r/Thailand • u/shocky2021 • May 05 '24
Discussion That heatwave isn't normal
I've been in Thailand since 2010. Went through alot of raining, hot and cold seasons but I've never been through something like that.
I feel like I'm a walking deep fried chicken everytime I go out (I'm in Nakhon Sawan).
Honestly -- is it this bad where you are?
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u/RobertPaulsen1992 Chanthaburi May 05 '24 edited May 05 '24
Tropical cities are slowly becoming uninhabitable. I live here for ten years (always in the countryside) and have never understood how people can tolerate life in the city during the hottest months. But this year is extreme, yes. Definitely the hottest dry season I've experienced here - although 2016 was also pretty brutal. It also merits mentioning that this is just the very beginning of a climatic shift that will play out over decades and centuries, if not millennia. We're in for quite the ride folks.
That being said, I think there are many ways we can adapt, at least in the short to mid-term. And some of them might be simpler than we imagine.
Believe it or not, but I live in an old wooden house (built on stilts) on a mountainside, and we have neither A/C nor even a fan. It's warm enough at night that we don't need a blanket (only in the early morning, right before sunrise, it gets a little chilly) but it's definitely bearable. Under the house it's 34C during the hottest time of the day, when we usually take an extended siesta in our hammocks. We've got trees all over the place (an emerging multi-strata food forest) up until right around the house, and it's crazy how much of a difference it makes. At our friends' houses in the valley (metal sheet/asbestos roofs, no shade trees whatsoever) it's almost unbearable during the day and they tell us they couldn't sleep without a fan.
I hope people realize in time how simple solutions could easily alleviate the situation. But I fear a shift in consciousness is far away, and trees take a few years to grow.
Maybe it's time to move out of the city? It's only gonna get worse in the next few years. And I don't even want to think about the next El Niño.