Tuesday 14 April 2009

14th April, 2009

Today's weather;

It's partly cloudy today with a current temp of 28C.

Yesterday was a lovely and sunny day, perfect for Songkran. Max temp reached 31.6C.

On the Songkran downside, 139 road deaths in first three of Songkran's 'seven dangerous days'.

On the political side, things aren't improving at all; The Nation reports of a Songkran Inferno with two killed in clashes between rioters and angry residents. Petrol bombs lobbed at Army HQ, ministry blamed on 'third party'. People in the provinces demand an end to the chaos.

Central Bangkok a war zone; The bloodstained start to Songkran - which transformed large swathes of downtown Bangkok into urban guerrilla war zones, leaving dozens of people wounded - was marked by the first shots around the Din Daeng triangle before dawn.

Camille

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,
we are supposed to be in Samui on the 16th april,and then phuket on the 23 for 6 nights and we are really thinking about canceling because of the political situation as we are traveling with a baby !!! don't know what to do ??? is the situation ok or should we really cancel ...???

and do you have an Idea about the weather in Phuket ??

thanks a lot in adavnce for your response.

Selma

Camille Lemmens said...

Hi,

Right now the situation in Bangkok seems to have settled. outside of Bangkok and especially in the South, you won't notice that anything is going on at all, this might even be the case in most parts of Bangkok. Most of the demonstrationsare in very specific parts of the city.

In my opinion, there's no need to cancel right now.

Regarding Phuket weather, have a look at last month, I actually wrote a story about a fellow blogger who runs a Phuket weather blog.

Ayesha said...

Hi Camille

Happy Songkran! Sorry to keep pestering you, but your the only aid i have to inform me of the weather conditions. It seems that this trip is becoming doomed, firstly due to the riots in Bangkok, I am hoping that i will be able to fly out from the UK, and then there is the unusual weather conditions of samui.
I am hoping that the latter is getting better. Your bolg has given me some optimism as you said it has been sunny, but all the forecasts are still predicting a lot of rain, please tell me that the sun is out and that there has been less rain. Would you still advise me to visit Samui or change my plan to the south of Bangkok?
How long does the rain typically last, if its for an hour i really dont mind if its followed by some sunshine, or has the skies been dull and cloudy? Your insight would be much helpful and will give me some re assurances! The weather has been described as thunderstorms.. not the definition any holiday maker wants. I dont mind coming as long as there is a few hours of sunshine, and some bright skies!
Hope to hear from you soon, and apologies again!
Thanks

Ayesha

Camille Lemmens said...

Hi Ayesha,

Both of your worries should be fine, the political unrest seems to have stopped, all demonstrators have left the streets of Bangkok and the weather forecast is good, almost no rain for the enxt week predicted. Even if there’s rain, it’s for a short period and there should be sunshine before and after the rain.

No reason for skipping out on Samui, here you won’t know that something is going at all in Bangkok!