She’s obsessed with baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng. So she flew across the world to see her

By Francesca Street, CNN

(CNN) — When baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng appeared on Molly Swindall’s social media feed for the first time, it was love at first sight.

“I thought she was absolutely hysterical, and had a lot of fun energy,” Swindall, 30, tells CNN Travel. “She’s just a little bright spot in the world at the moment when there’s so many things going on… Her rosy little cheeks, she’s precious.”

Moo Deng’s viral fame began not long after she was born, when her keepers at Khao Kheow Open Zoo started posting clips of her escapades online. Soon, the baby hippo was an internet sensation, a status cemented last week when Moo Deng became the subject of a skit on Saturday Night Live.

While most of Moo Deng’s international fans are happy to keep tabs on her from afar, when Swindall fell for the hippo, she immediately started Googling flights to Thailand.

New Yorker Swindall knew she wanted to see Moo Deng in person.

“I just love animals, and I love adventure, and so I made it a goal to go,” says Swindall. “My dad passed away kind of unexpectedly six years ago, and at that point, I was just like, ‘You know what? I’m always going to live my life to the fullest. I’m always going to have a sense of adventure.’ And that’s why I decided to do what I did.”

Flying across the globe

Once Swindall committed to flying to Thailand to see Moo Deng, she knew she had to go ASAP.

“I wanted to see her while she has that spunk and the energy that comes from being young,” explains Swindell, noting the hippo’s already grown a lot since the early viral videos.

Swindell could only get a couple of days off work – and she had weekend gig tickets – so she booked to spend a mere 30 hours in Thailand, flying out of New York via London on Tuesday, and returning via a layover in Amsterdam on Friday.

“It was very short, but it was totally worth it,” says Swindall, who traveled solo.

The whole trip cost Swindall “somewhere between $1,000 to $1,100.”

“I have a lot of points and miles from old, past jobs,” explains Swindall. “So I was able to go pretty inexpensively, and I also got some discounts on travel.”

Given the short length of her trip, Swindall decided it had to be a Moo Deng-only odyssey.

She’d love to see more of Thailand, but decided she’d have to “go back and do a proper trip” on another occasion.

This time round, she had just one destination: Khao Kheow Open Zoo.

‘The queen and icon’

Swindall chronicled her experiences traveling from New York to Bangkok via TikTok.

On Swindall’s account – @1989vinyl – she usually posts about Taylor Swift (The Washington Post called her “Taylor Swift’s biggest fan” in 2023).

Pivoting from the world’s most famous pop star to the world’s most famous baby hippo was an easy switch, says Swindall, especially as she sees a parallel between the two.

“They’re both absolute icons,” says Swindall, who decided to wear one of her favorite Taylor Swift shirts to the zoo, because she wanted to get Swift on Moo Deng’s radar.

“I think queens and icons recognize queens and icons,” she adds.

Swindall’s first TikTok from her trip – in which she invites her followers to “fly 18.5 hours with me to Thailand to see Moo Deng” – has been watched over 1.9 million times and counting.

Many commentators were enthusiastic, cheering along Swindall’s quest. Others were confused, assuming Moo Deng was a music artist or a long-distance partner.

Swindall made it to Bangkok on Wednesday and hired a driver to take her to the zoo. On the ride over, Swindall was nervous – what if she couldn’t see Moo Deng? What if things didn’t work out?

Then suddenly she was at the hippo’s enclosure. And in person, Moo Deng was absolutely “the queen and icon” Swindall dreamed of.

“Oh my god, she’s so cute,” gasps Swindall in her TikTok capturing the moment she saw the hippo for the first time. 

Over the next few hours, Swindall enjoyed watching Moo Deng go from sheltering from the rain to running around excitedly after feeding.

“She’s so cute and fun, you can’t not love her,” says Swindall, who bought quirky Moo Deng merch, including a cap and pajamas, while at the zoo.

Swindall enjoyed seeing the other pygmy hippos too.

“I have a new love just for the species as a whole, because Moo Deng’s mom was just as amazing, and I hope she starts to get more love as well,” says Swindall.

A Swiftie moment

While watching Moo Deng in action, Swindall was reminded of the Taylor Swift song “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me.” (As a Swift superfan, the singer is never far from her mind.)

“That’s the song that encapsulates Moo Deng the most,” says Swindall, who posted a video of the hippo overlaid with this track.  “I think she thinks she’s so much scarier than she is – when she has her mouth open and she runs after her mom or runs randomly in the crowd and all her little zoomies. I feel like she has this big energy, but she’s such a small, little being, and in an ironic way that song kind of relates to her.”

Still, it was another Swift track, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”, which Swindall chose to play for Moo Dang.

“She sat there loafing on the ground, so I think she liked it,” says Swindall. “But of course, I didn’t play it very loudly because I didn’t want to actually disturb her. So I don’t know if she actually heard it, but I did play that one for her, just because I think it’s a great song, and I thought it’d be a fun one to play.”

Finding joy

Swindall’s posted over 15 TikToks about her Moo Deng travel adventure so far, and she says she’s been flooded with enthusiastic comments and messages from people across the globe.

“I love to tell stories, and I love to bring people along on adventures, and I love to entertain,” says Swindall. “So it’s been really magical that people have been having such a good time with it as well. It’s been very, very fun to be able to connect with all these different people over it.”

Since her Moo Deng adventure, Swindall’s follower count has ballooned, with one Moo Deng TikTok garnering over 5 million views. 

Swindall insists she didn’t embark on the trip in a quest for viral attention.

“I don’t think I really thought about it much,” she says, adding that while she enjoys content creation, it’s more “for fun” than anything else. She has a fulltime job which is her primary source of income.

“My first thought was just getting to Thailand. I just knew that I loved Moo Deng,” says Swindall. “I wanted to share what I was doing online. But it wouldn’t have taken away from it had I got zero views either, because that’s not what I was there for.”

Upcoming adventures

As Swindall reflects on her Moo Deng trip, she’s already planning her next animal-themed adventure – she’s hoping to go to Melbourne, Australia to visit Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium and see another viral baby animal, Pesto the penguin.

“I just absolutely adore animals,” says Swindall, who adds this trip will be less of a whirlwind than her Thailand adventure.

“I’m able to get a bit more time off to go see Pesto,” she says.

There’s also a little more planning going on, as Swindall hopes to make the most of her time in Australia. But that said, Swindall, says flying to Thailand to see Moo Deng was a reminder of the “random joy” to be found in spontaneity.

“Life is short,” she says. “And if you’re really passionate about something, or you’re really excited about something, and you have the ability to make it work, try to make it work.”

Swindall also tries to take a positive view on life, and she brought this attitude to her trip.

“What’s meant to be is meant to be,” she says. “I was meant to see Moo Deng. It ended up occurring, and it was really special. And I’m just happy that I got to share that joy with everybody.”

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