Which month to travel?

[sjf]

We are thinking of a Far East cruise but are not sure which would be the best month to travel (not TOO hot, and not rainy).

Royal Caribbean have an interesting cruise next June which takes in Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Jeju and Osaka and Shanghai. However, when I looked up the weather for these places in June it looked like it might be grey skies and rain all the way.

Has anyone got any thoughts on the best time to visit this part of the world?

[lahore]

We are thinking of a Far East cruise but are not sure which would be the best month to travel (not TOO hot, and not rainy).

Royal Caribbean have an interesting cruise next June which takes in Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Jeju and Osaka and Shanghai. However, when I looked up the weather for these places in June it looked like it might be grey skies and rain all the way.

Has anyone got any thoughts on the best time to visit this part of the world?

 

I live in Penang part of the time, and have lived and worked in Singapore and Hong Kong. South East Asia is much different in climate to North Asia (e.g., Hong Kong etc..). A LOT different. Without doing any research I can tell you just off the cuff that Singa's and southern Vietnam in June will be hot (they always are; it's unavoidable - I was staggered on a recent cruise that went from Hong Kong to Spain via SEA and the Middle East that people were complaining about the heat - I just don't know what they expected!). They will also be rainy: also unavoidable, but not all day. When it rains in the tropics it's nearly always in extremely heavy but short lived downpours. So you will get a hot clear morning, wet wet wet in the afternoon for a few hours or less, then a clear evening. This is a repeating pattern.

 

Hong Kong and Shanghai in June'ish will also be very hot, also humid and prone to the occasional storm and possibly even 'black weather' warnings and violet tropical storms called typhoons. Whilst typhoons can be terrible they aren't all that frequent and in six years working in Hong Kong I never hit a bad one. It sounds bad but it's all part of the tapestry of life in these parts.

 

Osaka would also be warm but not unpleasant. In brief, I wouldn't let tropical weather put you off because if you do you'll never visit the 'East' - there's always heat, rain and humidity in part of the area - although Hanoi northwards gets cool toward November-January.

[sjf]

Thanks, Lahore, very interesting. True we shouldn't let weather put us off, but if we are going to travel half way round the world, we'd like to try to see places at their best.

 

Anyone done a Far East cruise and were really pleased (or disappointed) that they chose that time of year to do so?

[lahore]

Agree, but my point is that these places on, or near, the equator are nearly always hot and humid, and if they're not being exposed to the Southern monsoon, they're being exposed to the eastern or northern one! So really June is not a bad time at all. If you went in November - January it would still be pretty much the same in Singapore and Southern Vietnam but then getting really unpleasantly cold in Hong Kong and further north. So you are probably best off selecting the time of year you want to see in Japan etc. (perhaps Spring time) where it's more seasonal on the understanding that that part of equatorial South East Asia is not going to be HUGELY different from month to month.