EARLY START TO RAINY SEASON?

I think the rainy season has arrived on Phuket with a vengeance.  We've had multiple thunderstorms (usually one in the morning, another around midday, and a third in the evening) every day for the past three or four days.  Just in time, I finally found a rainjacket at Supersports inside the Central Festival mall last night — it's actually an Adida warm-up jacket but it was the lowest price suitable jacket I found (a 50% off sale put the price at 945 baht, or USD $25; the first jacket I actually saw was a Gortex one for 16,000 baht!).

I don't mind the rain so much if we're home because it really tends to cool off things and the various flying insects disappear during the storms.  But getting caught in the heavy rain on the motorbike is no fun — it's dangerous to drive in for one thing, and the big drops really do hurt when they hit you.  The light sprinkles are nicer as you don't get that soaked and it feels nice and cool.  The wind really does pick up during these rainstorms, however.  As I type this, I'm looking out our front sliding glass doors at our small parking area and the soi (street) beyond — the soi looks like a raging river.  I can only imagine what it's like down in Patong; Tim says that Bangla Road is probably flooded ("have much water").

Phuket basically has two "seasons":  hot & humid, and rainy, hot & humid.  The rainy season will last from May through around September or October most years but this past year was unusual with rains persisting throughout December and January and starting again in March.  We'll see how this effects the tourist high season next November/December/January.