(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 …