Homeless child: life struggle on the border.
By Busarin

The noise starts as usual late in the morning at the Mae Sai district checkpoint on the Thai-Burmese border. Souvenir shops, restaurants and vendors’ stalls along the road are getting ready for another busy Sunday in anticipation of hundreds of Thai and foreign tourists coming by on their way to the town of Tachilek, just across the frontier in Burma.

Under a concrete bridge spanning the river that forms the natural borderline between the two nations there is the sound of splashing water. Dozens of adolescent boys are swimming in the muddy river. But others stand by the bridge sniffing a white substance from plastic bags, uncaring of anyone who might pass. Next to them a young man sniffs at a liquid in a green can labelled “glue”.

At the Doiwaw souvenir shop a trendy teenage boy wearing a baseball cap and a bag over his shoulder follows tourists around, trying to sell them music and movie CDs. A girl about six years old, in hilltribe costume, strolls around with a baby sleeping on her back.

These are the sights and sounds of the Mae Sai border market.
The youngsters are the homeless children who use the border bridge, with its flapping Thai and Burmese flags, as their workplace and their home. Some of them beg for money from the tourists. Others discreetly sell them pirate CDs.

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