At first glance, Kawisa Boontao thought someone had left a long piece of wood outside her Chonburi barbecue restaurant. Then she realized it was a huge python slithering toward her truck.
The 50-year-old owner of Pungkang BBQ in Ban Bung District quickly called to her son inside to shoo it away, but it was too late, the three-meter-long snake had crawled into the left wheel well of her white Ford pickup Nov. 29.
It was then up to local rescue volunteers to extract the python. But when the snake spotted them, it crawled into the undercarriage and then into the engine compartment.
Rescuers gave up trying to hook the 15-kilogram python’s head with a noose and ended up pulling it out by the tail, which took about 30 minutes.
Kawisa said her restaurant was just preparing to reopen after having closed since the start of Thailand’s coronavirus lockdown and she took the snake’s preference for her truck as a sign of good luck and will play the Ford’s license plate number in the lottery.