Rainy season, the best time to visit Northern Thailand
Often when they plan their first trip in Thailand, people try to avoid traveling during the rainy season. But this is the time of year when the Northern landscapes are the most beautiful. And Thais know it ! Many go visit the mountains of the upper part of the country at this time of the year (June to end October).
When nature wakes up…
With the monsoon, nature revives, verdigrates, proliferates, rice is planted (generally around the beginning or mid-July) in the mountains, the waterfalls often dry after months with almost no rain re-fill water…
Who likes nature, likes the rainy season that optimists people call the “green season”. If the green season begins in May, it takes a little time to the rainfall to produce effects but the nature should have recovered its most beautiful assets to welcome you at the end of June. It is also, for me, from July to the end of September that the North of Thailand will offer you its most beautiful face.
The treks lovers will also prefer to come to travel in Thailand these months. Nature is so much more abundant and more alive!
Skies filling up with clouds are also often more beautiful. They change very quickly and can sometimes be very spectacular and are, whatever happens, so much less annoying than a blue monochrome sky.
The rice season
The rainy season is also the rice fields season. As soon as rice is replanted, the valleys and certain mountains get these little green spots in waters where the sky reflects. And the more the rice grows, the more intense emerald green will the landscapes become before turning to yellow a little before the harvest (usually in late October).
In the plains of Isan or in the mountains of Chiang Mai up to Mae Hong Son via Chiang Rai, green will be the trending color. And if you are open and curious, locals will probably invite you to participate to the rice planting. This year I planted rice in a Karen village in Chiang Mai mountains, in the plain of Chiang Dao and near Lampang. Each time with a slightly different technique. And I intend to participate in the harvest in a few weeks.
In July, on dates depending on rainfalls, terraced rice paddies in Chiang Mai mountains probably offer their most photogenic face with their long terraces with rice plants looking like they were planted in a piece of sky, while the water around them reflect the clouds and sun.
And since I am nice guy, I give you my best plan to enjoy it: go up to Ban Pa Pong Piang on Doi Inthanon 90 km from Chiang Mai. That is what I did a few days ago (see here).
In the countryside of Pai or Mae Hong Son also the rice fields will offer you beautiful landscapes at this time of year as well as just at the exit of Chiang Mai or Chiang Dao which is also a destination I advise you to visit during the “green season”. And of course, don’t forget Isan, northeast of Thailand, the most rural region of the country where the rice fields and crops will spray the valleys with their green colors.
But the rainy season anyway…
Then, of course, who says monsoon, says big rain showers from time to time that sometimes flow without warning and can block you one or two hours, rarely more, in a shelter found in a hurry.
Yes, often the rivers waters are more brown than clear, yes, sometimes there are floods for a day or two, yes, you can find yourself drenched to the bone in a few minutes and have to change your plans because of the rain… but there are many compensations that I am sure will make you forget about it. Just do not plan everything in advance, know how to improvise, it is often how we make superb discoveries … and be equipped for the rain.
It is not that Northern Thailand is not interesting in the “dry season”, it is just that it offers facets and unique experiences when the rains come back and reinvigorate it …
