Hello everyone,

Today was the final day of our EL trip. After a lot of preparations, we presented our EL project to our faculty and hosts, which went very well. We decided that each of us would present about the day which we wrote our blogs about. However, since my turn was today, I presented on the history of Thailand.

The presentation was an accurate representation of our EL and that everyone contributed their part. This included information about the culture of Thailand which we embraced during the trip. We also spoke about the hands on experience in port operations during our visits to Bangkok port, Laem Chabang port as well as the Port Authority of Thailand and Lat Krabang inland container depot.

One of the most exciting things we did in our off time was attend a Muay Thai fight. Having never been to a fight before, I was very excited and found the respect shown by the fighters extremely interesting where they displayed tremendous respect to the opponent and the audience.

On our second week, we visited Khao Yai national park and the Trang province later in the week. These parts of the trip were particularly surprising to me as the scenery was something vastly different from Massachusetts. We also went to several malls, which I enjoyed as they were some of the biggest I’ve seen in my life including the Chatuchak weekend market. One of my favorite memories of the trip was snorkeling in the famous Koh Kradan beach. The water was so clear and the marine life was much different than what I was used to making it one of my best experiences on the trip.

Besides visiting other national parks we were able to see and visit Wat Arun temple which was breathtaking after centuries of construction. Having not seen much of Buddhism in my life back home, many of the temple visits and architecture took my breath away and I’m happy to have learned more about the religion.

On our final week we were able to visit Thailand Merchant Marine Academy which we found was very similar to our own. Interacting with the students there gave me a better perspective on how global the maritime industry is and the number of people which support it. We also received presentations and information on important companies which many MMA alumni have gone on to work for. The largest of these was CMA CGM Thailand. I thought this presentation was particularly interesting because it’s an industry I have personally considered going into and it was extremely beneficial to see the inner workings of the company.

Bringing us to our final day after our presentation we experienced ceremonies with the fantastic people at AIT and had a final lunch where we said goodbye to the people who have helped us on our learning experience.

This trip has been unforgettable, and I again want to thank everyone who made it possible and helped us get the full experience.