I’m a wildlife expert and my commute is taking two steps into a rainforest. This is what it’s like living in a jungle and why I love it (despite the venomous centipedes and cobras)

As the commute progresses, things don’t get much easier.

The ‘office’ of nature expert Ganyah Goldstein is just two steps into the rainforest from her research camp.

The 24-year-old qualified as a wildlife biologist from the Royal Veterinary College of London in 2023 and has spent the last few years living in remote areas of the world, researching wildlife.

She currently lives in a research camp in Sebengau National Park in Borneo, where she works with orangutans. She documents her experiences living in the natural world on TikTok (@ganyahgold), where she has built up 70,500 followers.

Here, Ganyah reveals the realities of life in the jungle, from falling asleep under ‘thousands of stars’ and having breakfast with butterflies and lizards, to dealing with painful bites from venomous creepy crawlies. She also remembers encounters with animals that “changed her forever.”

Ganyah, who is of Canadian and Moroccan descent, told MailOnline Travel that living in the jungle is a ‘dream come true’.

She said: ‘I wake up to the calls of gibbons, and the first thing I see when I get out of bed and go outside is blue butterflies and tall green trees.

‘During breakfast I sometimes see a monitor lizard swimming around.

‘I love that I literally live two steps to work and that I’m in the rainforest. It is very quiet here and when you are not working it is a wonderfully relaxing place to live.

‘You never know how lucky you will get. One morning you might see a pig-tailed macaque or a red macaque in the trees.

‘There is also little to no light pollution, so seeing thousands of stars at night or witnessing the craziest storms is always very exciting.’

She cited the two encounters she had with orangutans as some of her best jungle moments.

One took place at 5am, where an orangutan named Georgia stopped and looked at her intently.

“It was that moment when I realized that we recognized each other as different beings,” Ganyah said. “It was a moment I will remember for the rest of my life.”

The other memorable moment was when a baby orangutan named Gus ate a meal of gelatin bark upside down while staring at her.

“I lay in my hammock and watched Gus,” Ganyah said, “and we enjoyed each other’s company for the next ten minutes.”

One of the moments that Ganyah said “changed her life” was “connecting” with a wild giraffe in Africa.

She recalled, “The wildlife professional I worked with had rescued, rehabilitated and released a female giraffe as a baby. Her name was Ayana. Every time we drove through the game reserve where Ayana lived, she would come running towards us in the vehicle out of nowhere.

‘She looked me straight in the face and kept coming very close. This happened almost every day for a month. The beauty of an animal that forever remembers a human being.’

Ganyah had a similar experience when she volunteered at a sanctuary in Costa Rica, where she worked with sloths, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, raccoons, opossums and kinkajous.

On her last day, as she was cleaning the baby howler monkey’s enclosure, she said the monkey wrapped her legs and arms around her legs and looked up at her.

‘She didn’t let go for at least five minutes. We just looked at each other and I felt like she knew I was leaving,” Ganyah said.

Another life-changing moment took place in Uganda, in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, where Ganyah worked with mountain gorillas.

She said, “A silverback walked right past my feet. We must always keep our distance, but if the gorillas choose to walk past you, just remain still. I cried afterwards.

‘I saw these two cheeky gorillas playing in the tree, a kind of tug-of-war, before one of them fell from about three meters high. You saw how the green leaves below looked like pillows as he fell. The mother was nearby and didn’t seem bothered at all, trusting that everything would turn out fine. But the next fall, the little one ran back into mommy’s arms for comfort.

‘When you look at gorillas, you realize how much alike we are.

‘People misunderstand gorillas. They think they are big and scary, I see them as gentle, loving and herbivorous.’

Although Ganyah claims she is not afraid of any animal, she has had some scary experiences, including coming face to face with an angry male macaque.

She said: ‘[The macaque] immediately threatened me by opening his mouth and showing me those two huge sharp teeth. I crouched down and hid my face to avoid eye contact and look as non-threatening as possible. Once he went back, I was able to slowly leave.”

And Ganyah explained that the jungle is not always a bed of roses.

She revealed she was bitten on the arm by a venomous centipede, suffering “throbbing pain” from the attack that lasted “a tortuous two hours”.

Other dangers include encountering king cobras or “a mama sun bear with her cubs,” although “the chances of either happening are very slim because if they hear you, they will be the ones running away.”

While living in so many different places, Ganyah has learned how to pack light and advises anyone traveling to the jungle to do the same.

She suggests packing all your clothes in cubes so you can easily access them on the go. She advises travelers to bring many different brands of mosquito repellents and antihistamines and to invest in “high-quality outdoor clothing.”

And she adds: ‘Bring some mood lighting. I have a sunset lamp that is super bright and really quickly makes a room feel good.”

To see more of Ganyah, visit her on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@ganyahgoldor Instagram on www.instagram.com/gardenofganyah/.