The best time to visit Thailand is between November to February.
This is the cool season. During these months, you won't be caught
in rain showers and humidity is mild. The air is drier and visibility
is good making it great for taking photographs. Average temperatures
range between 28 - 35 degrees centigrade and winds blow from the
north.
- Southern Thailand is best visited during the months
of November through May.
- Northern Thailand is best visited from mid-November
to December.
The hottest months of the year are March, April and May. It gets
miserably hot and sticky in Northern and Eastern Thailand with
temperatures reaching a high 38 degrees centigrade.
The wettest months of the year are August and September when
the monsoon winds blow and although not especially hot its humid
because of the rainfall.For Bangkok - be prepared to roast in
April and do some wading in October - probably the worst two months
in the capital. The peak tourist seasons is December and August,
and the least crowded months are May, June and September.
Many festivals are linked to Buddhist or Brahman rituals and
follow a lunar calendar.
The Thai New Year or Songkran, is celebrated in mid-April
by 'bathing' Buddha images, paying respect to monks and elders
by sprinkling water over their hands, and generally tossing a
lot of the water in the air for fun. Expect to be soaked unless
you want to sit out the fun in a hotel room.
Thailand celebrates the sowing and harvesting of rice. To kick
off the official rice-planting season in early May, the
King participates in an ancient Brahman ritual in a large field
in central Bangkok.
The Rocket Festival is held in May in the country's north-east,
using a volatile mixture of bamboo and gunpowder to convince the
sky to send rain for the new rice season. The rice harvest from
September through to May leads to joyous local celebrations throughout
Thailand.
The Vegetarian Festival is celebrated in Phuket and Trang,
during which devout Chinese Buddhists eat only vegetarian food
and runs for nine days from late-September to early-October. Merit-making
processions are the most visible expression of this festival,
but there are also ceremonies at Chinese temples.
The Elephant Roundup in Surin in November is an elephantine
festival popular with the kind of people who enjoy watching pachyderms
play soccer. The Loi Krathong Festival, is held after the
rainy season, usually in November where people send off ornate
candlelit floral floats into river, lakes and other waterways
to bring good fortune for the coming year.
