Photos

Burmese girl working in a rose farm in Thailand, in the district of Mae Sot, in the northern province of Tak.

The Burmese cross at night avoiding the military the dangerous paths through the mountains that divide the two countries, escaping from oppression and starvation, to do illegal work across the border –work that Thais wouldn’t do- drudging from dawn to dusk under the blazing sun (torrential rains during the rainy season) for US$ 1.50 a day (women $1.20). Despite all the ordeals they endure, they work singing all day long, strange songs that more sound like a moan.

The “Friendship Bridge” across the Moei River links the frontier towns of Mae Sot in Thailand and Myawaddi in Myanmar. Mae Sot is a persuasive, maverick town, where black market timber, gems, opium, laborers, and everything else that reap profits smuggling flows back and forth under the blind eyes of the military. When this “friendship” becomes not so, affection is replaced by exchanges of gunshots between the soldierly on both sides.