The Tale of Two Museums

[parrot]

My Swiss neighbor and I visited the Ramasun and Udon Museums yesterday. It was the first time for me at the Ramasun Museum and the first time at the Udon Museum since they rebuilt a few years ago.

The Ramasun Museum was ok.....probably the highlight was walking through the 300+ meter tunnel that carried tons of wiring from the operations building to the huge elephant cage (Wullenweber) antenna. While in the Air Force, I was stationed at three sites that had such antennas, but I never got to walk through the tunnels of any of them. The ops building was a disappointment as it's been mostly demolished. There's enough remaining of the building and enough brain cells in my head that I could mentally reconstruct the internal working area of the building....but for my Swiss friend, it just looked like cement ruins. 48 30meter high posts remain of the 210 posts that made up the original antenna.
Our guide was a nice enough guy.....but his English was very limited. There were some interesting photos of the base during GI days, but just a handful or two. Two stars for this museum.

The Udon Museum was a surprise. The last time I was inside was about 17 years ago. Although I did a good walk through then, I can't say I learned much of anything by the time I walked out.

Our visit yesterday, on the other hand, was quite different. While actual artifacts are very limited (as in "very"), the story that is displayed throughout the museum tells of the origin days of Prince Prajak selecting Udon as a staging base through the GI days of the 1960's to mid 1970's. I learned about Prince Prajak’s mission to overcome the Chinese Haw who had fled China during the Taiping Rebellion, the influx of 40,000 Vietnamese after the battles in Thakhek, Laos, and some interesting comments about the state of the economy in Udon after the GIs suddenly exited in 1976. According to the museum, a number of craftsmen went abroad to seek work, especially in Saudi Arabia. That reenergized some brain cells of stories by Tommy Thompson (of TJ’s restaurant) about his hiring skilled workers from Udon AB while he was working in Saudi…..post retirement from the AF.

I’m not much of a museum person, but I did enjoy the visit to the Udon Museum. Free of charge, too!