There are two basic, default temperatures in Thailand — the steaming, burning, sauna-like heat of the world outside, and the freezing, almost sub-zero chill found in the air-conditioned interiors.
While a short walk outside will find most people, no matter what they're wearing, pouring with sweat and drained of energy, people inside malls or movie theatres can find themselves shivering with hypothermia if they're not wrapped up well in warm clothes.
The reason I started thinking about this is that our Student Weekly office in the palatial Bangkok Post building is absolutely freezing at the moment. It's always pretty cold in here, but over the past few days while it has been raining heavily outside, the temperature in here for some reason has plummeted, leading to Arctic conditions. On days like this, despite still being fairly hot and humid outside, here in the office it's not unusual to find our staff wrapped up in coats, jackets, blankets, gloves and scarves, and still shivering under all that.
Why the air-con can't be adjusted when the temperature outside alters is just one of those mysteries that will seemingly never be solved. On cloudless days at work I usually run up to the roof for a few minutes to thaw out in the sun and to get some blood flowing back into my frost-bitten fingers, toes and brain. But unfortunately that isn't really an option when it's pouring with rain.
I actually enjoy cold weather as a general rule, and in a way I guess working in an icebox makes a welcome change from the almost constant humid heat found outside in Bangkok. But when your body has to adjust from the stifling heat to the icy cold and back again several times in one day, it can make your nervous system nervous, your skin feel thin, your brain feel strained and your energy drained. At least, that's my excuse for not coming up with anything particularly interesting to write about for this week's Editor's Note.
So until next week, when you're not sweating it out and taking the heat or wading through floodwaters on city streets, just stay cool and chill.
Ben Edwards
Editor
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