Thailand’s summer: It’s about beating the heat.
Terri Roamer
Staying cool during Thailand’s summer can be a challenge, but there are ways to escape the heat.
It’s a scorcher. How else can you describe summer in Thailand? Temperatures soar from one day to the next with very little warning of what is in store as March marches into April.
Thailand’s seasonal changes, measured by the rise and fall of the mercury are subtle at the best of times, but residents recognise when the prevailing wind shifts dramatically swirls the weather vane to the opposite end of the compass summer is here. The balmy northeast winds, that picked up a slight chill over China, falter by late February as the humid and shirt-sticking heat of the Southwest monsoon dominates the weather patterns by early March.
Sometimes the northeast winds linger, lowering temperatures by a few degrees well into March, but there is no firm schedule for the hot season’s inevitable onslaught. Give or take a week, electricity bills in the Thai capital will hit the ceiling and stay that way until the end of April.
Not exactly the best time to be in Thailand if you are not accustomed to dealing with the double whammy of heat and humidity. If it is any consolation there are hotter places to visit at this time of the year. You might be tempted to ask where they could possibly be, especially if you are being micro-waved by the heat reflecting off the glass walls of Bangkok’s high-rise buildings.
There are travellers who in jest bet a week’s pay that they could have fried an egg on a concrete road in Northeast Thailand. But by the time April arrives we are all looking forward to the four-day soaking that comes with the Songkran Festival when the neighbour’s children lob a bucket or two of cold water our way and we say thank you.
Until the country’s popular water festival gets under way, there are a few weeks of unrelenting heat with just a slight possibility of what gardeners call mango showers to break the scorching spell for an hour or two.
So how do you work a holiday around such a sticky scenario? There are options, like booking a holiday that demands very little energy other than to loll in a hammock and snooze. Summers are survivable from under the shade of a huge umbrella at one of Thailand’s popular beach resorts. Pattaya is one resort that is blessed with high-rise hotels and apartments that capture the strong breeze blowing off the sea. Take room service in your high-rise tower, admire the view of those glorious islands off Pattaya’s coastline and sink slowly into a great novel with a tall chilly drink to take you through a chapter or two.
Pattaya would be my first choice to beat the summer heat. Not that it is any cooler than Bangkok, but as the name suggests there is always a strong breeze blowing whatever the season to cool you down a mite.
It’s not too far from Bangkok and even closer to Suwarnabhumi Airport, at just 90 km on a motorway that gets you to the resort in little over an hour of exiting the airport.
There are plenty of high-rise hotels and apartments, too. If being at beach level squinting at silver heat rays reflected off the sea is too much to contemplate, then go urban and rent an apartment, 20 floors above the melting tarmac.
Pattaya is also packed with department stores and shopping malls and they are very important component in the bid to beat summer heat.
We used to dash between coffee shops in freezing Europe to avoid frost bite, so the opposite applies during Thailand’s summer. We duck in and out of Thailand’s mega malls, drink brain-freeze smoothies and browse in air-conditioned stores until our finger tips go numb with cold. That’s a good sign.
Shopping is a national hobby that crosses the gender lines in Thailand. Seniors and teens mingle in chilly mall basements that sell cheap gadgets, jewellery, gimmicky clothes and snacks.
In the food halls, there is every variation of Thai and “farang” snacks on display at incredibly cheap prices. In Pattaya, the summer crowd gravitates to Central Festival on the beach road, mainly to the food corner in the basement. The selection is as cosmopolitan as the crowd; a mix of every nationality all enjoying the chilly interval from the summer heat blast outside.
There are more shopping malls, stores and mega marts on a square kilometre of Pattaya’s real estate than even Bangkok can muster. Having it all so close reduces the dashes in the sunlight between retail therapy sessions and in passing you can glance for a second at Pattaya’s seascape. The trick is not to jump into the sea. There is no relief from the heat there. Just admire it and head for another chilled shopping mall. You can always take a refreshing dip at sunset.
Phuket and Samui have similar advantages. Sea breezes cool you off a mite, even if the temperatures are the same as downtown Bangkok. The trick is to stay clear of the beaches mid-day.
It takes a little discipline to beat the heat. The early morning jog along the beach is really early, just as the sun pops up over a Phuket hillside or a sea cape if you happen to be in Hua Hin.
Then you make your day busy with activities, but not the strenuous type that take you out in the sun.
You book a spa for four hours at least and when you emerge it will be time for evening cocktails on the hotel balcony to watch the sunset.
On odd days you could try a foot massage to relieve stress and on even days sign up for a Thai cooking class always in an air-conditioned kitchen except for the early morning visit to the market to learn how to choose fresh veggies and spices.
I could get used to this leisurely lifestyle and not once have to lather myself with sun factor 50 cream to avoid sun damage.
The evenings are fine. Temperatures drop and the sea breeze helps us to linger longer than we should at beach bars sipping ice cold beers or fizzy cocktails. I particularly like the ones where the bartender deliberately freezes beer glasses with a small amount of water at the bottom of the mug. He pours the beer and usually 10 minutes into the sips, the ice pops up to the surface and showers your nose in beer foam.
I asked him if he had a name for this gimmicky version of a pint of the best, and he said it was a “Snow Beer” in English. Just what the doctor ordered to beat summer heat.
My tips for summer are do as little as possible, chill out with book, browse the malls and learn how to cook a Thai meal in between the pummels and stretches of a traditional Thai massage. Before you know it the rainy season will be here massive clouds covering the sun and we can all get back to enjoying our favourite outdoor sports once more.
