What's Ngoo?

Ngoo is quite a hard Thai word to pronounce correctly but we have been getting a bit of practice in lately.

Our first snake encounter oustide of the zoo, was at Leela Resort, where dinner one night was interrupted  by the sounds of a staff member throwing rocks at a small cobra about 20 metres away from our table. Fortunately he had a good arm and a decent sized chuck of concrete dispatched the slitherer.

On our return to BTNC there were reports of snakes being seen in the garden of the boys building which also houses the office and the computer room. A day was assigned for a snake hunt and I donned my protective jandals, shorts and singlet. Unexpectedly however sand arrived for the the new soccer pitch diverting my fellow snake hunters away before the chase had even started. Undeterred I began clearing the overgrown garden armed with secateurs and a hand fork.......and a 5 metre bamboo pole!

Yo, the head designer in the craft shop/driver/general hand and good guy, pitched in to help, and after an hour or so he identified snake burrows coming from adjoining waste land under the concrete wall and into the BTNC garden. There were no ngoos present but the bamboo pole got a good workout smashing up their lair. Subsequently Sue and I with some help have tidied up the whole garden around the boys building in the process we hope eradicating any snake habitat.

Problem solved.....or perhaps not. Recently I came across a snake near our bungalow on the footpath outside the kitchen which is adjacent to the girls building. It (a rather beautiful olive green thing with some burnt orange colour near its head) quickly slithered into some concrete block work where the dishes are washed and would have been impossible to catch but for its own curiousity. I had cried "ngoo!" immediately and apparently my Thai pronounciation is on the improve. When the ngoo slithered out again a staff member (Pa (ie Aunty) Tar) was on hand to deal to it swiftly with the rake Sue had arrived with. One down how many more to go?

Three so far. A couple of days ago 2 boys helping us in the garden around the girls building cried "ngoo!". Beween us and a plasterer working on the fence this one was dispatched with a bamboo pole, but not before it made a spirited and rapid dash for freedom, and not before it flapped its cobra wings at us! There is something quite chilling about a cobra.

As result that part of the garden/lawn along the fenceline has been dug up in the last day yielding two more ngoo.

We just hope there aint ngoo more.