As I may have mentioned before, Thailand is absurdly cheap
in most respects. Combined with the fact that we make a huge amount of money by
Thai standards (as much as teachers who have been working for thirty years),
this means we have a pretty stable financial situation. However, we try our
hardest to pump a majority of that money back into the Thai economy. This leads
to a great deal of outrageous purchases, as well as general money-blowing
tendencies, in an effort to give back to the locals.
Ridiculous purchase of the week: photo-ops with massive
reptiles!
This is quite clearly a because-we-can situation. When
exploring the local countryside several weeks ago, we drove through a nearby “hilltribe”
(quotation marks due to being more of a tourist trap than a genuine village).
Alongside the road was a sign reading BIG SNAKES with an arrow. Concise and
direct, we followed that sign to another sign and eventually to, you guessed
it, a bunch of cages full of pythons and assorted other reptiles.
They were asking the exorbitant price of 300 baht ($10) for
a printed picture of you holding a snake. So we, in typical Thai fashion,
struck a deal. We would come back with our camera, take all the pictures we
wanted, no printing necessary, for just 100 baht.
So, this weekend, we went back. The deal was adjusted:
unlimited pictures, two reptiles per person, 150 baht. Not too shabby, and how
often does one get to play with snakes and lizards of gargantuan proportions?
They may have been big, but they certainly weren't in any way threatening. The biggest snake there was geriatric, drooling and clearly blind. So I guess we got
the $5 experience we bargained for.
