Thailand’s Sticky Summer Weather
By Tony Sham
August 3, 2026 The weather in Thailand can be pretty tricky, and very sticky, in the summer months. Course they're not called that over here. This time of the year's considered "rainy season", but because it's summer in New York, and that's the barometer by which I evaluate all things no matter where the hell I wash up, I'm calling it summer.
And summer here is humid, man. The kind of sweltering that can spackle your crown jewels to your leg if you're not careful. Lucky for me I copped some breathable layers. I'm talking linen, merino, nylon, you name it. If it's thin, I got it on me. In Hua Hin, I saw a couple old ex-pats looking like they'd been locked in the sauna just walking down the street for a cup of coffee, and that was before 11 AM.
I'm not saying I'm not sweating buckets myself out here but being half the age of those retirees I like to think I got a little more resilience. In fact, I landed in Bangkok with such a cocky attitude, real New York, fresh off the plane, that it cost me a couple of bucks later that night. But that's a story for another time.
Twenty Minutes to Third-Degree Burns
First day in this heat, I'm thinking I tan pretty good, so this'll be a breeze. I go to the pool at the place I'm staying (before you say anything almost every hotel, motel, holiday inn in Thailand has a pool so you can forget the idea that "New Yorker Abroad" is staying at the Ritz, because they're not) and I lay out. I put some SPF on the face, Hawaiian Tropical or whatever, and spritz some oil on the body. This is normal behavior for me, all right?
Ten minutes in, I can feel my silver crucifix burning my skin like the metal's starting to melt. I flip over, and in five minutes the back of my neck's cooking. I get up to find some relief in the water and the stone flags are actually five hundred degrees - hotter than the A-team at Scores - don't pretend like you don't know where that is.
Hop skipping like the floor is lava and I'm in third grade; I stumble into the pool and dunk myself. The pool staff were definitely laughing at the crazy American, and kid you not, I got color after being out there for twenty minutes. It's like some chick from Howard Beach's wet dream, and I don't mean me, I mean the UV.
Why I Finally Understand the Umbrella Touristic Move
Needless to say, if I'm out from under the cover of a taxi cab (they're called Grab here, not Uber) or so much as an awning, I wear a hat. This coming from a guy who used to think Chinese tourists were assholes for mobbing through midtown holding up fuckin umbrellas in the middle of a July day with not a cloud in the sky. I still do think that's low key, but I get where they're coming from.
The good news is, if you can call it that, it isn't sunny all that much, because it's mostly either about to rain, currently raining, threatening rain, or taking a break to refill the tank. That's when the sun beats down, by the way. So, when it's not baking sun, it's pouring cats and dogs. If you think I take out an umbrella, you’re mistaken. Real New Yorkers don't carry one. We just handle the weather.
