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What to expect in JANUARY 2005

Statistics

	Average temperature 20.5 C Average rainfall 6.9 mm Cloud cover 2.7/10 Humidity 71 % Rainy days 0.9 Sunshine 282.4 hrs.

With any luck, this'll be the coldest month of the year, with temperatures some of the time down to 10C or even lower. Of course, your weatherman's talking here of the lowlands. Up on the mountains it can be a darned sight colder, and even in November there can be frosts and frozen water up on Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain. At the time of writing, it's difficult to predict just how cold it'll be down here in the city, but at least it's probably safe to say there'll be little or no rain.

Even in Chiang Mai though, the winter can sometimes be a bit tough for us locals. Some twenty years back, the cold weather was intensified by strong winds, and some of the expat residents were surprised by feeling so miserably inadequate to facing the admittedly unusual conditions that they found themselves going to bed at six in the evening - bed being the only place they actually felt warm. The same thing occurred three years back, when the thermometer dropped well below ten early morning and evening for about a fortnight. What was happening, they wondered. After all, back in their own countries, didn't the temperature drop well below freezing without them being noticeably affected? So why such an extreme reaction here in and around Chiang Mai? The answer was - and is - of course that back in the West, not only did they go out well-protected, but after forays in sub-zero temperatures, they ducked into public buildings with impeccable central heating facilities. And that here in Chiang Mai, even their own homes were likely to be as chilly inside as the weather was outside. And if this is true of the conditions down here on the Chiang Mai plain, how much more so out in the boonies and up in the mountains. Your weatherman once did a trip with some friends down beyond the little provincial town of Om Khoi, putting up the night at a rural health station. Perishing cold down there, and though he intended to have a shower before retiring for the night, on feeling the water in the giant ohng in the bathroom, he changed his mind…and the following brief conversation, with an interlocutor at the other side of the wall, was recorded.

"Are you actually washing yourself in there, mate?" came the spectral voice from the other side. And after a brief struggle between bravado and veracity, veracity won out, your weatherman heard to admit,

"Only the important bits, Wilhelm."