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Chlidonias

snake monastery in Bago

January 2014 The following explanation is from my thread here: http://www.zoochat.com/19/chlidonias-goes-asia-part-3-2013-a-328982/index49.html After the short and rather bird-less stay at Lake Moeyunggyi I headed back into town on the motorbike to visit the Snake Monastery. I had only found out about this while in Kalaw (again because I haven't looked in Lonely Planet), when two travellers had told me that there was a huge ?boa constrictor? in a temple in Bago which was ?120 years old?. Seeing I was going to Bago anyway for Lake Moeyunggyi I added the Snake Monastery straight onto the schedule. The snake was a Burmese python and was indeed very big and fat. Snakes are notoriously hard to estimate the length of because their shape distorts your perception, but fortunately this one was lying on a tiled floor inside the pagoda where it lived. I measured the tiles with my fingers and compared that later with a ruler, so I knew they were 20cm wide. The snake lay along 16 tiles, so was roughly 3.2 metres long (just under eleven feet). It isn't an exact measurement because the end of its tail was curled on a blanket, and also the snake was relaxed ? when it started moving it extended out more. I'll just say it was a minimum of 3.2 metres. If the tiles hadn't been there I probably would have guessed it as being at least 50% longer than it actually was! [It is supposedly five metres long, which it certainly isn't ? one blog I saw even called it ?the longest python in the world? ]. As for its age ? it is according to local tradition the reincarnation of a monk, which is how I think they got the figure of 120 years. My motorbike driver told me the snake had been found fifty years ago, and they had just built the pagoda to attract visitors to make money......

snake monastery in Bago
Chlidonias, 1 Jul 2014
    • Chlidonias
      January 2014

      The following explanation is from my thread here: http://www.zoochat.com/19/chlidonias-goes-asia-part-3-2013-a-328982/index49.html

      After the short and rather bird-less stay at Lake Moeyunggyi I headed back into town on the motorbike to visit the Snake Monastery. I had only found out about this while in Kalaw (again because I haven\'t looked in Lonely Planet), when two travellers had told me that there was a huge “boa constrictor” in a temple in Bago which was “120 years old”. Seeing I was going to Bago anyway for Lake Moeyunggyi I added the Snake Monastery straight onto the schedule. The snake was a Burmese python and was indeed very big and fat. Snakes are notoriously hard to estimate the length of because their shape distorts your perception, but fortunately this one was lying on a tiled floor inside the pagoda where it lived. I measured the tiles with my fingers and compared that later with a ruler, so I knew they were 20cm wide. The snake lay along 16 tiles, so was roughly 3.2 metres long (just under eleven feet). It isn\'t an exact measurement because the end of its tail was curled on a blanket, and also the snake was relaxed – when it started moving it extended out more. I\'ll just say it was a minimum of 3.2 metres. If the tiles hadn\'t been there I probably would have guessed it as being at least 50% longer than it actually was! [It is supposedly five metres long, which it certainly isn\'t – one blog I saw even called it “the longest python in the world” ]. As for its age – it is according to local tradition the reincarnation of a monk, which is how I think they got the figure of 120 years. My motorbike driver told me the snake had been found fifty years ago, and they had just built the pagoda to attract visitors to make money......
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  • Category:
    Myanmar - Other
    Uploaded By:
    Chlidonias
    Date:
    1 Jul 2014
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