Today has seen it's fair share of dark clouds, but we did not see any rain. Hooray! Sure, it's gotta rain sometime in the "rainy season", but today was not that day. Late in the afternoon we headed to Bang Wad reservoir, Phuket's largest water supply, just a few minutes from our house. We like to take walks along the dam, or take a mat and have a little picnic by the reservoir. See more on Jamie's Phuket : Bang Wad Reservoir and Dam.

Maybe I am not doing my job well enough.... Spread the word, people! The Phuket Weather Blog tells the truth. It's sunny, it's hot, another beautiful day in Phuket, another beautiful "wet season" day. I can't say it enough times - this is a good time of year to visit Phuket! But it seems the old low season/monsoon myths are still enough to put people off.

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Wednesday was very hot, I was baking by 8:30am standing outside our kids school. Sunny all day, seas calm, ideal for diving, but guess what? Hardly any divers about. If you want uncrowded dive sites and cheap hotels, get thee to Phuket now!

Thursday was almost as hot, but there was some more cloud cover. Today is more bearably hot, quite a bit of cloud around, no doubt waiting for my day off tomorrow to dump some rain (some typical British pessimism for you there). I stopped at Kata Beach this morning...

After 2 weeks of a very relaxing holiday, everything is back to normal now. The holiday was just spent decorating the house, "chilling" and enjoying some free time now we have both kids at school. The weekend in Phuket was sunny aside from heavy rain on Saturday night, and (of course) yesterday when I went back to the office, it was a gorgeous sunny day.

Today looked like it would follow suit. Skies were clear at 7am, but by around 8am as we were taking the kids to school dark clouds suddenly appeared in the south of the island - right in my path to Karon Beach. So I got a bit wet on the way, but escaped any heavy rain. Soon brightened up and the afternoon was hot and sunny. I managed a quick stop at Chalong Temple on the way home...





As I got home the western sky was orange. We'd have a GREAT view from our house if it weren't for wires. One of my pet hates here in Thailand. Wires everywhere. Not many things annoy me about Thailand. Wires. Still a nice sunset though!



By the way, Happy Birthday to the Phuket Weather Blog. 2 years old on 25th May. On the left side of the page you can find 2 years worth of Phuket weather reports. Surely I'll be No.1 in Google soon?!

The weekend weather in Phuket has been typical "bits 'n' pieces" weather. Sure this is the low season, aka the "wet" season, but as this weather blog shows, the low season is quite nice most of the time actually. Friday started bright, and was already feeling hot when we dropped the kids at school around 8am. In the middle of the day, as my wife and I enjoyed lunch at the Zen Japanese restaurant in Central Festival Mall, the rain fell in buckets for about an hour. By the time we'd eaten and were heading home, the sun had dried up all the rain (and Incy Wincy Spider climbed up the spout again).

I like to see "back up" for my weather reports, lest some people may think I am not telling the truth about the weather (you know, the sun always shines in Phuket!) - on this thread on the Scubaboard forum (where you may find me under the name Batfish), a board member says it was sunny and the sea was like a "mill pond" on Friday. He probably did not get the rain, as if diving offshore you often miss the rain that falls on the mainland.

Saturday was a nice sunny day and we did very little! Sometimes nice to have a day at home with the family. Little boy was tired after his first full week of school, and we'd had a birthday party on Friday evening, so we all had a rest. The late afternoon sun tempted us out for a bit of fresh air, and we took a walk at Bang Wad Reservoir. On Saturday night heavy rain hammered down for several hours and lighter rain continued until morning. Hah! Let it rain at night, see if I care!

Today the sky cleared up around midday, so we took a little drive around in the afternoon, had some lunch at Pak Nam Seafood again and then drove around Sirey Island to the east of Phuket Town. I took a few pictures...

Monday was Visakha Bucha Day aka Vesak - which basically means the Buddha's Birthday. I think if we'd planned better we might have joined the candle procession at the Big Buddha in Phuket. On this day in the evening, people take part in candle-lit processions and walk around the main chapel of their temple three times. I must be more organised and do it next year! We did take a drive up Buddha Mountain for some fresh air and views around sunset. I always love it up there.



Tuesday and Wednesday had some rain, but only brief showers. Nothing to spoil your day. Today has been pretty sunny, no rain, some cloud and quite "muggy" (hot and sweaty). I have extended my holiday for a few more days. Went for lunch, just me and my wife (enjoying the opportunity now we have 2 kids at school), at Pak Nam Seafood, north of Phuket Town - darn good food - we'll be back!

After lunch I forced my wife to let me pay a fleeting visit to a temple I had not stopped at before - Wat Kosit Wiharn. This temple is just north of Phuket town and has a large cemetary. It's a real local temple, looks like it's been there forever. I might pay another visit one day. I have this vague plan to blog all Phuket Temples...



Forecast for the next few days....same. Lots of sun, light winds, typical low season weather :) yes, you might get the odd shower, but really, seriously, there is never a bad time to be in Phuket.

I just love weather like this! We've had our initial 2 weeks of mostly wet weather, and now the "rainy" season has settled down. Sure, we can expect some rainy days in the next few months, but as I have said many times - it's a great time of year to visit Phuket (see Phuket Weather in the Low Season).

Yesterday we spent a few hours at the beach. Surprisingly, despite living in Phuket, we don't go to the beach that often. Yesterday we headed to Paradise Beach, which is near Patong, a bit further round the bay to the south. The proximity to Patong does mean it's busy in the high season, but now it's low season, this little gem is nice and quiet. We sat with friends, drank some beers, played with the kids. My daughter enjoyed swinging on a buoy which has been hung from a tree hanging over the sea. The kids enjoyed catching hermit crabs (they did set them free again). A nice (and sunny) day.





• More about Paradise Beach
• Phuket Beaches Overview

Now this is more like it! As predicted on Wednesday, the wet and windy weather that we normally get right at the start of the low season has now gone. Yesterday was pretty nice, but we couldn't get out and enjoy it, as my daughter chose yesterday to get sick. She's not been sick for about 2 years! I had to go and pick her up from school in the morning. She told me she'd vomited on another kid's shoe. Too much information for you? Sorry. Anyway, she's better now. Kids have amazing powers of recovery.

Today we had to take it easy, no long day out with a sick girl... We did manage a little drive to Kamala Beach in the afternoon. We used to go there more often as we had friends there, but they all moved to Kathu (same area we live in). Kamala is just north of Patong beach, but is totally different. Very quiet. And now, in low season, very quiet! We walked along a section of beach where a friend used to live and some friends of his have a small hotel (Maphrao Resort) - it was closed, as was just about everything. I saw about 6 tourists on the beach, a couple of restaurants open, that was it. The beach was strewn with what can politely be described as "flotsam", brought ashore by all the wind and waves we've been having since Cyclone Nargis.

A few photos from Kamala Beach this afternoon.



 

Kamala Beach does have a strange hold on us, though. We were sitting on the beach on December 25th 2004, with my wife 9 months pregnant, our 2 year old daughter playing on the beach with some friends kids. The next day was the tsunami - see here for some of my thoughts about that.

Here's a couple more photos taken today from Kalim (just north of Patong, before heading over the hill to Kamala)...

Well today was back to the low season "kick off" weather - lots of heavy squally showers interspersed with sun and "partly cloudy" weather. The showers can be very heavy and equally brief. As we drove to school this afternoon to pick up our kids, the rain was lashing down a couple of hundred meters from the school, then suddenly the windscreen wipers were rubbing a dry window. This happens often - you can see the edge of the rain. Move 50 meters and you're dry! Despite the briefness of some of these showers, they can dump a large amount of water. This can lead to minor floods on the roads and also minor landslides. The Phuket Gazette announced this today...

As heavy rains continue to dowse the island, the Phuket office of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) has issued a landslide warning, effective until at least tomorrow. "We have received good feedback from all 18 local administration organizations in Phuket. We have officers on 24-hour standby, manning phones and radios, ready to deal with any problems,” said Chotenarin Kerdsom, chief of the DDPM – Phuket office.

See: Phuket on Landslide Alert

Not that this should worry the average visitor, but over the last 10 years, with building going ahead willy nilly, especially in the hills, mother nature has been attacked... check out what happened last year in the hills over Patong : Don't Mess with Mother Nature.

Actually the previous 2 days were pretty nice. I have been on holiday, which of course means doing gardening, cleaning, painting, moving furniture. Plenty of sunshine on Monday and Tuesday, though it has been windy as the southwest monsoon winds have well and truly set in. We can expect another week or so of unsettled weather, then we'll be into the low season, when we get mostly nice weather in Phuket!

Sorry, too busy the last few days to take photos (I do normally like to post some pictures to show the weather). Had workers in the house doing some building, it's the start of the school term for the kids etc.. Now the builders are finished and I hope my wife and I can find a nice lunch tomorrow in between doing some of the huge list of "things to do"... Pray for sun and some nice views.

The overdramatic title to this Phuket Weather blog entry gives a clue to the reason why I decided to start a weather blog - first on the Sunrise Divers Weather page back in 2004, and then this blog in 2006. The reason is this. Weather in Phuket is not as cut and dry as people like to believe. There seems to be a myth that half the year is sunny and half the year is wet. But of course you get rain in the high season and you get (plenty of) sun in the low season.

For an overview of the weather, see here: Phuket Weather

People tend to panic when they hear the word Monsoon, but although the months from May - October have plenty of rain, you get a lot more good weather than bad, hotels are much cheaper, everywhere is less crowded - I think its a good time to come, so long as your holiday plan is not just lying on the beach getting a tan. A bit of rain can't put you off. You can check the archives on the left side of the page and see what the weather was like during the low season months in 2006 and 2007.

I even wrote a little blog item about the low season:

• Phuket in the Low Season

Every year the same questions in travel and diving forums about the monsoon and the rain, will it be bad, will I get no sun etc... Just go! Don't worry about the weather!

Often the wettest part of the low season is just when the seasons change, and that happens to be right now! Combined with the rains that fell due to Cyclone Nargis last week, the winds have now switched to the west-southwest, got quite breezy and brought us plenty of rain. Today (Sunday) has been pretty decent actually, no rain, though I can see the sea looking a bit rough. Friday and Saturday had a competition to see who could win the "wettest day of the year" award. I think Friday was leading until yesterday evening... My wife directed my gaze to the sky at about 8pm - we could see stars and a smiling moon. An hour later the house was battered by wind and rain. We really must fix our leaky roof... never did get it done in the high season, but you know... when it's dry, the roof doesn't need fixing and when it's raining it's too wet to fix it.

We've been back in Phuket for a bit more than 24 hours after our trip to Chumphon and Prachuap Khiri Khan. What a tiring 24 hours! Our drive back was taken slowly. A couple of reasons for this... My parents were involved in a traffic collision in England on Thursday - the same day we were driving up to Chumphon. A car hit them from behind as they were stopped on a country road waiting for another car turning right... Also the weather was not great, although the 6th started nice and sunny, (of course, the day we are driving is sunny). Also, not long after starting our journey we were stopped at a police check who advised us of radar checks ahead and told us not to drive more than 110 kilometers/hour (68 mph). Once you reach Surat Thani there are 2 routes. We took the fast road coming from Phuket.. we took the slow road via the Rachaprapha Dam (part of Khao Sok National Park - read more here: Khao Sok Lake).




(above) View from the Sarasin Bridge (Phuket), 6th May

Phuket was pretty sunny when we arrived back. But we caught the traffic. That's one thing in Phuket that has changed noticeably even within the 8+ years I have been here.. a lot more cars. A lot more 4 lane roads. View below at the "Heroines Monument" (the Heroines of Thalang are 2 ladies who rallied the people of Phuket to fight Burmese invaders in 1785 - you can find out more at the Thalang Museum).



Today (7th May) started sunny, but around 1pm dark clouds arrived over the western hills and dumped rain on our laundry. Rest of the day was dry. Actually today was more like the weather at the end of April, perhaps Cyclone Nargis was a freak event, rather than the real start of the low season?...

The news seeping out of the military run state of Burma (officially called Myanmar) is getting worse by the hour. Latest news on the BBC puts the number of dead at 22,000. Cyclone Nargis hit on 3rd May. I normally might have noticed but was on holiday away from my usual dose of BBC World with early morning coffee. We certainly got a fair amount of rain in Chumphon. The photos I took in the morning of the 3rd May at Prachuap Khiri Khan show some sunshine (see previous post), but the rain started by late morning and pretty much continued until late on Sunday 4th May. Was wet on and off on the 5th in Chumphon too. Thailand borders Burma, indeed Chumphon is not that far from the border, but the main force of the cyclone was about 800 kilometers away from us. We just got the edge. We all noticed swollen rivers on the 5th in the morning when we drove to give a donation to a local school for handicapped children.

The cyclone hit coastal areas of Burma, especially the Irrawaddy river delta and low lying land; the worst place to be in the path of a cyclone. News sources are hampered by the limits on reporting in the military controlled country. Queues are forming to provide aid, but the Myanmar regime is very reluctant to let foreigners roam around the country.

• Latest BBC News - Cyclone Nargis

I've not been in Phuket for the last few days. I am told that it's been mostly sunny, but the west winds have started to blow - this means waves on the beaches and waves out at sea. The last few liveaboard dive trips to the Similan Islands (100km from Phuket) have been cancelled, even with sunny skies!

Anyways, we've been away for a few days. We drove from Phuket to Chumphon on Thursday 1st May, about 400km. Chumphon is on the east coast of Thailand. Weather was pretty much the same as the west coast - some sun, some rain. At this time of year when seasons are changing, you get a mixed bag all over.





(above) views on our drive, 1st May

Normally we are rather lazy when we visit my wife's family in Chumphon, but this time we decided to do some exploring. We drove up further north to Prachuap Khiri Khan on Friday, via Ban Krut. We'd hoped to stay at Ban Krut but the beach did not look so great and the hotels were asking silly prices. We did stop at the huge Wat Tang Sai temple, which is on a hill overlooking Ban Krut. An amazing temple!





We half thought to drive back to Chumphon, but were rather tired. We checked accommodation at Ao Manao, just on the edge of Prachuap Khiri Khan town - seaview rooms for 900 Baht, but fully booked. We visited my wife's cousin in town and there was a small hotel just a few meters from her house with decent rooms for 650 Baht (Prachuab Place Hotel - www.prachuabplace.net). We took a drive down the the seafront. Prachuap Khiri Khan is a small town right on the ocean. I liked it.

In the morning I took a walk along the seafront where fishermen were bringing in the night's catch of fish and squid. Weather was decent, looked like a sunny day on the way. We went to Ao Manao again, the sun was shining and we had an early lunch before heading back to Chumphon.





• Read more about Prachuap Khiri Khan

We liked Prachuap Khiri Khan and will visit again sometime. Hopefully with better weather. Though we did have some sun, it was not really beach weather, and it was raining almost all the way back to Chumphon - about a 2 hour drive. We'll be here another 2 days before heading home to Phuket and the "low season" :)