I was just thinking about how much has changed here in the last 10 years. Back in the UK, you might hardly notice any difference, but here .....

 

In my village in the last 10 years, these things have happened -

 

1. The village is no longer completely separated from the City of Udon Thani, development has filled in most of the land along the road.

2. Practically all the roads have been replaced, including the dirt tracks in the small soi's. 

3. Electricity supply lines all upgraded.

4. Village water supply (a brownish liquid!) has been replaced by town water.

5. Internet - from Aircard to fibre ....

6. Less soi dogs on the streets at night, and chickens do not raid your vegetable garden!

7. 50% less litter (would be a lot less if ALL the soi dogs were removed).

8. One in 10 houses used to have a car or truck, now about one in two.

9. Nearly half the houses have been replaced/renovated.

10. In front of some houses, you see flower gardens - none really 10 years ago.

 

As you can see, all signs of growing affluence and development. Probably as much as has happened in 50 years in the UK. Changes are probably less obvious in the city, but dramatic in the village. Mostly positive ... Parking is now an issue for many, and air quality maybe a bit worse. Not everything in Thailand is bad!

 

What changes have you noticed? Try not to make it just one long moan ............

 

23 minutes ago, rickudon said:

Back in the UK, you might hardly notice any difference, but here .....

Bayswater road & Queensway in London, 10 years back all White, with a few Windies, all speaking English.

Today, all Persians and Asians with a few Polish and East Europeans, you hardly ever hear people conversing in English.

On the plus side, the new folks are all far more polite than those they replaced.

I really noticed how polite and helpful they've all become in London recently.

 

Can't say Chiang Mai has changed that much in the same time period, more smog and Chinese I suppose.

And Hotshots has closed, my pals and I were always treated like celebrities there on a Friday night.

 

My village has had a few roads finally upgraded and less potholes around.

 

Some of the houses, or tin shacks have either been upgraded to block and cement or replaced entirely.

 

The internet arrived so no more wi-net, now its all cable.

 

The local market is about dead. The younger generation is diminishing rapidly as they leave for the cities to find work.

 

It a lot quieter, now by 8pm its blackout here and you could hear a mouse fart !

The farmers are still rising at 3.30am, those that are left, it seems to be a dying occupation with more land being sold off and less family members following on behind and swapping the fields for the city.

Its quickly becoming the haven of Grandparents, like me, and they are taking care of grandchildren who's parents are chasing the jobs/work elsewhere in the larger towns and cities and moving right away from agriculture heritage.

10 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Bayswater road & Queensway in London, 10 years back all White, with a few Windies, all speaking English.

Today, all Persians and Asians with a few Polish and East Europeans, you hardly ever hear people conversing in English.

On the plus side, the new folks are all far more polite than those they replaced.

I really noticed how polite and helpful they've all become in London recently.

 

Can't say Chiang Mai has changed that much in the same time period, more smog and Chinese I suppose.

And Hotshots has closed, my pals and I were always treated like celebrates there on a Friday night.

 

I used to live in rural Hampshire. Very little has changed there in 10 years, just a few more potholes and some people have solar panels. That is all you can see that has changed on the road. Immigrants are still rare, about 1% of the population. My ex-wife was 50% of the African community there ....

My hometown in West Yorkshire has gone steadily downhill over the last 10 years. I have some friends there and am a member of the local FB community group as i had to clear and sell the family ( my parents ) house last year, so am still in the loop. Many subsidised houses have been built and the troubles that go with them have appeared rapidly.

Crime is on the rise and my daughter has moved out of the village for this reason ( although her best friend, her mother, lived very close ).

It was always my fallback retreat for my ageing years when i left in 95, now will possibly think here or elsewhere in the uk if it comes to going back.

 

Here in LOS , Ayutthaya, although I’ve only been here 4 years, the biggest change i see is Moobahn’s being built on every available plot of land !!

Bungalows, town houses and shop houses ( a few double storey detached also ) are sprouting up everywhere . Yet they never seem to completely fill them with occupants, the house facing me is empty since the occupants packed up and left overnight, the police letter remains in their letter box for 9 months, myself and another neighbour cut back their ever growing jungle occasionally.

What once were rice fields are now being filled and built on in what seems an unhealthy short period of time.

My bike rides out amongst the rice fields are looking like coming to an end if the building continues.

But the economy must warrant it as businesses are also sprouting up everywhere, the nearby mall is extending its car park to accommodate the capacity shoppers, a new Central is underway , Global House and several car showrooms appeared recently and refurbishment of the pavements and park areas is being undertaken in the old city.

 

So, only 4 years myself but talking to a friend Ayutthaya is constantly improving itself , the only concern i have is the amount of, IMO unnecessary, housing estates appearing and the green belts disappearing !!

1 hour ago, rickudon said:

What changes have you noticed? Try not to make it just one long moan ...........

Speak for yourself I will moan mainly because I can't see a night sky fill with millions of stars anymore.

 

 

Mine got its Idiot back.

11 hours ago, rickudon said:

What changes have you noticed?

Fascinating as I see many ringers in your list happening in my area at this same time. The exponential trend from nailed up shacks to modern masonry houses, all the people now with pickups and even cars or multiple vehicles, and all the new infrastructure is just very noticeable. Sadly though the trend of less litter (still no garbage service here) and more flower gardens hasn't made it to my area. I do absolutely love the fiber optic network and 4G is nice. Gone are the dark days of people discussing ipstar and edge connections.

 

My hometown in the midlands is one of those which is now minority white and boasts 71 mosques, whole areas are Islamic with one council estate called little Somalia. All my old friends moved out to the country, even ones who said they enjoyed living in a multi cultural environment, at first - diversity is our destruction.

Here they just did the road up for the second time and far more soi dogs.

Back in the UK my old home town had quite a lot of Muslims ,and some Other races ,now Mosques all over the place ,Muslim community dominates, in town center very little English spoken any longer ,most of my friends have left ,as has my daughter and my brother ,i no longer go there when in the UK , where i live in Pattaya ,very little has changed ,that is where we are on the dark side ,the town has exploded 

Quote

 

On the plus side, the new folks are all far more polite than those they replaced.
 

 

 

Yes, the last time I was back in Leicester (UK), I was surprised how polite the various east European immigrants were who served me in the shops. 

 

My brother who lives in the UK said that they actually memorise their responses!  He said that if in response to "Are you being served"?, you say "Have you seen my pet dinosaur?", this really confuses them, because that phrase doesn't seem to be in their phrase-book....  (Apparently he tried this - my brother has a wicked sense of humour).

 

Monty Python - Hungarian phrase-book

Nearly all the above talk about how their villages/towns in the UK have changed.  Is this what is asked or are we talking about LoS ?

Where I live ( Los ) between Chaing Rai and the northern border a lot of changes have taken place.  Tesco Lotus opened about 12 years ago when we arrived from Hua-Hin. There was 1 place for a coffee up on AH2 , now there must be 10 places around here for a cappuccino.  Our soi was dust with 2 other house at the end , now the soi is concrete and there are 2 more houses here.

Several old wooden houses were knocked down 3 years ago , now we have M J Market which is a night bazzar.  The Friday walking street was , a couple of years ago 10 stalls is now the lencth of the town.  The place is certainly on the move.

Plymouth , Devon ...not been back to since leaving in 2005 , can't say if Jews , Arabs or Greeks run the place.

My town now has 2 stoplights instead of one. 

8 hours ago, Orton Rd said:

My hometown in the midlands is one of those which is now minority white and boasts 71 mosques, whole areas are Islamic with one council estate called little Somalia. All my old friends moved out to the country, even ones who said they enjoyed living in a multi cultural environment, at first - diversity is our destruction.

Here they just did the road up for the second time and far more soi dogs.

Within 50 years the UK will be a muslim country under sharia law.

There's a delicious irony in hearing of western immigrants to Thailand complaining that their home country has been 'taken over' by culturally different immigrants.

2 hours ago, rwill said:

My town now has 2 stoplights instead of one. 

 You think so therefore you are one.

 

21 minutes ago, mrfill said:

There's a delicious irony in hearing of western immigrants to Thailand complaining that their home country has been 'taken over' by culturally different immigrants.

Not the same thing at all we are not trying to change Thai society to fit in with our 7th century values, built places of worship we don't really need and to introduce our own legal system. Most cultures from abroad in the UK are no problem at all, it's just the one who believe their way is superior to the host nation, it's not.

7 minutes ago, Orton Rd said:

Not the same thing at all we are not trying to change Thai society to fit in with our 7th century values, built places of worship we don't really need and to introduce our own legal system. Most cultures from abroad in the UK are no problem at all, it's just the one who believe their way is superior to the host nation, it's not.

And the majority of posters here believe that their way is superior to that of their host nation. In every thread, 90% or more of the posts confirms this. 

10 hours ago, HeijoshinCool said:

Mine got its Idiot back.

So your glad to be back then? ????

44 minutes ago, Gweiloman said:

And the majority of posters here believe that their way is superior to that of their host nation. In every thread, 90% or more of the posts confirms this. 

But they just moan, they are not trying to take over and culturally colonize the place they came to, not building hundreds of Churches not killing people over cartoons or killing soldiers in the street nor blowing up young girls at pop concert or buses. Ex pats have every right to complain but that's a world away from what is happening back home. You have heard of the Muslim rape gangs all over the UK covered up for years, thousands of girls raped, not really seen any evidence of posters here involved in that!

Have only been here 5 years but cannot get over the amount of condos being built in the nearest bigger village on Highway 12. Plenty of other development as well. There are officially over 600 resorts here (my count would be over 1000) and they are still building more or adding to the existing, even on dirt roads. This is when there are very few tourists except on weekends.

The roads are choked on the major holiday weekends so have no idea where it will end.

I'm likewise in Udon, 18km from the city center but within the municipality.  I can't measure 10 years, but can 20.  Back then, most all the village roads were dirt, now 99.5% paved.  Power dipped to 160 at night, now stable 24/7.  No TOT lines back then, now fiber optic to the jungle.  No stop lights at the 4 way highway intersection........now, after many deaths, a traffic light.  Villagers hand pumped water from a well, now it's city water from the main reservoir.  Maybe 1 tractor in the village back then, now tractors are very common.  Likewise with personal cars/trucks.  Mobile phone coverage was pretty much non-existent back then......now I've got 4g 4 bars in the jungle.  Back then it was common to see people living in ?houses? that made you wonder how that was possible........Most of those cement-bag sort of dwellings are gone now.  Back then, drugs were rampant.  A cook in the village was shot point blank 10 feet from where I was waiting for my order during the war on drugs.  He was supposedly selling drugs along with orders of fried rice.  Villagers regularly traded their dogs for buckets before the war on dog trade happened.  

I really can't think of a negative.......all seems to be positive changes.

2 hours ago, mrfill said:

There's a delicious irony in hearing of western immigrants to Thailand complaining that their home country has been 'taken over' by culturally different immigrants.

The difference is that I bring money into Thailand.  I cannot vote (once or multiple times) at an election, no benefits, no MP representing me, no farangs in Parliament, nor in the upper house, no ownership of land, no starting a corner shop, no path to a passport, I cope with immigration and all that entails.  If I were caught raping 12 year old Thai girls I'd be in jail or out on my ear pdq, the police wouldn't be  frightened of prosecuting me in case it upset other farang.   And finally  if I called a Thai racist he would just say, ''That's right, I prefer my people to yours''.  Try that in the UK. 

21 minutes ago, lungbing said:

The difference is that I bring money into Thailand.  I cannot vote (once or multiple times) at an election, no benefits, no MP representing me, no farangs in Parliament, nor in the upper house, no ownership of land, no starting a corner shop, no path to a passport, I cope with immigration and all that entails.  If I were caught raping 12 year old Thai girls I'd be in jail or out on my ear pdq, the police wouldn't be  frightened of prosecuting me in case it upset other farang.   And finally  if I called a Thai racist he would just say, ''That's right, I prefer my people to yours''.  Try that in the UK. 

and is any other country different  ?  Vietnam,  Cambodia, Malaysia perhaps ?  Singapore ?  ....

no ... I didn't think so ...

1 hour ago, lungbing said:

The difference is that I bring money into Thailand.  I cannot vote (once or multiple times) at an election, no benefits, no MP representing me, no farangs in Parliament, nor in the upper house, no ownership of land, no starting a corner shop, no path to a passport, I cope with immigration and all that entails.  If I were caught raping 12 year old Thai girls I'd be in jail or out on my ear pdq, the police wouldn't be  frightened of prosecuting me in case it upset other farang.   And finally  if I called a Thai racist he would just say, ''That's right, I prefer my people to yours''.  Try that in the UK. 

You could do all of that if you become a citizen which, no doubt, the people you refer to in your home country have done.

On 1/30/2020 at 5:07 PM, BritManToo said:

Bayswater road & Queensway in London, 10 years back all White, with a few Windies, all speaking English.

Today, all Persians and Asians with a few Polish and East Europeans, you hardly ever hear people conversing in English.

On the plus side, the new folks are all far more polite than those they replaced.

I really noticed how polite and helpful they've all become in London recently.

 

Can't say Chiang Mai has changed that much in the same time period, more smog and Chinese I suppose.

And Hotshots has closed, my pals and I were always treated like celebrities there on a Friday night.

 

Absolute rubbish. I was living there back around 2001 ish, definitely wasn't all white then. 

4 hours ago, mrfill said:

There's a delicious irony in hearing of western immigrants to Thailand complaining that their home country has been 'taken over' by culturally different immigrants.

Yeah, and in actual fact there are very few places in the uk comparatively with a UK born white minority, and yet there are a vast number of TV members originating from these same areas. 

 

Be interesting to know the towns. 

On 1/30/2020 at 2:59 PM, rickudon said:

What changes have you noticed?

10 years ago I moved into my new build house, so compared to that time:

 

• Better road surface from cement to black tarmac
• Sewers to stop flooding roads, it has actually helped
• Side walk for pedestrians on major roads
• New high voltage power cables, electricity actually reasonable steady now
• Fiber for Internet instead of ADSL
• A new "Central" shopping mall and 3 more cinema rooms
• Double as many 7-Eleven shops
• Within a few hundred meters walk from my home one more 7-Eleven + new Family Mart, Tesco-Express and MiniBigC, which makes local shopping 24/7 more convenient
• The tiny old part of "my" village has become a "China Town" with more tourists for a weekly market
• More nice restaurants, lees beer-bars
• More family tourists with children and couples, less middle-aged single gentlemen
• New (quite impressive) tessa ban office buildings, new police station, and new custom & revenue department building
• New building for immigration office, which with more space has actually improved their service in spite of more people using it, numerous tourists apply for extension of stay
• Slightly more traffic – seems like more-and-more can afford a car – which at certain times can be annoyance, I try to avoid rush hours
• Lots of new constructions, seems like overbuilding as many townhouses continue to be for rent/sale

 

Mainly positive, live is still great in LoS, and little more easy than before in spite of exchange rate fluctuations...????

Well, it seems half the replies on this thread are from people who only see change in the UK, not in Thailand. Maybe you haven't been here very much or never get outside the cities .....

 

In my village in Thailand we fortunately do not have any massive moobaans, or high rise blocks. But plenty of development around the Udon ring road. In the village just replacing/upgrading houses, or building new ones. On average a new house starts building every couple of months - but nearly all small Thai houses. Strangely enough what hasn't changed is the number of full-time farang residents - 10 years ago it was me and an old german man, still the same. Others have come and gone, or just visit.

 

I do remember what our house was like when i moved in - lots of space but very little furniture, no washing machine or fridge, no air-conditioning just fans, all cooking, washing done outside, no shower, just a big plastic bin of water and a bowl. Bed was a 2" thick mat on the floor, and entertainment was an old CRT TV. But life was a lot more fun ..... but i was younger then!

When we moved here 14 there was no internet cables.  The population has also more then doubled!  There were lots of big old trees, rice fields, and old wooden houses.  Now there are massive housing estates (even if half the houses are as yet unfinished or unoccupied, a couple of weird high rise condos (which are very out of place way out here).

 

It was quite quiet, with the occasional party going on.  Now, as there are so many new homes to have house warming parties, and a so many more people about, there seems to be a party and noise 24 / 7. 

 

There were very few farangs living here and we all knew each other.  Now there are many westerners about we have never seen before.  The next village has a 7 / 11 (before only had a market.  

 

It was very beautiful place when we moved here, just old style rural small farms and lots of big trees, ponds and lakes, chickens and cows hanging out on the road.  Now its lots of concrete, most of the trees cut down, lots of rice fields filled in with red soil, all the clongs / streams either buried in pipes, or made into deep concrete channels, most of the old teak houses knocked down and 2 or 3 small concrete houses build in their place... oh,. and the wildlife (suck as the huge storks, owls, turtles, and occasional huge flocks of wild ducks has very much gone now.  I think in a few more years we may have to move even further out to get the more rural lifestyle back.