June she'll change her tune

The month of June is here! On average, the driest of the low season months. I find that June and July are normally pretty decent. Low season in Phuket can be nice, but anyone coming for a holiday has to expect some rain here and there, and you have to realise that, if the west winds are blowing, the beach may not be safe for swimming. Karon Beach in particular can have some big waves, so the ideal thing to do is book a hotel near the beach with a big pool. And it's low season, so you can get a nice hotel for a low price. Have a look at my Karon Beach Hotel suggestions and check Agoda for Phuket hotel low season deals.

As often seems to happen, the weather changed right after the last update of the weather blog which was on May 28th. We'd just had a week of almost perfect weather, but then in came the first real low season storm. The 29th was nice enough, a little rain in the night. The 30th had a bit more rain and then wham! May 31st was a wet, grey day with 42mm of rain, making a total of 186mm for May (average is 265mm).

June kicked off with the wettest day since that freak weather at the end of March.. rainfall on June 1st was 91mm. The 2nd was grey and damp too, but Friday (3rd) was nice and Saturday was good enough for a walk around in Old Phuket Town on my day off. I did not go out taking photos on the wet days, but carried my camera on Saturday. Our main mission was to buy a guitar so our daughter can start guitar lessons this week, although I know the guitar will be shared. I might let the kids play it sometimes! We walked along Thalang Road which is always interesting, lots of small shops, old shops selling herbs or hardware, along with newer arty shops and lots of cafes and restaurants.



Above - this is Thalang Road, where most of the shophouses have this covered walkway architecture, with arches joining the shops together. After we got the guitar, there was an old mansion I wanted to find. Our daughter was all "I'm tired" and when a few drops of rain fell on the car windscreen, that was like her salvation! Oh! It's raining, we can't walk now! Sorry, girl.. your dad is not put off by a few tiny drops.. we found a parking spot a block up from the market - you can normally find a place to park easy enough around town. The mansion is up a dirty covered alleyway. I snapped a few photos but found 2 very nasty snarling dogs guarding the building itself. Seems to be uninhabited. I'd like to buy it!





There are more photos from this walk around Phuket Town on my Flickr page here : Old Phuket Town 4th June 2011.

Weather now - back to normal for low season - sun, cloud, maybe a shower. Today is Monday, looks like it will be a sunny, hot day. For (almost) daily weather updates and local news and more - follow me on Twitter!