Mystery of the Western King Cobra weighing over 100 kg
King cobras make people scared and amazed because they are several hundred kilos in size, but when they walk, they stand up tall like bamboo trees and just stand on the tip of their tails and glide forward!
Stories from U Minh forest
U Minh Forest (Ca Mau, Kien Giang), Phu Quoc, Bay Nui (An Giang) still have countless legends about clouded tigers with many mysteries both real and unreal.
They are cold-blooded but love to eat lamp wax. At night, whoever holds a lamp to look for the lamp will find frogs and snakes following them around, eating the dropped wax without the lamp holder knowing.
Where trees are fallen down as if a storm has passed, there is definitely a battle between a tiger and a king cobra. Or like the story of a giant king cobra, but when it encounters a wild boar, it lies still for the wild boar to eat.
King cobras are “killers” of fish and shrimp. Whenever they find a pond full of fish, they wrap their heads and tails around two tree trunks and use their bodies as buckets to scoop out the water and catch the fish to eat. The elders also say that king cobras are very loyal. If you kill one, you have to watch out for the other. Lying in the house, you can hear the trees shaking like there is a storm.
The venom of the king cobra is no less than that of a cobra, and its nest always stinks. Its bile is rumored to be able to cure eye disease. It is also said that the king cobra drinks water very horribly. When drinking water, it bends down, and people wait for an opening to hit it hard on the neck with a stick, breaking its neck before it dies.
Stories like the king cobra was lying flat so people thought it was a log sitting on it, then suddenly it was thrown to the ground and the long log ran away and then they realized it was sitting on the king cobra.
Cam Mountain (An Hao Commune, Tinh Bien District, An Giang) - the highest mountain in the West, is where the king cobra used to live and still has many mysteries. It is said that right at Thanh Long stream, there is a very large cave and that is the hiding place of a pair of black king cobras.
Two years ago, a woman from far away went up the mountain on pilgrimage to the snake cave, but not knowing what to do, she sat down to wash her face. Suddenly, a huge black snake head as big as a soup chair rose from the stream and bit the woman, dragging her down into the cave. The witnesses were terrified and their limbs went limp...it took a long time before they could run away.
Another story is as mysterious as that on the deserted mountainside of Cam Mountain, a Taoist priest named Nguyen Van Do (according to some documents, he is the nephew of Thu Khoa Huan) appeared. He meditated on the rocks during the day and practiced martial arts at night under the moonlight. Mr. Do cultivated a garden of rare wormwood to save people. To prevent bad people from stealing the medicine and doing evil deeds, he tamed a pair of pythons to guard it. Those two clever pythons were actually clouded king cobras that only crawled around the medicinal garden. Many people came here to steal the medicine, leaving only their skeletons!
Nghe An: People found a pair of cobras entwined on the side of the road.
(Baonghean.vn) - Early in the morning of May 18, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Khoi in Hoa Binh town, Tuong Duong district (Nghe An) was walking for exercise when he saw a pair of snakes, believed to be very large fat tigers, entwined and mating on the side of the road. This rare moment was recorded by Mr. Khoi and posted on social media and immediately attracted many followers.
The truth about giant cloud tiger!
If you look up the great Vietnamese dictionary edited by Nguyen Nhu Y, you will not find any mention of the clouded king cobra! The Southern writer Son Nam in his stories about the Western jungle also tells about clouded king cobras. Are they common snakes or rare snakes? And why are they called clouded king cobras? Is it because they stand up to tens of meters tall that people call them clouded king cobras? So do giant clouded king cobras really exist or are they just exaggerated in jungle stories like Uncle Ba Phi's jokes?
Hearing us doubt this story, Mr. Sau Man - also known as Dinh Van Man, a retired cadre in Duong Dong town, Phu Quoc (Kien Giang) frowned, blaming the young generation today for being indifferent to the vast forests of the past. He recounted an old story that proved that Phu Quoc was once a home to giant king cobras.
At that time, the enemy troops were sweeping to Vung Bau and there was a fierce gun battle. At first, it was thought that the enemy had encountered guerrillas, but when the gunfire stopped, Mr. Man and the people came to see and saw the body of a clouded tiger in tatters like Chinese sauce, over 30 meters long. It turned out that the enemy had swept and was suddenly attacked by a clouded tiger. Too frightened by the snake as tall as a coconut tree, the enemy opened fire and then ran away on all fours.
Mr. Tran Van Nham, a teacher in Tan Thanh commune, An Minh (Kien Giang), used his honor as a retired teacher to say that giant king cobras are not a fantasy. 30 years ago, when he was a young man, he was sleeping and suddenly saw his house shaking and his dog crawling under the bed, shivering. Only when he regained his composure and looked closely at the large, pale yellow mass of snakes curled up as big as a car wheel on the roof did he stammer out a cry for help.
Neighbors heard the commotion and came to see, and everyone was pale in front of the huge clouded tiger. Afraid that the snake would eat them, hundreds of people in the neighborhood mustered up the courage to use their three-pronged pitchforks to stab the snake. The 120 kg snake carcass filled the yard, and the whole neighborhood cut up the meat and shared it among themselves, which took nearly a month to finish.
Hearing the story of the mountain king cobra eating people, Mr. Nguyen Van Y, a long-time resident of Cam Mountain, rebuked it as nonsense. On Cam Mountain, there are two species of king cobras: the black king cobra and the yellow-ringed king cobra, but no one has ever heard of a king cobra on the mountain eating people.
Mr. Y has faced black king cobras twice and killed them in self-defense. Hunters insist that king cobras still exist on Phu Quoc and hide on Hon Chao, where many wild animals are strictly protected by forest rangers. They also say that now only small king cobras are seen, and those over 100kg are almost never seen. Most recently, a 10kg king cobra went down to Tranh Stream to drink water and clashed with a pack of 7 Phu Quoc dogs. The dog-snake fight resulted in the king cobra being exposed, but the 2 clever dogs were bitten to death by the snake. A local resident bought the king cobra's body to soak in medicinal wine.
Not long ago, there was a rumor that a giant king cobra had appeared in U Minh Ha. Journalists and forest rangers were on the lookout for photos of the snake. They used all kinds of bait but the king cobra was still missing. There was also a story about a forest ranger looking for a king cobra to hatch and raise like a normal snake, but so far there has been no results. Hearing this, I feel sorry for the snake with so many mysteries in the mountains and forests but it has not been of interest to filmmakers. Meanwhile, Hollywood and China are competing to make movies about giant snakes in a fantastical way...