My Bangkok Condo Snake

Eighteen months or so ago I was booked on an overnight flight from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport to Melbourne, Australia. The flight was aborted shortly before takeoff because of a hydraulic system malfunction and passengers were accommodated over night in a hotel while the aircraft was repaired.

At breakfast the next morning I was quite taken aback by a young British woman’s response to my comment that I had been living in Bangkok for a number of years. She looked aghast and exclaimed, “How could anybody choose to live in city like this? It must be the most terrible place on earth.”

I countered that there is much more to the city than meets the eye of the traveller on a short visit, and that although I lived in a busy part of the city my mornings and evenings were filled with the noisy chattering of birds, and at night there was often just an amazing stillness.

My condo is only a couple of hundred metres from one of Bangkok’s busiest thoroughfares, but my street and the adjoining one have no through traffic. Consequently, the raucous Bangkok that the tourist usually encounters seems light years away. Bangkok can really be a pleasant and convenient place to live for those who do their homework.

This hotel conversation with my fellow stranded air passenger came back to me this week when I admit that I was more than a little surprised to find a snake of almost one and a half metres cautiously exploring the length of my tenth floor balcony. Wow, I thought, wildlife abounds in central Bangkok! I managed to get a couple of photos.

My Bangkok Condo Snake

I’m not sure of the species; it was long and thin and dark in colour, and in no hurry. I think it probably was on the look out for pigeon eggs or some such delicacy. After thirty minutes or so it had disappeared into the twilight and, as is usual in tropical climes, the darkened hush of evening had descended.

I thought how pleased I was that I had installed insect screens to the doors and sliding windows. No doubt my impressions of the pastoral serenity of inner city Bangkok would have changed to horror had I found the reptilian egg hunter between my sheets!

Wildlife in the City