Monsoon Racing

In Phuket, monsoon season supposedly runs from April-October. We were a little apprehensive when we moved here, picturing rain all the time for six months. However, it turns out that for most of monsoon season it is actually pretty damn sunny... until the last few weeks.

All of a sudden, our tropical paradise has turned ugly. The rains come often, they come fast, and it rains really hard! I don't know about rainfall in other parts of the world, but if you took the average Ontario rainstorm and multiplied it by 5 you wouldn't be far off.

Unlike rain back home, which warns you with days of gray skies before anything actually happens; Thailand's rainstorms come within a few minutes. Today's rainstorm went like this:

I drove back from the apartment under partially cloudy skies.  (Neither blue nor gray skies seem to be an accurate predictor of good or bad weather).

I called Shane to ask where he wanted to go for lunch. "Soup place sounds good Shane, I see a big cloud coming over Monkey Hill... it's about to start raining I've gotta go!" At this point I figured I had maybe 2 minutes to get indoors.

I started walking down the sidewalk. Suddenly I heard a "whooshing" noise, it sounds a lot like wind but we've been here long enough that I knew to turn around. I saw this...

Monkey hill and our apartment building were already being poured on. There were 100 metres between me and the motorcycle repair shop (which has an awning over the sidewalk) and of course I was carrying my laptop in my backpack. I started to sprint...

The rain was chasing at my heels but I managed to make it... until next time monsoons.

Cold Snap Hits Thailand

Yes, for all our Canadian friends this must seem like a real oxymoron... but it is true! There is currently a big weather system in the South of Thailand (causing the worst rains in memory apparently) that is hitting our region with some unprecedented cold temperatures. At this time of the year we should be into the hot season, and the temperature should be around 40C fairly often... instead it has been hovering right around 20C!

In their kind Buddhist way, the Thais have sought to alleviate the suffering of some of those less fortunate around us... namely the soi dogs. Somebody (or possibly a group of somebodies) has been putting shirts on the soi dogs.

This little fellow is just one example of the several dogs that we have recently seen sporting shirts... We are pretty sure that it is due to the recent "cold" temperatures. We like his rugby style with the striped shirt and mohawk, so he has now become "Rugby Dog".