So far I have measured 80mm of rainfall in April, with just a couple of days to go. Not the driest on record, but the average is 150mm so it's been considerably drier than normal, and it's been HOT. The heat made us a bit lazy earlier this week. We had planned a day out to Koh Yao Noi on Saturday, but postponed until the next day. Made an effort to get up and out. It was another hot day - we took a speedboat from Phuket to Koh Yao Noi and rented a couple of mopeds. More about our day :

• Koh Yao Noi day trip on mopeds





And then next day (25th) we drove from Phuket to Khao Sok National Park, about a 3 hour drive via Khao Lak. We stayed a night at the Cliff and River Jungle Resort where we have stayed a couple of times before. And of course the weather was HOT... and there were only a few people at the resort. Great place to relax for a day or two.



That's our room at the Cliff and River. And here's the boy having fun at the pool :)



From Khao Sok we detoured on the way home to Sri Phang Nga National Park which is between Takua Pa and Kuraburi. We'd not been before but heard of waterfalls and pools full of fish in which you can swim. We'll be back! Weather was great again, ideal for paddling in a cool river. The waterfall below is Tamnang Waterfall, only a half kilometer walk.



There are other falls 2 - 3km from the nearest carpark. Lovely place and again, only a few visitors. And the fish! The pools and river are full of fish, and of course some people are selling bags of fish food at 20 Baht a pop. Throw the food around your legs to get up close and personal :)



The last 2 days - HOT and more hot, we've been lazy again except for a couple of walks at Bang Wad Reservoir which is Phuket's largest reservoir and a popular recreation area. And we've been getting ready for the new school year which starts in just over a week, buying new clothes and shoes for kids who seem to have grown very fast over the last 2 months during the school summer holidays! And for me - back to work tomorrow at Sunrise Divers!

After celebrating Songkran in Chumphon, and some fairly lazy days with the family, we headed back to Phuket a few days ago. It had been hot and sunny in Chumphon all week - Chumphon is on the Gulf coast about 400km north of Phuket. We'd heard there had been some rain in Phuket during the week while we were away, but the drive back was sunny all the way. There were obvious signs around Surat Thani of the floods that had hit south Thailand in March, even some fields still underwater and a lot of flood debris which had been pushed into piles ready for collection. My wife and kids had been in Chumphon at the time of the floods, but did not have any problems there, and in Phuket we'd had no floods either, but looks like it was bad around Surat Thani.

Had there been rain whilst we were away? Yes! My rain gauge was reading 47mm, which was the total from the 12th to 20th April. So, not that much really, I guess just some heat thunderstorms. And in the last 3 days since we got back I have seen no rain, though there probably has been a little here and there, since I have seen clouds and heard thunder rumbling around. I have another 5 days of holiday left. We have been a lazy family since we came back to Phuket, except my wife and I have done a lot of house work - call it "spring cleaning"! Garden looks good, house all cleaned up, and now we will have a few days "doing stuff"!

Yesterday we headed to The Beach Bar for dinner and a drink, another great sunset too. I always love this little place and feel relaxed as soon as we get there. And it was busy too! Nearly end of season, but almost every table was taken by the time the sun went down. Hope they might consider opening all low season!



Today we half planned a day out to Koh Yao Noi, but laziness struck. Will do that soon, though! It has been another hot and sunny day, our main achievement being a minor clearing out of kids clothes that are now too small for them, entailing a fun hour in the (aircon) bedroom trying on lots of clothes! We also plan a day to Splash Jungle soon! Actually, my wife and kids have been once before when I was working. I have not been before and reserve the right to act like a kid. Splash Jungle is a big waterpark close to Mai Khao Beach, just north of the airport. Odd location, I am not sure how they are doing financially. Mai Khao is about 40km from our house, so over 45km from Patong and over 50km from Kata or Karon beaches. A major tourist attraction, but a long way from the main tourist beaches. A lack of crowds will suit me just fine, though! Looking forward to it!

Viva el sol!

Happy New Year everyone! Yes it's New Year time again in Thailand. We have January 1st, then we have the lunar Chinese New Year and then we have Songkran which is the traditional Thai New Year, and in fact was the start of the new calendar year in Thailand until 1888. Now the year changes on January 1st, but Songkran is still the more important festival. The old traditions (which still exist) included sprinkling water on Buddha images and on the hands of elder members of the family. This sprinkling of water has changed somewhat over the years...



Photo above Songkran in Phuket Town taken a few years ago. More about Songkran and more photos on my Phuket blog: Songkran Photos. This year for the first time I have spent Songkran in Chumphon, about 400km from Phuket, about halfway to Bangkok. This is my wife's home town so we've had a family Songkran, and I'll get a load of photos online later when we're back in Phuket.

Weather - HOT every day. I was in Phuket until the evening of the 12th, it was hot every day, and has been hot every day in Chumphon too. In Phuket the last few days, I guess it has been the same, I keep an eye on the Karon Beach Webcam and the Surin Beach Webcam, though my wife spoke to a friend on the phone this morning who said it was raining. Looks sunny right now to me, though a bit of cloud around Karon.



(above) That's me gently pouring water on my wife's parents hands. That's one side of Songkran. Was nice to have a chance to spend Songkran with the family.

On the 14th we headed to the beach in the afternoon. My wife's sister's husband's family has a house at Sairee beach near Chumphon. Picnic on the balcony, walk on the beach. Easy day needed after way too much sunshine on the 13th.



We drove about 120km over to Ranong from Chumphon yesterday to visit some hot springs, splash around in the river and to get some views along the way. The road from Chumphon to Ranong has some great views, maybe the best at Khao Fa Chi - below:



Today's weather.. yes, hot and sunny. Sky is very very blue here in Chumphon, and I am sure Phuket is quite similar! We'll go back there in a few days and have some trips around Phuket doing a few things we've not done before, and hoping the sunny weather continues right through April. Great weather right now to dive, sail, tour, explore, and the end of April you have less tourists, since the main tour agencies tend to stop packages at April 15th. End of April, weather is normally hot, and hotels often drop their prices too. Good time to come to Phuket!

Since the last Phuket weather blog update on April 4th, it's continued hot and sunny with clear skies at night, very light winds and the occasional shower of rain/little thunderstorm here and there - exactly what you'd expect in April. Nevertheless, I am anwering emails and questions on Twitter every day from people who are worried that the weather is no good. The Phuket weather blog is the one place to find the true weather in Phuket - sure I can't update every single day, but if you follow me on Twitter, I normally mention the weather every day, and if you look top left of the page, you see links for webcams, weather radar, satellite images .. very good for real weather data - especially the webcams, just remember that Thailand is 7 hours ahead of GMT, so you'll need to look at the webcam during our daylight hours to see anything! Sunrise in Phuket is about 6:15am at the moment, and sunset about 6:30pm.

Been working hard all week at Sunrise Divers. The weather now is perfect for diving. I am sure we have lost business due to the rains and all the (incorrect) information on the internet. Phuket was bloody wet and for a couple of days diving was all but stopped, but since March 30th it's been fine, and the weather now - hot and calm - is ideal for a day out diving or a liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands. Want to dive - contact me!

On Tuesday evening, I dashed out of work at 6pm and raced up the road to the Big Buddha just in time for sunset. Not many people up there for sunset, and all the stalls selling Buddha souvenirs were closed already. A few photos ...



The Buddha faces east, so the setting sun casts an orange glow on the back of the Buddha. I loved the light on the arm (below). If you want to see sun on the Buddha's face.. well as I say, sunrise is about 6:15am!





The view above is from the Buddha looking north across the hills. Phuket is hillier and greener than people may realise, though you are not going to see this if you stay by the beach - get out and explore a bit!

It's been sunny every day this week, but there was some rain here and there - on Wednesday and Thursday I had rain on our house while I was at work at Karon Beach - there was no rain at Karon. Got home to find my rain gauge reading 9mm on Wednesday and 11mm on Thursday. Must be some rain with all that heat. My forecast for the next week: HOT, HOTTER, DAMN HOT! Which is good because the 13th is Songkran!



More Songkran photos here. Oh, and Phuket Bike Week is on this weekend with lots of bikes and music and bike related events in Patong.

And a final word, just in case I have not made it clear - the weather in Phuket right now is HOT and SUNNY!

Ah, that's much better! Much more like it! What a freaky March! We were lucky here in Phuket really, I mean, sorry if your holiday was last week but Phuket had no flooding or damage. Other parts of South Thailand had things worse such as the hills in the east of Krabi province where quite a few people were killed in villages by flooding. The provinces on the east coast - Surat Thani and Nakhon Sri Thammarat had a lot of problems, and the islands of Koh Samui, Koh Tao and Koh Pha Ngan also had floods - you can read Camille's Samui Blog for more info on that area.

Anyway, as my last update on 30th March indicated, the heavy rains had stopped already. I only measured 14mm on the 30th and that was during the day, there was no evening rain. On the 31st my rain gauge recorded 2mm and it was almost sunny! I didn't take any photos for a few days, got sick on the 31st in the evening with a fever and bad headache and stayed home all day on the 1st (online though! had to do emails for work... and Twitter!) I have been Tweeting weather updates all the time, though I am happy to say that the last few days I have just been saying "Hot and Sunny". You can follow me on Twitter - https://twitter.com/jamiemonk for weather and Phuket news updates and random chatter.

What is the weather like in Phuket NOW?

The last 3 days have been hot and sunny, with blue skies (yes, some clouds too) and we're back to people saying "ooh! it's so hot today!". Hey, guess what? This is a tropical climate. It's basically either hot, wet or hot and wet. I hope that April will have a lot more of the hot.. The world climate does seem a bit screwy, so I'll place a bet on this being the driest April on record in Phuket, since we just had the wettest March! Total rain in March (according to my records): 439mm. So far in April : 0mm.

With the return of blue skies and the return of my health, I did something on Sunday that I had not done before... a walk down to the end of Phromthep Cape, the most southerly and south-westerly point in Phuket. Been there before of course, many times, it's a great place for a sunset and a view - see Sunset at Cape Phromthep.The path down from the main viewpoint and lighthouse is narrow, steep and a bit slippy in places, especially near the top, but flattens off lower down. A nice little walk, great views...





Viva el sol! See you in Phuket soon!