When many people think of “monsoon” they think of a time of year when constant heavy rains downpour all day. And that may be true in some places in the world but from my experiences in Thailand it’s a little bit of a misnomer. In fact I recommend traveling in Thailand during the monsoon season which can extend anywhere from March until October. Below is the etymology of the word.
From Arabic موسم (mausim, “season”), from وسم (wásama, “to mark, to brand”), through Portuguese monção and Dutch moesson
I don’t think the word monsoon really fits what happens in Thailand six months out of the year. It is true the origin of the word really refers to a season and not the amount of rain pouring down. The more appropriate term is “rainy season“.
In Japan there are a few months out of the year where they do have extensive rain almost every day. In Japanese is called TSUYU (梅雨) (literally “plum rain“) and it is most often translated into English as “the rainy season”. But the rainy season in Japan is very different from Thailand. There are a large percentage of days where you get very light misty rain, almost like something you get from misters which, if you’ve ever been to Arizona in the summer, you have experienced. Even though you can get heavy rains during the rainy season in Japan most of the time it’s just a lot of light rain. But then there is a season for typhoons where Japan does get quite a bit of rain but it comes all at one time so I can do quite a bit of damage As well.
Here in Thailand the rainy season consists of an hour or two of rain almost every day. It’s very hot during the season so the rain Cools everything down and creates a very pleasant time to relax, read a book, get off the motorcycle and just talk to people you’ve never met before. But in some places in Thailand, especially the West Coast where Phuket and many famous tourist beaches are, the wind comes from the west and creates waves that create quite a ride on a boat. About 60% to 70% of scuba diving guests get sea sick in the rainy season and that’s why many boats don’t go out. On top of that it can be somewhat more dangerous to dive since the boat has to drop people off the dive platform and then pick them up. When the boat is he heaving up and down that can cause injuries and extreme stress and discomfort. That’s why most of the diving off the West Coast of Thailand is done during November to late January when the wind is from the east.
So from this description you can surmise the change in winds six months out of the year bring in the rains. In the northern part of Thailand April and May can be extremely hot and humid. You can be walking around every day as though you’re inside the bathtub with clothes just waiting to be wrung out all during the day. But in the south it’s actually very comfortable with an hour or two of rain every day and then maybe some nice cloud cover so you can go to the beach without worry of extreme sunburn. But watch out for that very light cloud cover since the sun rays magnify through light fog and light clouds and can cause a worse sunburn than a sunny time.