Погода: Вьентьян, ноябрь

November opens the cool dry season here, which runs to about February, and the board's framing of it is careful: cool by comparison rather than cool in itself. This city gets described as hot in the way Bangkok is hot, and our row agrees - 32.2C reading as 36C at 70.3 percent humidity. What has actually changed is the night, which falls to 20.7C and cools off properly, and the rain, which has stopped: 23.8mm across 3.8 days, after a monsoon that runs through October. The wind is almost nothing at 9.2 kph, so shade does the work that a breeze would do elsewhere. The record: 9.5 hours of sun and AQI 56.

Regulars are specific this month marks the real peak of the region's burning-season haze, crop fires further north sending smoke that gets trapped in valleys under high pressure or cleared out entirely when a low pressure system moves through - genuinely impossible to predict on any given day. Our row backs that hot, genuinely hazy read, 34.1C reading as a scorching 38C, over 21.4C nights, with rain light at 29.1mm across 5.2 days and humidity at 61 percent. Regulars are consistent the rains due to arrive the following month are what actually clears the particulates from the air, so this remains the least favorable month for anyone sensitive to air quality. The record: 10.7 hours of sun, an 11.1 kph wind and AQI 96.

Vientiane-forum threads asking if March-April heat is actually bearable are candid that this is the hottest stretch of the Laotian year, daytime highs regularly in the mid-30s Celsius and climbing higher some afternoons, with humidity building steadily as the month goes on. Posters describe the heat as wet and sauna-like rather than a dry desert heat, physically draining in a way that catches some visitors off guard. Regulars who've pushed through anyway say it's doable with the right pace - take it easy, stay hydrated, treat the hottest hours as downtime. April also carries the region's burning-season haze, another reason posters steer flexible-date visitors toward November through February instead. The one genuine reward: Lao New Year's water festival lands this month, a celebration built around cooling off. The record: a scorching 36C by day feeling like a punishing 41C, 23.8C nights, 47mm across 8.5 days, 60 percent humidity and an unhealthy 110 AQI.

February in Vientiane is pleasant with some genuinely warm days, and regulars point out it never really gets cold here - our row gives 31.4C by day and 18.1C at night, at 61 percent humidity with 21.9mm of rain across 1.7 days. The month's real question in Laos is smoke, and the answer is geographic: the slash-and-burn fires are concentrated from about halfway between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang northwards, so Vientiane in the south is largely spared while Luang Prabang is not. The burning starts around the end of February and how bad any given day gets depends on how much is alight at once and which way the breeze runs. Our row carries AQI 75. The record: feels-like 34C, 10.4 hours of sun.

December and January are the months Laos-forum regulars name first, and the reason is humidity as much as temperature: this is the one stretch of the year - roughly December to late February - when it is genuinely absent. Vientiane in January runs cool and bright, and the packing advice is small: a light jumper and a pair of light trousers for the evening, or as one poster has it, a cardigan for breakfast that comes off by about 10am and a cotton scarf for everything else. The record: 29.6C days that feel like 31C, 16.8C nights, 2.1 precipitation days, humidity 64 percent, 9.7 hours of sun and AQI 62.