A while back, I went from Chiang Saen to Sop Ruak, and noticed a large dome of the sort that houses radars for airfields. However, there is no airport there, so wondering if anyone knows what it is or was used for.

Looks unused now.

I just assumed it was an old radar installation.

I presumed it was either left over from the time there was supposedly no war in Laos.

Someone once told me it as meant to be a restaurant... one of those projects that went tits up in late 90s.

I think Harry is probably on to something...you ever see those benches "donated" by the US DEA, up at the Golden Triangle Boat? I'll bet the DOD sold it to them and then the satellites got way better and they decided to scrape it. Hmmm....makes for an interesting....book? It sure does look like a radar foundation, though. PP

Hi guys,

Would you believe it was a person's idea for an office. Having gone past it a zillion times, we live in Chiang Khong, we finaly stopped in to ask what it was for. You'll note that there is warehousing there and when first constructed, it was the owners office.

Cheers

Thanks for those replies.

I have to confess that an office sounds less intriguing than a secret spy installation left over from the war. Oh well, such is life!

From further enquiries it was a RTAF helicopter training base for some years and prior to that who knows.

Grey; Drab ; Golf ball like dome if I recall. ..... Restaurant ? .... Office ? .... karaoke Bar ? ...... prototype for a Toyota service centre or maybe built by Eskimo's ? ..........

Got to be an Old radar installation folks , got to be .... surely !? And what a great location for one , bordering a few countries.

This is ground control to major Tom .......

I always thought radar had these big dish thingies.

Could have been a telescope?

From memory isn't it pretty well right on the bank of the Mekong?

Bit of a dodgy place for a secret squirrel spy radar - I mean you wouldn't exactly have to be the Laos version of "Where Eagles Dare" to paddle across and wreck it!

"Danny Boy calling Bloadsword Krap, where you go Bloadsword,,,,,,,"

Photographic Evidence is required me thinks ........ To be continued ........

Here's a suggestion. Stop on by there as we did and take a look inside the structure and I think you might come away with the same impression that we left with; that it is nothing more then what we were told by the lady that worked there - someones idea of an office - that did not work out.

So come one and all with the fun ideas of it being something other then what it was, but sad and true, just a bad idea for an office.

Cheers

I'm thinking CONSPIRACY ! Dave's in on it, ofcourse he's cleared the place out now. think Roswell, think area 69 , think X-Files ........

Think, ...... yeah, I've got nothing better to do today..... Pulled something in my back

Photographic Evidence is required me thinks ........ To be continued ........

Thanks to someone on Google Earth

I'm saying nothing ........

OK, its not a geodesic Dome designed to house a Radar on a Military Site or Airfield. I was wrong again

Chaps, I know what it is : we've got lots of domes like this in the UK. They are used to store rock salt, which they use to spread on the roads when it snows and freezes................

On second thoughts, perhaps not.

Happy New Year (in two hours UK time)!

I have it on good authority from an unreliable bell boy at a questionable hotel that this is the clandestine lair of secret snow plow driver Buckmenster Fuller who, having broken with the KMT as they departed China ... Nevermind, it's almost time for another beverage - Seriously, cheers and happy New Year!

Office space, eh? Hmmmmmm.....no windows....no air circulation....no view....hmmmmm. Now let me get this straight....this is the tropics, right? It can and does get rather toasty at certain times during the year, right? I doubt if any bamboo was used to make this thing....and no typical Thai contractor built it, either. And judging from the size of it...compared to newer generation radar domes.... Does anyone know exactly, more or less....how long this structure has been there? That might afford some important clue. Happy New Year, all. ett

It amazes me that you all missed the obvious, but being Canadian, I assume we have more background on this. It is a hockey rink for the mini-teams. Perfect for thailand eh!

It amazes me that you all missed the obvious, but being Canadian, I assume we have more background on this. It is a hockey rink for the mini-teams. Perfect for thailand eh!

Maybe they were practicing on building a new home for you but had to build it of concrete rather than ice.

I have the answer, it came to me in a flash as I finished my third gin this lunchtime! It is simply a giant Som Tam manufacturing facility, with the capacity to fulfil the Som Tam requirements of the whole province.

The dome houses a giant papaya shredding machine, along with a huge mechanical mixing device. Each of the rooms around the base is for a separate ingredient, one for crushed peanuts, one for tomatoes, one for those little crabs and so on. I'm sure that if you looked closely you would find a huge plastic jar full of Plaa Raa around somewhere. Its just so obvious!

I explained as much to Best Beloved when I phoned to wish her Happy New Year. She seemed confused, and i heard her muttering to Little Miss JAG (daughter and answer for everything department) something about "Papa think too mutch...."

I will confirm all this when i arrive in Chiang Rai at the end of the week.

Till then, Happy New Year, and here's gin no4 !

Good drinks fuel good theories!

I think Harry is probably on to something...you ever see those benches "donated" by the US DEA, up at the Golden Triangle Boat? I'll bet the DOD sold it to them and then the satellites got way better and they decided to scrape it. Hmmm....makes for an interesting....book? It sure does look like a radar foundation, though. PP

Harrry and PhayaoPete are right: It was a dumping ground for American taxpayers money, run within

the framework of a strategic alliance between the armed forces of Thailand and the Unted States.

I guess that it is not much more than fifteen years old. During the first years a lonely guard was spending

his days there and after he got promoted to another important function the ground was still regularly cleaned.

As those in charge must have decided that it has lost its strategic importance, it has been given back

to nature so to say. It's good to see that it nowadays is used for local community activities .

I suppose that it originally was meant to be a mock radar observation station, a skin and nothing inside

I'm sure that for many years it might have withheld the Chinese military counterparts of the Thai-American

Strategic Alliance from invading our lovely province.

Limbo

A bit like those fake tanks the Serbs built in the Kosovo War hoping Nato would waste their bombs on them?