When I saw a live snake venom extraction

Since I can’t go anywhere due to the coronavirus pandemic, I figured why not tell some of my favorite/most memorable travel stories. Next, when I witnessed snake venom extraction in Thailand:

“Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?” –Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So, Indy, I don’t recommend you go to the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute, better known ominously as “The Snake Farm,” in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand. This place is absolutely ridiculous. They have just about every type of venomous snake found in Southeast Asia and, yes, one bite from any of these snakes would be more than enough to kill you. 

However, research into snakes is incredibly important because, oftentimes, the only antidote to a bite is based on venom from the very same snake. They even have demonstrations on venom extraction from snakes (more to come on that).

I completely understand why extracting venom from snakes is important (I’d want an antidote if I was bitten by a snake), but I didn’t realize that the workers did it so… nonchalantly. These guys who weren’t much older than me, wore nothing but a short-sleeve t-shirt. No gloves, no face mask, not even long sleeves! And they were picking up deadly animals! Ridiculous, I tell you!

I must say though, if I were to get bitten by a snake, I’d want it to be in the place where they manufacture snake venom, just saying.

Before the venom extraction demonstration, the workers explained what the heck they were doing. Essentially, they purposely pissed off the snake with a stick so it would want to bite down and release venom from its fangs. But, while that was happening, another guy would grab the snake by its head and the snake would bite into a beaker, and the venom would drip into the container. They repeated this several times with multiple snakes, until the snakes ran out of venom. 

It’s absolutely mesmerizing to watch these guys extract the venom from the snakes. They had it down to a science. One person would take the stick, the next would grab the snake just in time and release the venom into the cup. Over and over again, the snakes got angrier, but the workers never lost their cool and didn’t even spill a single drop of snake venom.

I am in awe of this extraction of snake venom. I mean, what? Like I knew they had to extract venom for antidotes somehow, but I didn’t think it would be done by three Thai men in t-shirts in their mid-twenties. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things over the years while traveling, but snake venom extraction in Thailand has to be towards the top of that list.