Thailand has mellowed me

Fourteen years ago I arrived in Thailand and with the exception of a few hours in Laos in 2005, I have not left the country. Much has changed in all those years and I have captured many of my experiences in pictures. An average of 6,000 pictures per year. Mostly happy moments, but also some sad moments of friends passing. Plenty strange experiences, or at least I thought they were strange at the time. Rumor has it there were only about 300 farang "residing permanently in the entire province.  Don't know what the present numbers are, but I would guess over a thousand.  The city has grown tremendously, and so have prices.  During those early years you could spend 59 baht in an all you can eat restaurant. These days it's mostly 199 baht. There were no chain stores in town, in fact monthly shopping trips to Udon was almost a must.    The first farang restaurants I heard of in the city were Colin's and Ned's places which opened in 2005.  They and many other restaurants have come and gone.

Sakon Nakhon