Residential Living
 Ubon Suburbs |
 Ubon Suburbs |
 Ubon Suburbs |
 Standard Plumbing |
 The Big House |
 Big House Front Door |
 Big House Upstairs |
 Big House Upstairs |
You could rent a bungalow downtown for next to nothing, and some of us did that. On base we lived in bambi huts that were open to the night. At night the NCO club pounded out very loud music that went on until pretty late. If you wanted to get to sleep before midnight the best solution was to sleep off base.
Living downtown had its compensations, but you had to carry water and everything else from the base because the local water wasn't drinkable. You also had to bolt your window shutters and lock yourself into your room at night or the kamoys, thieves, would steal everything that wasn't nailed down.
Once the buildup began in March, 1965 construction couldn't proceed fast enough on base and many of us were told to find quarters downtown to make room for the incoming fighter squadron people. Eight Lion officers rented the big house in the Silly Sin neighborhood you see in the pictures above and roughed it until long after I left for Can Tho. In the meantime they were triple-bunking pilots in our old bambi huts back on base.
Sleeping in the big house you'd be awakened early by a rooster whose voice would crack part way through his salute to the dawn. When I visited Ubon again in 1973 I found that some of the Lion officers had rented a house kitty-corner from the big house for a downtown retreat. I slept one night in the kitty-corner house and, sure enough, early in the morning a rooster crowed with a crack in his voice, evidently a genetic problem.