Friday, 5 September 2008

Snakes and Adders. And what is that?!




Nice adder on the steps upto our summer cabin in Norway a few weeks ago, before going up the stairs! Further delaying us getting into the house. Then it decided to go under the cabin, which really reassured us...
Poisonous, but don't kill you unless you are really unlucky.



However this one might do:


(Not the blue pipe, but the orange snake by the wall.)

This was in Vietnam, on the slopes down from Dalat towards the coast. We had stopped for a break in our cycling trip from Saigon to Hanoi, and I really needed the toilet... We spotted this snake sliding into the men's toilets. A local Vietnamese man inside spotted the snake and ran out. That reassured me as I still needed to go into the toilet...

Since the snake was going and out the holes on one side, I decided to sneak into the cubicles on the other side. But when I checked them out, they were very dark and full of mosquitos. Since this was still far inland, and off the beaten track, I now had a choice between malaria and dengue fever or a snake bite from a snake that the locals seemed to fear...

Better the devil you know, so I put out some centuries and a very quick pit stop on the snake side!

Still wonder what type of snake it is. Brown orange body, 1.5m long. Was not able to identify it by looking up some sites on the net. Probably some expert will tell me it is a harmless grass snake, but as the locals were not chuffed about it, I decided not to cuddle it.

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