Some people will do the strangest things to set a new world record. Take Thai snake charmer Khum Chaibuddee who today won the title of "Dangerous Kisses" by kissing 19 king cobras in under an hour. The previous best was 11 venomous snakes (set in 1999 by American Gordon Cates). Khum Chai-buddee has been working with king cobras for 12 years in his village Koke Sa-gna - and has been bitten only three times in his life. But his world record bid has also set the stage for a growth in the tourism industry in the area.
According to the Bangkok Post, Koke Sa-nga is Thailand's only known village where most of the 140 households breed or keep cobras as a pastime or a means of making a living. The village has previously become a tourist stopover following documentaries which showed snakes coiling around the residents during their leisure time. Which should have been good news - except the fortune this should have afforded the previously impoverished area was constricted by the division of the village into two factions - each claiming to be the original Koke Sa-nga snake charmers. Eventually the government stepped in to patch the rift - seeing that it was possible to increase income in the area - from 3 million baht from donations and souvenir sales for each of the factions - to over 20 million baht a year. The Tourism Authority of Thailand has commissioned Khon Kaen University's faculty of architecture to design a larger stage for the snake show and king cobra exhibition centre under one roof. The village (47 km from Khon Kaen) may also be developed into Asia's largest living king cobra museum and study centre, which will also include the cultivation of indigenous herbs used to cure snake bites.
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