Thailand
Ryan Dilbert

In Thailand, hotel owners paint cobras pink so that tourists are less scared of them. The snakes seem much cuter in a cherry blossom hue and are often photographed. Most of the tourists are American men. They are bald and double-chinned and lawyers.

Lawyers are soft. Their skin is made of bleached flour. You should never spray a lawyer with a water gun, as you may dissolve their skin. A brood of hens will almost always swarm to fallen flecks of their doughy skin and peck madly until they break their beaks on the asphalt. Half-beaked chickens are fearless animals that smell like hot rice vinegar. They make Thai children uncomfortable. The kids sharpen takian branches with pen knives and chase the hens until they scamper off, squawking. The pointed sticks are also used to fight off carnivorous plants. Rural Thailand is chockablock with roving vines that wrap around people's ankles and drag them along their face. This leaves a train of blood spotted with loose teeth. Tourists with poor vision glance at this and often mistake it for a pink cobra. They unzip their fanny packs and reach for their cameras.

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