RAINY SEASON BLOWS IN

My suspicions about the rainy season were confirmed this morning by the following e-mailed article from The Phuket Gazette:

PHUKET: The annual southwest monsoon has arrived, dumping millions of tons of water on Phuket yesterday and flooding part of Karon.

Chumnong Chitpukdee, Director of the Southern Meteorological Center (West Coast) Phuket told the Gazette today that more heavy rain can be expected in the coming few days, especially in the afternoons and evening – along with more flooding.

He said that the rain is unlikely to be heavy enough to cause landslides but warned people in exposed or landslide-risk areas to be on the alert nevertheless, and to listen to weather forecasts.

“Some areas such as Patong, Kata, and Karon may have to watch out for flooding because there is a lot of construction [in those places] that impedes drainage,” he added.

Heavy rain yesterday afternoon caused flooding to a depth of around 50 centimeters in the area around th e Nong Harn Circle in Karon, making the area impassable to smaller vehicles.

Tawatchai Tongmang, Chief Officer (Palad) of Karon Municipality, blamed the flooding on insufficient drainage.

“The drains were incapable of channeling the rainwater into the sea, which was also high at the time, and it took us about two hours to clear it all out.

“Karon Municipality has had difficulties putting drains into this area because we need land to do this and land is extremely expensive here,” he explained.

“Thankfully, we do not have the worry about landslides in Karon,” he added.

One other thing the rain brings is all manner of exotic-looking insects coming into the house.  We haven't had much of a mosquito problem, but last night I found the largest centipede I've seen outside of a zoo coming in under the kitchen door and we've had some strange flying creatures as well.  At least we haven't had a hornet problem at home although when I went into the 7-Eleven up the street a couple of night ago, there were hundreds of them around the front door and all over the floor inside (and there were a few inside the nearby pharmacy when we went last night).  Also, shopping at the open-air market was a very muddy task yesterday...