I knew my father had been to Thailand when he was in the Air Force.  In fact, I knew he’d been to Bangkok and was stationed at Udorn before it was an “official” base.  Bangkok seems to be an entirely different city now, except for the Grand Palace, which has remained exactly the same.  Bangkok was a much smaller place in 1965, with none of the bright colors and “mixed” architecture of today.  Although my dad has expressed interest in going back, I have a feeling he would recognize almost nothing in the new Bangkok.   Despite this it turns out that on my trip I would end up standing in many of the same spots that he did in 1965.   We even took Don Muang Airport to Phuket, which is apparently an airport that my father flew into or out of (or both) 46 years ago.

Don Muang in 1965:

Don Muang today (not my picture, but exactly what it looked like):

Don Muang today is actually an underused mostly empty airport.  It felt like a ghost town when we were there.  This is due to the opening a few years ago of a brand new international airport on the other side of town.

One thing that didn’t change at all is the Grand Palace, which has stood looking virtually identical for over two hundred years.  Take a look for yourself:

even the trees are the same…

They’ve added a rope and removed the red carpet, but that’s about all that’s changed to this building.

I have a feeling if we visited the Udorn area things would be more as my father remembers.  The closest we would go to Udorn would be a few hundred miles west in Lampang Province, but in the north there isn’t much development outside major cities (of which, I understand, there are few).