The days following my return, I slept A LOT. I spent about 3 hours of that weekend awake, meaning that I slept for 45 hours and missed a lot of bonding time with my family. I don’t even remember waking up to eat.

Re-adjusting to city life was a bit difficult. Though I wasn’t gone long, I spent all of my time in Thailand in a tight-knit group, so returning to the Big Apple made me feel like a lost puppy. The spring semester started a few days after I returned and I had to get back to the hustle and bustle. But, alas, this was 2020 and the hustle and bustle only lasted for a little over a month.

Going to Thailand not only taught me about different animals and culture, but it also taught me a lot about myself. I really had to grow as a person and speak up for myself often in order to get any of my needs met, since I ultimately went across the globe with a bunch of strangers and a friend that I knew for 6 months.

The trip feels like a blur but also feels like I just got back yesterday. It was definitely a life changing experience for me. I would like to share more stories about it, so I plan on writing more about the things that I didn’t go in depth about.

Thank you all for tuning in and I appreciate anyone that continues to tune in in the future! 🙂

Today was- bittersweet. Leaving a place where I spent almost a month and learned so much was sad, but it was finally time to return to my family and home. A group of us had flights at 6 and 7am, so the drivers were set to pick us up at 4am because the traffic in Bangkok is so bad. AND…

My alarm didn’t wake me. One of the girls had to call me, and thankfully I was able to get ready quickly and I somehow made it to the car from the 10th floor before it left.

I did more souvenir shopping at he airport, especially because there were a few hours to kill. I was able to get my first flight with someone I knew from the trip, which was great (I’d always recommend a travel buddy). My layover was in Hong Kong and lasted for 7 hours, so I waited for my buddy’s flight with her, then waited for my other friends whom I was taking the connecting flight to New York with. Thankfully, we were able to get seats next to eachother.

Luckily, I was able to get a seat next to my friend on our long flight back.

Before I knew it, I was back in New York! Home sweet home. But a part of me will always miss Thailand.

Breakfast was amazing, as always. There was a large breakfast bar with super elegant seating. But, we had to hurry and eat in order to make it to our activities on time.

Today, we visited Freeland and other Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), whom had a lineup of lectures for us. Some were about animal conservation, others were about climate change and possible solutions, all were very interesting an informative. Here are some amazing links that from that lecture that would be helpful if you want to learn more:

• Mangrovesforthefuture.org
• Waterandnature.org
• Asiapapartnership.org

This was the last day of our program, so we went out to am amazing dinner. The group voted to get Italian food, which wound up being really good.

When we got back to the hotel, I went to shop for souvenirs and get ready for my long flight home.

Today we went to a university to attend a lecture about human-otter conflict. We learned that this type of conflict was prevalent in a muslim-majority community. I found this interesting because most of what we saw were Buddhist, so this was the first time we were seeing a community with a different religious practice from the majority.

Otters have been raiding these communities for the fish that were being bred, which are needed for the livelihood of the breeders (like being a source of food and income). We visited the home of an individual that was experiencing this issue first hand. Throughout this trip, it was immensely impactful to hear from first-hand individuals. As a future animal-behaviorist, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of humanity when thinking of what’s best for the animals. These encounters and lessons with farmers was eye opening and a reminder of the human side of these conflicts and the set backs that humans may be having.

We went back to the hotel and I spent the rest of the night exploring the floors and the mall.

We left for Bangkok today. Bangkok is definitely the “New York City” of Thailand. There’s tons of traffic, public transport, and people! Our hotel was gorgeous. We stayed at the Avani Sukhumvit, which is a 5 star hotel, and it was attached to a mall AND the subway station.

We presented our final project at a Google office, which was pretty awesome. I was extremely nervous to present and was SHAKING. But, we did get Domino’s pizza afte, which was really good and not much different from Domino’s pizza in America (other chains, like KFC, Burger King, and McDonald’s are very different).

This night, I was supposed to go to another market with my friends. Since I was still feeling under the weather, I wasn’t able to comfortably go with them. Instead, I explored the mall that was attached to the hotel with my other classmates.

Today, we were in the van A LOT, again. But, it felt different because we have presentations tomorrow! The drive consisted of a lot of researching and communicating with team members.

We also learned about the initiative the Royal Family is taking to help save elephants and visited a large farm with a lot of crops. This was the first we saw that had animals, like goats.

Fun fact: pineapples are pink before they’re ripe enough to be sold, which we were able to see on the farm. We also tried sugar cane, which is a favorable treat for elephants.

After, we visited a ranger station that was also tracking elephants to help mitigate human-elephant conflict. They’ve even curated an app where villagers and farmers can report an elephant spotting with details on which way they’re headed, which looked similar to the Citizens app.

We stayed at the Green Beach Resort hotel for the last few days, and this was our last night here before heading to Bangkok.

When we got to the hotel, we were able to do some hanging out, but we knew that we had to get our posters up and ready before the next day.

I felt horrible from being sick so I missed out on the lecture from this day, which was upsetting because we learned about my favorite type of wild cat: the Pallas cat

We visited 2 places to be lectured about Pallas cats. One in Kui Buri National Park and the other at Sam Roi Yod National Park. I missed the first lecture and most of the 2nd one, but I was told that they had video proof of Pallas cats foraging for food. But, Pallas cats are nocturnal, so we didn’t actually see any. After the 2nd lecture, we went on a boat to get a view of where the Pallas cats are thought to feed. I had to go on the boat (a small canoe looking boat with a motor) since there was no one to watch me on land, but im glad I didn’t miss this activity.

The first time I saw monkeys outside of our cabin was when we first got to Khao Yai National Park a few days ago. The second time was when we were getting ready to leave. It’s as if they were saying goodbye.

We left to see a train market, which is a huge tourist attraction. Part of the market is built on top of the train tracks. The train only passes the market 6 times per day and at a tortoise pace. This gives the merchant enough time to move the parts of their market that is in the way of the train. The train takes forever to come, and when it’s in eyesight people STILL DON’T MOVE. They are in the tracks taking pictures and videos. This must happen often because they have two safety officers walking on each side of the front of the train to make sure that people are standing behind the red line. I have no idea if they have to walk the duration of the train’s route or if they only get out during certain stops, but it was insane. I tried to plug the video in and wasn’t able to, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Then we got to the next hotel, Baan Amphawa, which was beautiful and looked like a getaway.

Some people went to the pool and others just hung out in their rooms. When night fell, we all went to the floating market. It’s a beautiful market that surrounds a river. They sold a bunch of food and souvenirs. I got most of my souvenirs from here, but conserved again due to anticipating more markets (when will I learn??). I also bought these amazing earrings that I’m not able to find.

This is also the night I got sick. I had some food that didn’t agree with me, but my friend had the exact same items as me and didn’t get sick. We also didn’t eat anything super interesting and stuck to foods we knew well.

(Note: I found the earrings about 3 months after I got back and was beyond happy to be able to wear them!!)

This day, we spent the whole day at another village. They were very kind and prepared lunch for us. They held a mini lecture about gaurs, which is kind of like a wild cow.

We drove around the village to learn about their crops and their methods to stop elephants and gaurs from raiding crops. When night fell, we went spotlighting for gaur and found some!

On the tenth day of my trip, this is what we saw:

ONE WATERFALL

We saw amazing structures and trees on the way there, but it was a long and steep trek. And getting back to the van was even more horrible (we had to go DOWN to see the waterfall, so guess what we had to do to go back).

We then went bird watching in a different location, but didn’t see as many birds. Still got some great pics of scenery, though!

I forget where we were on our way to, but we saw a wild elephant crossing the road to get to the other side (buh dum, tiss).

We also went to track gibbons, which are adorable lesser apes.

And saw this super cool tree while we were there

Gibbons are known for their song, which they only sing with their mate. They’re monogamous, but don’t typically have life long partners. There is even a folktale based on their song. (video or audio)

Then we learned about figs

And we learned about fig wasps, which I think you should google!

That night, we went spotlighting, which is when you use a giant flashlight to scope out the ‘nightlife of the wildlife.’ Here’s what we saw: