7 YEAR OLD HAS A LARGE 16 FOOT LONG PYTHON AS A PET

Seven-year-old Uorn Sambath, who lives in the Cambodian village of Setbo, spends time with the family pet. The reptile, named Chamroeun, slithered into the house as a younger — and much smaller — snake when Uorn was a baby.

Being responsible parents, rice farmer Khuorn Sam Ol and his wife might not be expected to be keen on having their child play with a 16-foot-long, 220-pound snake.

Yet they are unflustered that their 7-year-old son, Uorn Sambath, regularly sleeps in the massive coil of the female python, rides the reptile, kisses it and even pats it down with baby powder.

"There is a special bond between them," Khuorn Sam Ol said. "My son played with the snake when he was still learning to crawl. They used to sleep together in a cradle."

The boy and his snake have become a tourist attraction in Setbo village, about 12 miles south of the capital Phnom Penh, as well as a source of wonder to the locals.

"People sometimes call the boy and the snake husband and wife," said Cheng Raem, a 48-year-old neighbor. "Maybe they were a couple from a previous life."

Boy and snake grew up together, ever since the python slithered into the family home when Uorn Sambath was 3 months old. His 39-year-old mother, Kim Kannara, discovered the reptile, then about the size of a thumb, coiled beneath a woven mat on their bed.

Khuorn Sam Ol took the snake away, releasing it into some bushes by a river, but one morning two weeks later, he found it back inside the house. He decided to keep it and named it Chamroeun — meaning "progress," in English.

He came to believe the snake possesses a magical spirit that understands what he says and protects the family from illness. The snake has its own 7-by-10-foot room with a spirit house at which Khuorn Sam Ol prays for the python to keep his family happy and healthy. The snake is so familiar with his son — one of four children — that it would never hurt him, he said..