October in the rain (and sun)

October, according to my Rainfall averages is the wettest month in Phuket, with September in 2nd place. Well, September 2010 has been relatively dry, only 225mm rain measured compared to an average of 372mm. My parents were visiting from the 14the onwards and we had very little poor weather, certainly the weather never made us change any plans. The last couple of posts on the blog show that we visited all kind of places. The skies may have been a bit grey some days, but that's fine by me - stops it from being too hot!

Life is now kind of back to normal after the holidays. I was back at work yesterday ready for the high season in the dive shop. Mum and Dad left on Tuesday back to sunny England. After a busy holiday (I have a backlog of things to blog now!), we had a couple of very lazy days at home. The last few days of my parents holidays included a visit to the Phuket Butterfly Garden and Insect World. We have been before but it was a while ago, and it has been expanded, quite impressive actually. And if you like butterflies, you'll love it!





On the same day we went for a coffee at Tunk Ka cafe on Rang Hill in Phuket Town. And then dinner on the sand at The Beach Bar - on the way there it was raining but when we arrived the last few drops scattered and we even had a kind of sunset.



On the 4th we had a little walk in Phuket Town, again, sky was not all blue, but there was no rain. Brunch at the Kaewjai restaurant, a little shopping in the Expo market, a banana Roti on Thalang Road...



After all the good, or at least decent weather, the day my parents flew home was one of the wettest of the year! I measured 71mm of rain on the 5th! But hardly a drop in the 3 days since that. The Phuket Vegetarian festival started on the evening of the 7th. Like last year I will try to stick to the diet for 10 days, eating only specially prepared food, no meat, no dairy, no garlic or onions either for some reason to do with strong flavour.. and no alcohol. We all went to the local shrine in Kathu on Thursday evening. I have put some photos on Flickr.

• Kathu Shrine, 7th October (slideshow)





The big street processions in the festival started today. I set my alarm for 6am, but turned it off and turned over. Processions start early and if you want to really get a feel for this festival, it's worth going early. So, maybe I will do that tomorrow.

• Phuket Vegetarian festival 2010 Schedule
• Phuket Vegetarian Festival Photos 2009

There are always lots of fireworks for sale around this time. Kids all over the place are throwing firecrackers and bangers and unlike "back home" there is little control. I bought a few little fireworks in the village for our kids, but dad had control of the lighter! They enjoyed waving sparklers around, and I enjoyed trying to get some photos...