Heat

The difference a few degrees make.

In Thailand you become a connoisseur of heat. When someone first comes here, they'll say something like, "Wow! It sure is hot." without any regard for if it's actually hot or one or two degrees below hot.

The difference between beautiful spring weather where you're happy to be out all day, maybe on the beach or golf course, and a scorching bath of fire is only 2 degrees centigrade.

I'm perfectly comfortable at 32, but as soon as the thermometer goes up to 33, I can really start to feel the heat. At 34, the only thing I can do is to sit next to the fan and read a book. Anything more strenuous than that and I would surely die. In fact, at 34 even the Thai people start to complain!

For the past seven years, I've been perfectly happy living without air conditioning. Well, perfectly happy for all but two months in the summer around April when it hits the magically unbearable 34. However, 2010 is turing out to be incredibly hot. In fact, even the tea companies are ramping up production in anticipation of the heat--that's a bad sign!

Another laughable consequence of the weather here in Thailand is that weather reports become nearly meaningless. Sure, some of the sailors will check specialized reports to get an idea of the wind speed, but for everyone else, there's simply no point.

If you're curious, the weather reports for Phuket will look like this everyday for the entire year: 30C, partly cloudy. That's the weather man's way of saying, it will be hot throughout Phuket, raining in some places and sunny in others.

So, if you spend some time here in Thailand, you'll soon know that the only difference between one day and the next is a few degrees, but you'll have pushed the entire range from beautiful outdoor walking weather to hide in an air conditioned coffee shop retreat, into it.