Thailand forum

Hi Matt,

August gets pretty wet in Phuket -- see our Thailand weather map to see what the weather is like each month.

MATT, August is wet season on Phuket but travel is usually okay - I've seen plenty of posts saying people had a good holiday with the usual daily mixture of one or a few showers/storms and sunshine/scattered cloud, some days with no rain.

This has been the pattern in all my wet season visits. The latest, last August, I was on Phi Phi and Phuket in what the newspapers called the wettest period for some years. In 15 days got 2 days virtually cloudless, about 2 where it rained more often than not (but these still had some sunny breaks and were not write-offs), and the rest were the normal mixture of one or a few showers, sun/scattered cloud. I had a great holiday. Check the uncredited shots on the 2 PP pages and 1 Phuket page in the link below, lots of sunshine in them. BTW, Phi Phi/Phuket and Krabi are within sight of each other, so weather patterns are similar.

The southern Gulf islands (Samui, Phangan, Tao) are usually real good in August - still well short of their normal wet season of Oct into Jan. It does rain, but sunshine usually dominates

The driest of the non-Southern Gulf islands tends to be Ko Samet near Bangkok. Most of Samet's beaches face east and are sheltered from the prevailing wet season winds which on the days when they get stronger can cause rough seas and blow a lot of flotsam and jetsom onto the beach.

The wettest are Big Ko Chang and neighbours + the Ranong area islands. Nevertheless I have seen plenty of posts from visitors to the former in the wet season saying they enjoyed themselves.

DAVE - if a flight to Surathani is too expensive, the most cost effective/comfortable is a bus there and then a ferry.
An alternative is a bus to Chumpon and a ferry to Tao - shorter ferry trip, longer bus trip.
Phuket bus station is in Phuket town abt 35km from the airport - all the buses pass abt 3km from the airport, so to save time you could get a taxi, motorcycle taxi out to the main road bus stop and wave down a bus - most have English and Thai destination script on the front.

DAVE - my apologies in my above answer - thought you wanted Bangkok to Phangan not Phuket to Ko Pha Ngan/Ko Tao.

Basically you can fly to Samui and hop on Lombprayah or similar to Phangan/Tao or you can bus to Surathani and grab a ferry to either.

Both are normally reliable, comfort not bad on each although the quicker flight way is naturally less wearing. I'm afraid only you can balance the cost question.

Note most Surathani ferries leave from the Gulf piers about 50km east of the city itself. A combined bus/ferry ticket at Phuket bus station will get you there. The night ferries leave from the town pier, but despite being my favourite way of accessing the islands I would not say they were overly comfortable.

Weather usually better on the Samui side Sept - normally the wet season there does not kick in until around Oct.
Samui has a host of luxury hotels and quite a few of them go into off-season pricing Sept, not because of the weather like the other side of the peninsula, but because all the Euros and Yanks go home.

Hi

myself and my boyfriend are going to Thailand in September also. We plan on going down to Ao Nang on the 14th September for 2 nights, then over to Phi Phi for 4 nights. Have read some people say that there are no ferry's over to Phi Phi in the Wet season, or that the sea can be to rough so you cant get over. Wandering if anyone has had any experience in September?

Thanks Emma