Goodbye, Thailand

But first, coffee.

The coffee shops Thailand are legit. Literally a coffee spot on every block in the city. And in the small villages, they may not have a gas station or a temple, but you better believe they have multiple coffee shops! Needless to say, I made sure to try to many as I could. My absolute favorite was Graph Coffee in Chiang Mai. They have a few locations and each one is completely unique. The baristas love their craft and make the most intricate coffee drinks. The menu has about 30 options to choose from, and you get a little index card with your order that describes the ingredients and concept of the drink. At home these would probably cost $10-15, but at Graph Coffee, each one is only $3-4.

Flowers, flowers galore

This past weekend I went to the Chaing Mai Flower Festival. It’s an annual event of flowers, ornamental plants, art, and culture across the city. The celebration starts with a parade of huge, meticulously-crafted flower floats, coupled with dancers, performers, and musicians. After the parade, the floats are on display in Nong Buak Haad Park, along with miles of vibrant flower beds and all sorts of exotic flower art installations. Think if Artscape in Baltimore were to have a baby with the Rose Parade in L.A., out would pop the Chiang Mai Flower Festival in Thailand.

I met up with my roommate (and now good friend!), Lucy, from Elephant Nature Park. We had a blast wandering through all the displays of flowers and art installations. Some areas were playing relaxing nature sounds and others had a DJ playing EDM (that’s electronic dance music for the boomers!). We walked around, painted our faces, took a bunch of goofy pictures, and just had an old-fashioned good time.

The human connection

It’s been quite some time since I’ve traveled the world on my own. There’s always a little sliver of uncertainty leading up to the trip. How is this going to go? Will I be ok? Am I mentally prepared to be pushed far outside of my comfort zone? But just like when I took solo trips to study abroad in Australia, ride the train around Europe, or backpack through Peru, I’m reminded over and over again that the world is just filled with regular people. People just like you and me. Raised in a different culture with different traditions, but still at the core, just people. It took me less than 24 hours to get a rhythm going and feel right at home in Thailand. Although I think that says more about how welcoming the country is than it says about me.

Signing off

Thank you so much to everyone who read my blog, left me a comment (I absolutely loved reading all the comments by the way!), or shared my website/posts. I hope you’ve learned something about the magical, but complicated world of elephants in Thailand. And who knows, maybe through this process you also got some inspiration to take the plunge to explore what you’re passionate about in life. It’s never too late!

Even though the ‘Blog‘ section will go dormant for a bit, I plan to continuously edit and improve the website, adding new articles about elephants under the ‘Learn‘ tab. I know in my heart that my next trip will be to Africa to explore the vastly different world of African elephants. Unlike captive Asian elephants, just about all the elephants in Africa live in the wild or in protected areas. Their biggest threats are poaching and other forms of human-elephant conflict. The field work in African countries is mostly focused on conservation and exploring creative, effective ways to reduce conflict between humans and elephants. In addition to working with African elephants, I’ve wanted to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro for as long as I can remember. So that will be on the agenda as well.

Thank you again for all your support throughout this journey. It means the world to me.