Man sleeps in tent with deadly cobra all night in eastern Thailand

A Thai man is lucky to be alive after sleeping in a tent all night with a venomous cobra in Rayong province, eastern Thailand.

Dacha, from the northern province of Phitsanulok province, posted photos on Facebook yesterday of a snake slithering out of the tent he dissembled moments earlier at the Dok Krai reservoir in Rayong province.

He wrote the message, “It’s almost gone. I suspect that it slept with me all night. I just saw it as I took down the tent this morning.”

The happy camper suspects that the cobra wanted to snuggle up to keep warm on a chilly winter’s night. After a restful night’s sleep, the snake was startled by Dacha taking down the tent and made a break for it.

Dacha didn’t realise how lucky he was until netizens informed him that not just any old snake slept in his tent all night but a highly venomous cobra whose bite can easily be fatal to a human.

Many netizens believe the snake is a Siamese spitting cobra (Naja siamensis) which doesn’t even need to bite to kill. A spitting cobra can spit venom from a distance with very accurate aim, making them arguably the most dangerous snake in Thailand.

The idea of camping in Thailand is a little too in tents for some, with all the venomous snakes and dangerous wildlife found in the kingdom.

This morning, tourists in Kanchanaburi were warned to beware of a tiger spotted sauntering around the busy tourist spots of Srinagarind Dam and Erawan Waterfall.

Last week, a Thai man from Satun province was walking in the rubber plantation behind his house when he came across a rare golden cobra.

Captivated by its beautiful golden complexion, the man didn’t think about the deadly potential of the snake and put it into a sack and carried it home to raise it as a pet.

However, once netizens told him the snake was a rare species of cobra, he released it back into the wild – far away from his house.

In September, a villager in Trang province – just up the road from Satun – woke up in the morning to find a 2.1-metre-long king cobra taking a nap inside his wardrobe.

In November, a Thai man narrowly survived a bite from his pet monocled cobra.

READ: What to do if you get bitten by a snake in Thailand.