Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute Snake Farm

The institute was founded in 1923 by the Thai Red Cross as the Pasteur Institute of Siam and is the second oldest facility of its kind in the world after Brazil's Butantan. Its purpose is medical: venomous snakes are kept, milked, and the venom used to produce antivenom serum that supplies Thailand and much of the region, alongside research and the treatment of bite victims. Snakebite kills people in Thailand every year and the serum made here is the reason it kills fewer. The public side is a museum on snake biology and bite first aid, outdoor enclosures with cobras, kraits, vipers and pythons, and two scheduled demonstrations - a venom milking, where a king cobra or monocled cobra is held and its venom extracted onto a glass rim, and a handling session. Both run at fixed times on weekdays only, with a reduced schedule at weekends, and missing them means missing most of the point.

What you actually see

• The venom milking - extraction demonstrated at a fixed weekday time.
• The handling show - cobras and pythons handled by staff.
• The serum work - the institute's actual purpose, producing antivenom for the region.
• The 1923 foundation - the second oldest antivenom institute in the world.

When to go

Any season; indoors and outdoors. Demonstrations run at fixed times on weekdays with a reduced weekend schedule - check before going, since the milking is the reason to come.

Honest expectations

Demonstration times are fixed and limited, and weekends have fewer - arriving outside them means seeing enclosures only. Ticketed. Some enclosures are dated. It is a working medical institute, not a zoo.

Nearby

Lumphini Park is a short walk east; Silom and Sala Daeng are south.