Monday 25 May 2026

Good morning Bangkok. Happy Monday.

🌡️ Weather: 29-36°C (84-97°F). Hot through the afternoon with scattered thundershowers possible from mid-afternoon. TMD forecasts the monsoon trough continuing to bring rain across upper Thailand through the week. Morning is the outdoor window.

🌫️ AQI: 68-138 (Good to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups). Wide range. At the lower end, genuinely good air quality. At the upper end, sensitive groups should mask up. Check your local sensor.

The Disease Control Department reported that 3,642 COVID-19 cases have been recorded between the beginning of this year and May 23, with one fatality. One. The dominant strain is NB.1.8.1, which accounts for 50.95% of cases and has mutated to spread more easily and evade some immune defenses. Most infections are among people aged 30-35, followed by those over 60 and 20-29. Daily hospitalizations have ticked up from an average of 63 to 73, but intensive care cases remain at just one per day. Director General Dr Monthien Kanasawat confirmed there is no evidence of increased severity. Singapore reported a sharper surge from 8,000 to 12,700 cases between May 10-16, which prompted the Thai DCD to issue its update.

Deputy Director General Dr Direk Khampaen described COVID as now endemic in Thailand, with severity having dropped significantly and infections tending to decline over time. The advice is the same sensible guidance it has been for the past two years: wash your hands before eating, carry hand sanitizer, consider a mask in crowded enclosed spaces if you are in a vulnerable group, and avoid close contact with people showing respiratory symptoms. The reason this story is worth covering is not because the situation is alarming. It is because the situation is not alarming, and knowing that matters. After three years of genuine crisis, the fact that Thailand can absorb a seasonal uptick with one ICU case per day and one death all year is a measure of how far the country has come.

Bottom Line: No behavior change needed for most readers. If you are over 60 or have underlying conditions, a mask on the BTS during peak hours is a reasonable precaution this month. For everyone else, wash your hands, go about your day, and appreciate the fact that "COVID cases rising" in 2026 reads very differently from how it did in 2021.

The feature, published this month under the headline "Burnout breaks in Thailand see expats swap hangovers for healing," describes a measurable shift in how foreigners living in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket are spending their time and money. The short version: expats are quietly abandoning the noble pursuit of "having it all" in favour of something far more achievable: feeling vaguely human. After years of global burnout driven by economic pressure, unending screen time and the general lifestyle whiplash of living through multiple overlapping crises, the Bangkok expat community is trading six-pack goals and productivity trophies for sleep, calm, and the radical thrill of occasionally doing nothing on purpose.

The piece describes wellness shifting from indulgence to infrastructure. This is not about treating yourself to a spa day once a quarter. It is about building recovery into the structure of daily life: regular massage, deliberate rest, boundary-setting with screens, choosing a Sunday at sauna and cold plunge over a Sunday recovering from Saturday. Bangkok is unusually well-positioned for this because the city has world-class wellness infrastructure at a fraction of what it costs in London, New York or Sydney. A two-hour Thai massage costs less than a single therapy session in most Western cities. An onsen day pass less than lunch out back in the USA or Europe. The shift the Bangkok Post describes is not expats discovering wellness. It is expats finally giving themselves permission to use the infrastructure that has been sitting around them the entire time..

Bottom Line: If you recognize yourself in this story, you are not alone, and you are not being lazy. The best-performing version of you is the one that sleeps well, moves regularly and takes recovery as seriously as output. Bangkok makes that easier than almost any other city in the world. Use it.

Paga Microroastery is a cafe that has decided it only wants to do one thing, and it wants to do that thing extremely well. The space is designed to look like a science laboratory: white walls, white ceiling, white chairs, stainless steel, and absolutely nothing that distracts from the coffee. There is no food menu. There is no extensive drink menu. There is no playlist competing for your attention, no Instagram corner, no pastry case. There is coffee, brewed with experimental precision by people who treat every cup like a controlled experiment, and there is you. A piccolo costs ฿80. A drip coffee starts at ฿120. The beans are roasted in-house, and on the first Monday of each month the roastery offers guided tours where they walk you through the sourcing, roasting and extraction process. You can also buy beans to take home. That Bangkok Life's 2026 guide described Paga as "high-end coffee with an experimental approach" and noted that "they take coffee brewing seriously here, so this is ideal for those wanting some of the best coffee in Bangkok." For a Monday morning when you want the coffee to be the entire point, when you do not need a croissant or a latte art competition or a co-working vibe, just the best cup you can find and the silence to appreciate it, Paga is the most focused single-purpose cafe in the city. It is the kind of place that makes you realize how much noise most cafes add to what should be a simple experience.

TIP: Go on the first Monday of the month for the guided roastery tour. Otherwise, order the drip and let the barista choose the beans. They know what is best that day.

Have a good Monday, and see you tomorrow morning.

— Devon