2. Daily Postings Sustainability | Fieldwork and Documentation

University Scholars Programme

Day 2

On our second day in ENP, we began conducting more surveys with locals and tourists at the park. As we were in the process of doing so, we found that our surveys in particular were inadequate in addressing our objective of finding out their opinions on elephant tourism. More specifically, we wanted to find out…

Day 2: Elephant Adventures Continued!

Day 2: In the morning, we woke up with chattering teeth and frozen feet. We’d forgotten to close the windows, and the cold mountain air had managed to seep in while we slept. The room was frighteningly cold! After breakfast, we split up into our sub-groups and began to carry out our interviews and surveys…

Day 1!!

Our first day was spent at the Elephant Nature Park (ENP) where we walked around the park and saw many elephants, feeding them along the way. We learned about the background of the elephants and the conditions in which they are living in now in the park. In particular, we learned about how the elephants…

Mohn, you’re home!

Focus Group Discussion in Chiang Mai University. Difficulty. Hard. The day started off with an enlightening talk with two assistant medical professors from the University of Chiang Mai. It irks me to blog this, but it seems like the situation in Chiang Mai seemed to be bleak from what I can gather from the doctors….

Day 1: Elephant Nature Park! ???

Day 1: On our first official day in Chiang Mai, we got up early for a bus journey to the Elephant Nature Park, an elephant rescue centre where old and injured elephants are nursed back to health and cared for in a natural environment. Having read numerous rave reviews about the park while conducting research…

5th Jan/ Day 2

Nothing really beats just sitting beside the Narawat Bridge, at 12am, listening to the live band play “Let it be” by the Beatles. Well, maybe a cold beer would come in handy. Nevertheless, a great end to a great day. And a great day begins with a great start. Back at the Elephant Nature Park,…

4th Jan/ Day 1

Vegetarian food, unfortunately, isn’t really my thing – no matter how savoury it looks, the lack of meat was starting to get to me by the end of the day. Then again, I remind myself, I’ve had more than my fair share of interacting with, well, not quite chunks of meat, but one of the…

The Observations

“To acquire wisdom, one must observe” We started off the balmy morning with a trip to another temple; Doi Suthep. After the extremely exhausting climb up the stairs (to remember: if a gondola ride is given as an alternative, it is better not to act hero), I found myself in the midst of an opulent…

Love and Compassion

Usually, a token of appreciation is given to the participating subject in an interview. Today, the reverse happened. It warms my heart to start this blog by recounting an experience of genuine hospitality and graciousness of the Thai people. I would never have come to expect the willingness of Thai people to be not only…

Don’t Assume!

“Assumptions are dangerous things to make” Marking the first official day of our trip, we headed to Chiang Rai to begin our research. This was the day that it struck me that, well, don’t ever make assumptions. As what some might say, ‘assume’ makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’. I have had experiences…