eyes, you go blind. "I've got glasses on," replies Jay casually, who seems the least bit concerned.

Manut looks on dotingly at his star pupil, and giggles encouragement. "Keep it steady in there." In the pit, the cobras are hissing venom left right and center and have made contact with their poisonous darts. "You have to be really steady when you go into the ring," advises Jay on the finer points of this industry, when he gets out of the pit. "If you are shaking at all, they'll go for movement and strike.

Manut puts a python around Jay's neck, a tender gesture out here. "Good trick Jay, I think I add spitting cobra to show." Jay blushes. "He's always telling me to stay and work," says Jay, who when juxtaposed with the school's first student, he seems like a saint in comparison.

Steve Curry, 47, from London, was the first student to train under Manut. "Here, look," says the Thai snake charmer, and pulls out a photo of his former student that he carries around in his wallet. "He naughty number one."

The Chiang Mai expat says it was an experience that literally blew his mind away. "I came out of it with more than I bargained for," says the sheepish Brit, who's covered in tats and piercing. Steve says he was a product of the 70's. "While all my mates were getting into punk, I was smacked out of my head. So I'm making up for it, by doing stuff that'd under other circumstances would have seemed like hard work. "

I'm at Steve's house, on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, where he designs punk clothing that he sells on ebay. When I called him for an interview, he said it was best we do at his house, and not the snake farm. "It's a long story," he said, over the phone, with a distinct East End accent.

Not all students pass the grade, and Steve was the first drop out at the Snake Academy. "But I was also a pioneer," he's quick to add in his defense. "I was doing really, well, until week three, when Snake Man lets you handle the cobra," he says. "First he leads you into it with the rat snakes, that aren't venomous. One rat snake had bitten me countless times. It took a real disliking to me, so I bit its head off. Manut just giggled, and pulled out another one from the sack."

But his undoing was coming in the following day, after a big night on the piss.

"My teacher knew I was hungover and in no state to train with cobras and told me to go home." Then Manut's unruly student told him get the serious arsenal. "Get the King Cobras out, lets get it on," I told Manut. He gave me that 'what the hell are you on?" look but eventually gave in.

"Those King Cobras are nasty. When they rear their heads, they are four feet off the ground. Nothing had prepared me for the King Cobra. One bite can bring down a water buffalo."

When Manut released the two Kings into the ring, it was a case of, 'Steve OUT!' and the rest was a blur. All Steve could remember was waking up in a hospital bed. He'd been bitten in the ankle by a King Cobra. "And if it wasn't for Manut's quick thinking," relates Steve, "I wouldn't be around to tell this tale."

Manut recalls that incident as if it happened yesterday, though baring no outward grudges. "It wasn't' a good idea, I told him. But he insisted. "Let me tame the King Cobra," he repeated. He really was in a strange mood that day. But he insisted. So I hugged his every move. But the strike came from out of nowhere. After that, we nick-named that cobra the 'striker'."

But Manut thought on his feet, like the four previous times he been bitten at this snake farm. With no anti-serum, and the hospital a forty-minute ride away (one bite from a King Cobra, and you are dead in less than 30 minutes) he did what his master had told him to do under such a dire situation: Use the Snake Man First Aid Kit. Now St John's First Aid course doesn't endorse this kind of thing.

"My assistant put snakes back in bag," says Manut of this dreaded day that could have derailed his school before it even got off the ground. "Then I pull out hunting knife always strap around my ankle. I say Steve, "This hurt nit noy, (a little)" and cut hole around snake bite."

"He must have sucked out a liter of blood," says Steve, who admits that he wasn't a role model student. "Whatever he did, it saved my life. I've still got restricted movement in my leg, but I'm still walking." He shows me the scar like it's another tattoo etched on his body's canvas. "The doctors just couldn't believe what had happened, and by the time I got to the hospital, an hour later, they said I should have been dead."

Steve feels he's a hard act to follow, and that his talent should be acknowledged. "I'm still a bit peeved with management that they haven't asked me back for my 'death act.' It could have been a real box office hit."

Though Jay might be getting 'A' grade snake handling, he's still loose cannon fodder like the Institutes first student, Steve. However, in Snake Man's eyes, that's fine around here in the rarefied profession of snake charming. It's actually a prerequisite for prospective students who want to take the snake-handling course. Manut sums up the credo of the school. "Only crazy crazy man can apply school."

This is the academic excellence expected at Thailand's only Snake Institute.

Read more about the author of this story:
Ivan T. Brecelic