Has anyone here going herping in Thailand or Southeast Asia? Can anyone recommend good books, websites, or share their own experiences?

This December I will be in Thailand for about 12 days. About half of the time I will be scuba diving in the Andaman sea looking for sharks, manta rays, and sea snakes, but I'd like to spend a couple days hiking and looking for herps to photograph as well. I will be based out of Khao Lak in the Phang-Nga province on the Andaman coast near Phuket. Supposedly in the area where I will be, there is a coastal national park with 125 sq. miles of land, much of it mangrove habitat. I would love to find one of those black and yellow mangrove snakes or some water monitors! Or maybe a reticulated python!

Naturally I want to learn all the dangerous species in my area so I know which snakes to steer clear of. I will be travelling solo so I can't afford a cobra bite. I already know there are king cobras in the mountains (although I seriously doubt I will run across one of these bad boys), and a variety of other vipers and cobras live in the country. Russell's vipers? Common cobras?

The other thing I am thinking about is the season. In southern Thailand, it is pretty much warm year round, but I will be visiting in the dry season. When I studied tropical ecology in northeastern Australia, I quickly learned that the herping is not nearly as good in the cooler (but still warm) dry season as it is during the steaming hot wet season. So I'm wondering how much success I might have in Thailand during December and how I should focus my efforts.

Thanks,
Andy Gottscho

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