I get quite a few people contacting me asking what is Bangkok, Thailand’s rainy season like?
They are usually planning on traveling to Bangkok sometime during Thailand’s rainy season, and they are worried about the temperature, the wet and, of course, the inconvenience.
They actually shouldn’t be. While rainy season in Thailand might conjure up weeks of non-stop rain, it is not like that at all.
How often does it rain during Thailand’s rainy season?
Usually, it will rain most days during rainy season and it will come down in buckets. In fact, I have traveled all over the world and I have never seen rain like it. But…….having said that, the rain usually does not last for long.
For instance, where I live in Bangkok it will pour down during rainy season once a day, and it is usually during the late morning or early evening. It will come down so hard you can barely see three feet in front of your face and it will rain like that for 15 minutes.
Then, that’s it. The rain disappears, the sun comes out again and everything is back to normal.
Of course, because it buckets it down you will get some flooding in some sois and roads. But….what was strange to me when I first arrived here was how fast the water disappears. Within 10-15 minutes, most of the standing water has gone. With the heat, the rest of it dries up in 30 minutes or so.
And that’s it. Until tomorrow.
Can you walk around during Thailand’s rainy season?
So, if you are in Bangkok during rainy season, of course, you can still walk around in it with an umbrella. But, why bother? I normally head into the closest shopping mall for a bit of window shopping, as do many Thais, or I will hit a coffee shop (they are everywhere) and spend half an hour reading my book, working on my laptop or just watching people walk by.
Rainy season in Bangkok, Thailand really is nowhere near as bad as you might expect.
As for the time period, obviously it does differ but, as a general rule, rainy season is classified as being from sometime in April/May till mid-October.
And the best time to visit Thailand? November thru mid-March. It is much cooler, with hardly any rain and just more pleasant temperatures and weather to walk around in.
Now, for an idea of what you can expect during rainy season in Thailand, watch the beautiful video and check out the flash floods. Don’t worry, though, all that water will have disappeared in less than half an hour.
