Nearly 1,000 people flocked to a wedding in Cambodia – between two snakes.
Bride Chamreun, a 16ft python weighing 200lb, wed her smaller mate in Village One in Kandal province, just south of the capital Phnom Penh.
Buddhist monks blessed the pair and villagers showered them with flowers during the two-hour ceremony believed to bring prosperity and peace to those attending.
“We organised the wedding ceremony for the pythons in order to oust bad things and bring good luck and happiness for our villages,” said 41-year-old Neth Vy, who owns Chamreun.
“We were told that the two pythons are husband and wife and they need to live together, and if we don’t marry them we will meet bad luck.”
Mr Neth said he had found the then-tiny python while fishing in 1994, and that she had become part of the family.
Since taking the snake in, he said no misfortune had befallen his family.
The python groom, named Krong Pich, was caught 12 days ago by people in a neighbouring village.
Apparently, it’s bad luck to let your pythons live in sin.
Hippos are already monstrous enough. They kill more people in Africa than any other large mammal. They have what might be called a certain inherent antipathy towards us.
It is a good scientific question about why hippos hate people. I’d actually like to see a paper on this. Seriously.
There was actually a full documentary on this. Jessica was an orphaned hippo who was taken in by this family. She imprinted strongly on people and bull terriers.
I never thought she was the best cared for animal. Her diet was mostly sweet potatoes, and her owners wanted to know why she was not big enough to start wanting to breed. After all, this family just needed an amorous bull hippo hanging by the door. I’m also sure that the needed a maternally protective hippo cow in the living room.
In the documentary, a bull did show up, but he was later killed after raiding some farms. Well, that’s nice.
I’ve never heard what happened to Jessica since the documentary, but my guess is what has happened to her hasn’t been very good. Hippos are poor pets.
