Marines participating in exercise Cobra Gold took the concept of tasting the local cuisine to new levels when they sliced open a freshly caught cobra and drank its blood.
Marines are given cobra blood during a jungle survival program as part of the annual combined military exercises, Cobra Gold 2013, at a navy base in Sattahip on Feb. 20. PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images
With the pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, Marines could soon find themselves spending more time in jungle environments. About 5,000 members of III Marine Expeditionary Force are participating in Cobra Gold 2013, a joint multinational exercise based out of Thailand. In addition to local troops there, they are working with military members from Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Thai troops were giving Marines a lesson on jungle survival, which sometimes means eating what you can find. An Army sergeant participating in the exercise said if someone’s hunting skills aren’t up to par, they can eat grasshoppers, cockroaches, scorpions, worms or beetles, according to a news release.
Marines test out some insects while learning about jungle survival during exercise Cobra Gold. AFP PHOTO / PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKULPORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images
But if you are lucky enough to catch some good game like a chicken, jungle-living means you don’t have to do fancy things like pluck the feathers or grill it. Just dig right in like this Marine.
A Marine bites into a slaughtered chicken during a jungle survival program as part of the annual combined military exercises, Cobra Gold 2013. PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images
And once you’re done drinking the blood from those dead cobras, you can find other uses for the rest of the body. Their tails, for example, can be used like this:
A Marine jokes around with detached cobra tails during a jungle survival program as part of the annual combined military exercises, Cobra Gold 2013, at a navy base in Sattahip on Feb. 20. AFP PHOTO / PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKULPORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images
If all of that still doesn’t fill your gross-quota for the day, you can check out this video by global news agency AFP and watch it all go down.
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This used to be a popular thing for tourists to do in Bangkok. You could find a few places that would serve up cobra blood concoctions like cocktails with cobra blood. It’s hard to find those kinds of spots these days.