Thinking about visiting Thailand
 

My husband and I are planning to go to Hawaii for the months of January and February. During that time we thought we would take a side trip to Thailand (Puket and Koh Sumi). We spent 6 weeks in Thailand 2 years ago. We would fly from Hawaii to Puket, spend a few days there and go on to Koh Sumi for a week or so. What we are wondering is "Is it safe to visit Puket and Koh Sumi?" Has the flooding affected these areas? They tell us on the news that the flooding may not go down until the middle of December. Has there been an outbreak of any diseases in these areas? It is so hard to know what to do as the news is not always the most reliable source. Just like the US!! We have no desire to visit Bangkok as we spent 1 week there 2 years ago and were not impressed. We realize January and February is a long ways away but we need to come to a decision and book our flights. Any info on these topics would be appreciated. Thank you in advance

Samui and Phuket have not been hit by the flooding, other than being busy places because lots of people have gotten out of Bangkok.

I f you are at all concerned about the floods, why even consider Thailand? there are plenty of other countries in teh Far East completely unaffected - e.g .Malasia and Vietnam etc. both of those have great beaches.

Personally i would head for Bali perhaps

komaneka.com Monkey forest or the Hyatt Sanur

but if you must

monitor travel.state.gov and weather2travel.com

by Jan/Feb odds are you will be fine on a beach

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January and february are the middle of the rainy season in Bali - hardly the best time to visit the beach..

Bkk and Ayutthaya are the areas most affected by flooding.

THe tourist areas and islands are not. Unfortunately a large part of the population of Bkk has been displaced or otherwise affected by the floods there and many have decided to take an impromptu holiday. This means that many of the resort areas are unexpectedly full.

I have travelled from near Bkk to the North East of Thailand in the last few days and whilst the roads are quite dry the traffic is very, very heavy, with many traffic jams around Bkk as people try to avoid the capital.

THe cool dry season is now here for most of the country (not Samui) and again apart from Ayutthaya and the Capital you won't encounter a lot of flood aftermath damage etc.

Until now I wasn´t too horribly worried about our January 15th trip, but now I am wondering if BKK SHOULD be drying out by then or not?

It should be. Just keep your eye on the situation.