Bangkok after dark is literally wild

Bangkok changes after dark. Malls dim, street stalls stack their tables and joggers drift out of Benjakitti Park. Then another city begins to stir.

After dark, the grass in Bangkok's green spaces starts to feel less like a lawn and more like a jungle. Trimeresurus macrops – a startlingly green pit viper – emerges from its daytime hiding place. Vine snakes stir in the treetops. Somewhere along a canal, a python longer than a tuk-tuk slides through water that few people notice by day.

The friends behind Bangkok Herping Tour spent years exploring this side of the city with torches and cameras before it became a business. What began as a private obsession among people who found snakes beautiful is now a Friday-night ritual for curious travellers willing to swap the tourist trail for tall grass and mosquito spray.

We caught up with the team to talk about fear, fireflies and falling for the animals most people are taught to avoid.

A hobby before a business

For one founder, the story began with a childhood spent returning to Thailand – around 30 visits before moving here permanently – followed by nights exploring Bangkok’s backstreets with Thai friends who shared the same fascination.
‘For years, we would walk around different parts of Bangkok at night to observe and photograph the animals we love, particularly snakes,’ they say. ‘It began as a hobby shared by friends fascinated by the wildlife living all around us.’
The attraction was more specific than a general love of animals. Reptiles, especially snakes, fascinated them partly because of the fear they provoke. ‘They are exactly the kind of animals I believe deserve more attention, because people need to understand their importance within the ecosystem and why the fear surrounding them is often irrational,’ they explain. ‘Most snakes are extremely discreet animals that will move away from humans whenever they have the opportunity.’
Popular culture has done snakes few favours, they say. Left alone, these supposed horror-film monsters are usually shy.

The night Bangkok changed shape

The idea emerged gradually: the same walks and canals, night after night, until the pattern became impossible to miss. Thai friends who knew where to look helped reveal just how much wildlife was sharing the city.
‘I was fortunate to have Thai friends who were passionate about the same animals and introduced me to more secret, remote places largely unknown to tourists,’ they say. In these pockets of Bangkok, residents and wildlife had long since learnt to share space.
The tour idea took shape one evening while walking with Chris, a Thai-American guide who is now a core member of the team. ‘We realised that we enjoyed this hobby so much that other people might also love discovering Bangkok from this completely different perspective,’ they recall. Around two years ago, they began working out how to share that passion with visitors – sometimes only steps from a BTS station, yet unnoticed by the millions passing through the city.

A warm welcome

The tours found an enthusiastic audience from the start.. Both founders already had online followings built around reptiles, giving them a ready pool of people curious to see Bangkok’s wildlife in person.
Not everyone who signed up was a reptile obsessive. ‘Tourists visiting Thailand today are often looking for new and unusual experiences,’ the team says, and Bangkok Herping Tour offers a reason to leave the well-trodden path after dark. Some guests arrived armed with snake facts; others simply want to discover a side of Bangkok they never knew existed.

Entrepreneur, not tour guide

Ask whether they consider themselves a guide, conservationist or storyteller, and the founder points out an important distinction: legally, they cannot work as a tour guide. Thai law reserves the profession for Thai nationals, so the operation has been structured around that restriction.
‘I see myself as the creator and entrepreneur behind the tour,’ they say. ‘Today, the activity is managed and supervised by Thai professionals, including officially licensed tour guides and snake experts.’ The founder develops the experience, while licensed local professionals deliver it.

Why Bangkok still has room for wild things

Bangkok’s biodiversity owes plenty to water. The city was built around canals long before roads, and that network still serves as a kind of reptile motorway. ‘For snakes, the canals function almost like natural highways, allowing them to move across Bangkok with a relatively low risk of being hit by vehicles,’ the team explains. That helps account for the pythons measuring more than four metres that are still regularly spotted within the city.
Then there is Bang Kachao, the leafy peninsula known as Bangkok’s green lung, just across the river from Sathorn’s skyscrapers. ‘You can be surrounded by a rapidly developing, ultra-modern city and, only a few minutes later, pass through a gate or cross the river and find yourself in a remarkably preserved ecosystem filled with reptiles, invertebrates and aquatic wildlife,’ they say. Fireflies still flicker there too. Because they are highly sensitive to pollution, their continued presence is an encouraging indicator of the area’s ecological health.
As the team points out, the contrast between day and night holds even in places most visitors think they know well. 'If people were able to walk through Benjakitti Park at around 11pm, they would not see only one or two vipers. They could potentially see dozens of Trimeresurus macrops.'
'I grew up in Europe,' the founder adds, 'and before coming here I had never witnessed such an extraordinary level of biodiversity within a major city.'

When fear turns to fascination

Many guests arrive uneasy about what might emerge from the darkness. According to the team, that feeling rarely survives the first sighting.
‘As soon as we find the first snake, which can sometimes happen only a few minutes after arriving at the site, fascination immediately replaces fear,’ they say. Guests do not handle the animals and there is no staged drama, just quiet observation, torchlight and patience. ‘Guests are struck by the beauty of the animal and by seeing it in its natural environment. They may arrive with apprehension, but they usually leave with beautiful memories.’

The snakes nobody sees

One encounter with a street-food vendor neatly captures what the tour is about.
While scouting an overgrown plot near Suvarnabhumi Airport, beside a small skewer stall, the team found five or six vine snakes in under five minutes. They were tucked into tall grass just behind a woman who had grilled skewers there every evening for 15 years.
‘I have worked here every evening for 15 years, and I have never seen a single one,’ she told them, astonished.
Bangkok’s wildlife is not so much hiding as going unnoticed. ‘You simply need to know where to look,’ the founder says. ‘I believe education makes the difference between fear and knowledge. When people take time to study and understand a subject, responding rationally rather than emotionally, fear often begins to disappear.’

More than wildlife

The tours have also built relationships with people in the areas they visit, including boat drivers, drink vendors, village leaders and local police. ‘We try as much as possible to work with people from the area,’ the team says. The project is less than a year old but is already looking for ways to support the neighbourhoods it visits.
‘I believe it is extremely important to know, respect and support the people who make this experience possible,’ the founder adds. ‘We have always been very grateful for the welcome we have received.’

What's next?

The team is keeping its plans under wraps for now, but hints at new night-tour locations and a longer-term project that could introduce the public to wildlife in a different format. ‘I cannot reveal too much yet because it is still only a project,’ the founder says, ‘but people will be informed as soon as it becomes more concrete.’

For now, tours set out every Friday evening at 8.30pm. Somewhere in Bangkok, a seemingly ordinary patch of grass is about to reveal a much wilder side.

Bangkok Herping Tour – full details at bangkokherping.com. Follow @bangkokherping on Instagram.