Thailand “Gators”…….

I just arrived in Bangkok; the family is still in Kenya as the kids finish school and I have the day off.  I saw an advertisement for a “Crocodile Show” about 50 miles outside the city, so I fired up my new 125cc Yamaha Fino and decided to make a road trip.  I’m from Florida and love the “Gators.”  The last time Katia and I were in Thailand during the 80s, we visited an animal show that made a lasting impression and would easily have wound up the PETA crowd.

The Croc Farm and its 30 Bhat entrance fee (less than a buck) didn’t disappoint and is clearly a phenomenon you’re only going to get in the third world.  The highlight was a one-hour display of virility put on by two Thai ring masters and several 15’ plus Crocodiles in a rundown Gladiator-like arena that was right out of a Fellini film.  A burning noon sun, the smell of mold and stagnant water, blasting Surama Muay Thai music, and the continuous “WHACK” of the killers snapping their jaws closed, provoked by the handler’s tickle stick. No OSHA issues at this park.  Then the entertainment really began; the handlers started inserting their heads, legs, whatever, into the stationary open mouths of the reptiles, drawing nervous applause from the 60-plus Thais in the audience.  Head in the mouth, wait for applause, head out of the mouth, tickle stick, WHACK.  Enough for me; the fear of being eaten is a primal response I hadn’t felt in a while.  What a way to make a buck is all I could think of. I have never seen anything like it. Sawadee