When Ashlynn applied to participate in the University of Glasgow Thailand Expedition Team 2022, she thought it was a long shot since the application stated you needed a driver’s license.
Not only was she chosen for the team, but she was assigned to be a project leader!
After months of fundraising to cover their costs – airfare, swanky villa, food and diving – the team boarded a flight on June 5 from Gatwick to Bangkok...
…where they spent one night. You can read more on their blog
post.
The next morning they caught a flight to Koh Samui, where they had a much appreciated four-hour layover on the beach before catching a ferry to their final destination: Koh Pha Ngan.
Koh Pha Ngan is an island of around 10,000 inhabitants. Here’s the team’s
post about the island.
The eight students shared a four-bedroom villa with two kitchens, three bathrooms and an infinity pool.
Ashlynn actually felt guilty that it was so fancy compared to what the locals lived in, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying the pool.
A professor from University of Glasgow joined them for the first week to train the team on conducting terrestrial research for the amphibian project. Ashlynn thoroughly enjoyed walking in the jungle at night with a headlamp searching for frogs; she said it was like being part of a kid’s adventure book.
There were two
marine projects; more on Ashlynn’s later, but apparently the fish project hit a lot of snags.
Ashlynn quickly learned why driver’s licenses were required: to drive a scooter. Lucky for her, the scooter rental company didn’t have strict rules. Lucky for us, she survived driving a scooter with just a quick lesson from one of the other students.
