About six-thirty this evening I looked up from my computer screen, cross-eyed from about five consecutive hours of reformatting training materials, and noticed that while it is still light outside, it is heading towards dusk. I know for those of you further north in the hemisphere that won’t be too surprising. In fact, perhaps you’ve already started to notice that your summer sunlight is waning. But here, closer to the equator, after several weeks of barely any change – just a few seconds less of daylight a day – the pace is picking up.
It is fascinating to me the way that the latitude of a city affects daylight:
- In San Francisco, the longest day of 2007 will be 14 hours, 47 minutes. The shortest days will be 9 hours, 33 minutes.
- Here in Khrungthep, 30 degrees towards the equator, the longest day will be 12 hours, 56 minutes and the shortest will be 11 hours, 18 minutes.
- Another 12.5 degrees towards the equator – located just one degree north of the equator – the residents of the Lion City of Singapore see their days vary by just 10 minutes – from 12 hours, 2 minutes to 12 hours, 12 minutes!
Even though it is rainy season here, we’ve been without rain for two days and after meeting Khruu Kitiya for Thai tutoring, I had to walk to the Skytrain station underneath a very strong sun. Along the way I saw two employees from TOT – Telephone of Thailand (the folks who block my access to YouTube) – working on some underground wiring. They said okay when I asked if I could take a picture.
Check out the way that the wiring is bundled – using newspaper and electrical tape. Is it any wonder that phone service here can be sporadic?
christao408 
How has this rainy season been? I’m heading to Cambodia during the first week of September and I’m aware that it’s rainy season, although I’m betting that this year is slightly less wet than other years. I was in Taipei this year during rainy seaon and they had very little precipitation, as was true in Tokyo. Have people been making that general observation in Thailand or am I way off the mark?
Interesting statistics….we just need some more rain in LA ^^
I think rainy season here has been pretty normal. September is always our heaviest month so we’ll see in a few more weeks. We’ve had a number of days with day-long drizzle, but mostly it is one or two days of no rain and increasing humidity, then a huge afternoon downpour and possibly a little more rain overnight. Then another day or two of no rain.
Is Bangkok at N13 latitude?
Duct tapes are proofed to be very useful. I am told the astronauts always have them in the space shuttles. Although I am not sure about the newspapaer wrap 🙂