Thursday 28 May 2026

Good morning Bangkok. Happy Thursday.

🌡️ Weather: 28-36°C (82-97°F). Hot through the afternoon with TMD issuing a severe weather warning for heavy to very heavy rain, flash floods and strong Andaman waves from today through June 1. Bangkok stays hot by day with scattered showers possible from mid-afternoon. If you have plans in the south or by the coast this weekend, check conditions before you go.

🌫️ AQI: 70-149 (Moderate to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups). At the lower end, decent air. At the upper end, mask recommended for extended outdoor time. Morning is the cleaner window.

Registration runs from today, May 28, through June 1, with voting day confirmed for Sunday, June 28. Chadchart Sittipunt, who won the previous election with a record-breaking margin and resigned last week to attend his son's graduation in the United States, is expected to register upon his return. The People's Party, which swept all 33 of Bangkok's House of Representatives seats in the 2026 general election, launched its campaign at Samyan Mitrtown earlier this month and has announced its candidate. The race is now officially a contest between the incumbent's track record and a party that holds every parliamentary seat in the city but has never held the governor's office.

For expats, the Bangkok governor is the elected official who most directly affects daily quality of life. The governor controls roads, waste collection, flooding response, public parks, footpaths, bus stops, hawker centers, street lighting, city permits and the thousands of small operational decisions that determine whether the city works or doesn't on any given day. Chadchart's term produced the Lumphini Hawker Centre, the 1,100 bus stop upgrades with digital arrival screens, the UNDP Gold Gender Equality certification, and the centennial restoration of Lumphini Park. The question voters will answer on June 28 is whether that trajectory continues, accelerates, or changes direction. National politics gets the headlines. The governor's office is what you feel when you walk out your front door.

Bottom Line: June 28. Mark it. If you are a Thai citizen registered to vote in Bangkok, this is the most consequential local election of the year. If you are an expat who cannot vote, the result still determines the quality of the city you live in. Follow the candidate announcements over the next four days as registration closes on June 1.

Riders from platforms including Grab, Robinhood, LINE MAN and other delivery services gathered to formally push back against a government proposal to bring gig economy workers under Thailand's social security system. The riders' argument is straightforward: the current proposal does not account for how gig income actually works. Delivery riders do not earn fixed salaries. Their income fluctuates by hour, by day, by weather, by platform algorithm. A mandatory social security contribution calculated against a stable income baseline would, they argue, reduce their actual take-home pay while offering benefits designed for traditional employment patterns that do not match their reality.

The petition highlights a tension playing out across Southeast Asia and globally: governments want to extend protections to gig workers, and gig workers want protections but not at the cost of the flexibility that drew them to the work in the first place. Thailand has approximately 1.4 million platform workers, with delivery riders making up the largest single category. For any expat who uses Grab, LINE MAN or Robinhood daily, the people bringing your pad kra pao, your coffee, your pharmacy run, are navigating an income system that offers no sick leave, no unemployment insurance and no pension. The government's social security proposal is an attempt to address that. The riders showing up at the Labour Ministry are saying the attempt, as currently designed, would make things worse rather than better.

Bottom Line: This is not a protest against protection. It is a protest against a specific design that riders say does not fit how they work. The outcome matters for every delivery platform user in Bangkok, because if the policy is implemented badly and riders leave the platforms, the service quality, delivery speed and availability that expats have come to depend on could change. Worth following as the policy moves through committee.

Jek Pui has been serving curry rice on Tanao Road for over 60 years, and the format has not changed because it does not need to. You walk in, you look at the curries in front of you, point at the ones you want, they pile them onto rice, and you eat. There is no menu. There is no English translation. There is no reservation system, no Instagram strategy, no interior design concept. There is curry, rice, and people who are there because the food has been this good for longer than most of them have been alive. The pork belly curry is the anchor: rich, slow-cooked, falling apart. The green curry is sharp and aromatic in a way that reminds you what green curry was before food courts turned it into something mild. The massaman is the heavier option for days when you need the meal to carry you. Prices sit under ฿80, which for the quality and the portion is not cheap-for-the-sake-of-cheap but genuinely good value earned through decades of volume and consistency. The shop sits on Tanao Road near Khaosan Road but exists in a completely different universe: no backpacker menus, no cocktail buckets, no neon signs. Just a Thai-Chinese curry rice shop doing what it has done since the 1960s. For a Thursday lunch when you want something real, fast and unapologetically local, Jek Pui is this weeks hidden gem.

TIP: Go before noon. The curries are freshest in the morning and popular items sell out by early afternoon. Point confidently even if you do not know the names. The staff know what is good.

Have a great Thursday, and see you tomorrow morning.

— Devon