Thursday 9 April 2026

Good morning Bangkok. It's Thursday and we are deep in the hottest stretch of the year: 35-40°C (95-104°F) in the city today, with the TMD warning parts of upper Thailand could touch 43°C. Skies are hazy, outdoor midday is not for the faint-hearted. Bangkok AQI is holding around 87-89, moderate but uncomfortable. Chiang Mai remains a formal emergency disaster zone, ranking the world's most polluted city for five consecutive days, with AQI at 206 and PM2.5 at 131 micrograms per cubic meter. Gold at ฿71,850 buy / ฿72,050 sell. SET closed Tuesday at 1,464.43, up 10.43. USD/THB ฿31.22-32.75. Diesel B7 at ฿38.95. Four days to Songkran. Here we go.

The Association of Thai Travel Agents has been sounding an alarm that hasn't gotten enough attention: Thailand is quietly pricing itself out of the regional tourism market, and the culprit isn't a PR crisis or a border conflict, it's the exchange rate. ATTA Secretary-General Adit Chairattananont warned that if the baht strengthens beyond ฿30 to the US dollar, it creates a sustained competitive disadvantage, and Thailand is now uncomfortably close to that level. The core problem is straightforward: Thailand already carries the highest cost of living in ASEAN, and a stronger baht means foreign visitors get less for their money here compared with regional rivals. Vietnam is the most-cited competitor, offering comparable beaches, food culture and natural scenery at meaningfully lower cost, while positioning itself as a fresher, safer destination. Japan, despite its own cost pressures, continues to hold the premium end of the regional tourism market. Kasikorn Research reinforced ATTA's concern, identifying lower spending per tourist as a structural weakness heading into 2026, meaning visitor numbers alone are no longer enough to drive revenue growth. The baht's strength is partly driven by surging gold prices, unusual capital flows, and possibly cryptocurrency-related transactions that are, as Adit put it, "hard to control." Thailand has revised its 2026 foreign tourist arrival target down from 36.7 million to 32.14 million, a quiet acknowledgment that the original figures were not going to happen.

Bottom line: This story matters directly to anyone in Bangkok whose income depends on foreign visitors, which in this city is a very large number of people. Restaurants, hotels, tour operators, and service businesses that skew toward international customers are all exposed to this. The baht's strength is also genuinely confusing given Thailand's economic fundamentals: household debt is high, export growth is modest, and tourism is under pressure. A strong currency in that environment is not a sign of health, it's a distortion. If you're paid in foreign currency and spending in baht, this is actually good news for your purchasing power. If you're running a business that needs foreign footfall, the next few months are worth watching carefully.

Thailand's hotel sector is heading into the country's biggest festival of the year with far weaker bookings than anyone hoped for, and the data is specific enough to be genuinely worrying. Chiang Mai is the starkest case: hotel bookings for Songkran are down 50% compared to last year, according to the Chiang Mai Tourism Industry Council, driven by a combination of toxic air quality that ranked the city number one globally for pollution five days running, and fuel prices that have made road trips a harder sell for domestic travelers. Nationally, the Thai Hotel Association is projecting 60-70% occupancy during Songkran, against a normal-year expectation of 90%. Three- and four-star properties have slashed room rates by 20-40% to hold domestic demand. Six airlines have cut domestic fares 15-30% on 11 popular routes. In southern Thailand, Hatyai-Songkhla's hotels Association reported only 15,000 rooms pre-booked for Songkran, down from 30,000 last year, with Malaysian cross-border arrivals collapsing due to fuel surcharges on flights and the broader cost-of-travel spike. The bright spot is Chinese arrivals, currently running at around 15,000 per day and up 38% year-on-year in March, which is helping Bangkok-area hotels hold closer to normal occupancy levels.

Bottom line: For Bangkok specifically, the picture is more mixed than the national headlines suggest. Chinese visitors are returning, the S2O festival and Khaosan Road events are still drawing crowds, and Bangkok hotels are outperforming the north and south by a significant margin. If you have restaurants, bars, or businesses that do well during Songkran, this year's Bangkok trade may hold up better than expected. But the structural story here, domestic Thai travelers pulling back because fuel and living costs are squeezing household budgets, is not a Songkran problem. It's a Q2 and Q3 problem that continues past the water fights.

The name tells you everything you need to know about the attitude. Daddy Don't Know is a new craft gelato shop tucked into Soi Convent in Silom, a short walk from BTS Sala Daeng, operating on a simple and excellent premise: homemade gelato, rotating flavors every two weeks, and the confidence to let you sample everything before you commit. The concept has a cheeky backstory about the owner striking out on their own without parental approval, which explains both the name and the slightly rebellious spirit of the menu design.

The gelato itself is serious. Textures are dense, creamy and properly Italian in style: not sweet-heavy, not watery, with each flavor built to actually taste like the thing it claims to be. Standouts include Naughty Boy, a caramel cookie gelato that lands rich without tipping into cloying, Tokyo Sauna, a crisp apple sorbet with cinnamon that is genuinely refreshing at 38°C, Daddy's Midnight, a 70% dark chocolate that reads more like a bar than a scoop, and Nutty Threesome, a roasted pistachio that is exactly what pistachio gelato should be. Prices start at ฿95 per scoop, cups come in cute, postable designs, and the space itself is mid-century modern in feel, warm-toned, small, and worth the slight hunt to find it.

TIP: Go on a weekday evening to avoid weekend queues. Sampling is encouraged and the staff are generous about it. Budget ฿95-130 per scoop. Perfect post-work or post-gym stop if you're in the Silom area. Address: Soi Convent (beside Still Bean Cafe), Silom, Bang Rak. Nearest parking: Park Silom. Hours: 11AM-10PM daily. BTS: Sala Daeng, Exit 2. Instagram: @daddy.dont.know.

9 April 1959: NASA announced the Mercury Seven, the United States' first group of astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. They were selected from military test pilots, chosen for their ability to stay calm under extreme conditions including high heat, pressure, and confined spaces. Sixty-seven years later, this week NASA shared images from Artemis II, the first crewed journey beyond Earth orbit since 1972, while Bangkok's heat index touched 60°C and Chiang Mai's air registered as the worst on the planet. The Mercury Seven trained to survive the void of space. We are out here navigating Sukhumvit at 2pm in April. Different challenge. Comparable commitment.

See you tomorrow morning.

— Devon