Word: snakes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...DIED. SAMANTHA, around 30, 26-foot, 275-pound python who was the largest snake in captivity; of old age; in the Bronx Zoo. According to her keepers, "Samantha was a rather mellow and easy-going creature...
...most popular spots to watch the fireballs. "I've seen them come up from the river, and also from canals and dams," she claims. "My mother and father saw them, and their mothers and fathers. And I've seen the Naga too. It was like a huge, silver snake swimming down the river. I saw it when I was 13 years...
...soldiers. The dreamy opening sequence follows loincloth-clad divers as they plant clay "eggs" along the riverbed. Illuminated boats sweep by above, lighting up the expectant faces of the throng assembled along the riverbank. Then the pink fireballs burst skyward from the water to resounding cheers. The mythical snake is breathing fire again, welcoming the Buddha back to earth...
...According to local lore, the giant snake?which was forbidden from entering the monkhood by the Lord Buddha because it wasn't human?has roamed a subterranean universe known as the Muang Badan for thousands of years, slithering through a vast network of caves and tunnels. The main thoroughfare?the Naga superhighway, if you like?is said to run from Kam Chanode in Udon Thani province to Wat Paa Ahong, a temple on the riverbank more than 100 kilometers away in neighboring Nong Khai. Pilgrims, I was told, visit Kam Chanode to anoint themselves with water from the Naga...
...just popped in without a reservation should prepare for purgatory (but what a luxurious purgatory it is: Customers fidget on purposely distressed leather sofas while they anxiously await admission). All this entrance-intrigue is bathed in the lurid, erotic glow of red lamps clasped in the fangs of ornate snake-candelabra, or coyly veiled in rice paper (wasn’t it Woody Allen who used a red light bulb as a sexual expedient in Annie Hall?). On the far wall hang paintings of frolicking figures in prurient postures, Matissean dancers in revelry. Overhead, Starck-sleek fans of brushed steel...