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My girlfirend just asked me "What is the season, spring?"
I looked at her stunned for a second and then realised she wasn't joking - she was translating a letter written in English for a friend and they did not know what spring was.
Strange was my initial thought but then....
... when you live in South East Asia, the climate that has two seasons - hot or hot and raining, with a mild 'cool' (read hot English summers day) season around the end of the year, it is hardly surprising that the Thais don't know the weather that incorporates seperate seasons that non tropical countries have.
I mean how many people in the west really understand the meaning of the 'wet season', and no to the English you have drizzle and dreariness. Wet season refers to someone picking up a swimming pool and throwing that water down at you - all in one go - for hours or days. You get 3-4 inches of flooding within minutes just because the water cannot drain away as fast as it comes down, flash floods are common.
And that's only in the city, it gets much worse in the countryside or along the coasts.
Same with hot season. When I first arrived in Thialand in 1985 I was told the weather was going to be hot. "Yeah, yeah - the weather's hot in Australia too you know".
I stepped off the plane, warm, but nothing to write home about, walked through the airport got my luggage, this is comfortably warm for an Aussie, then I step out of the airport....
SUFFOCATION! Gasping for breathe. Looking like a fish out of water mouth opening and closing eyes aboggle, I could barely breathe.
I had to stop and gulp air for 10 seconds as my body rapidly tried to adjust to breathing in water.
I wasn't prepared for was the hottest Australian days mixed with 90% humidity and the Bangkok pollution of back then.
Seriously all that humidity made it very hard to breathe. I grabbed an airconditioned Taxi as soon as I could. Several hours later I was acclimitised.... .somewhat.
Imagine how poor John felt working on L'ile Aux Tresors - coming straight from winter weather in Hungary ( -20 deg C) to blistering Thailand tropical heat, on a pirate ship in the Andaman Sea with little shade. Needless to say he was nauseous and throwing up the first day, and a little better on the 2nd day.
Luckily the GF's been to Europe so she knows about winter weather, so I was able to explain spring (not that I have ever had a snowy winter) so that she understood the general significance.
Gee it is nice to live in countries where weather patterns like Spring, Autumn and Winter are just like fairy tales.
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