Sex drops and whiskey packets: The bizarre market built around a barbed wire fence

Sydney Morning Herald

4 days ago

Mae Sot, Thailand: It is a most peculiar market. Here vendors sell 'sex drops' and whiskey in squeeze packets. Vapes, illegal now in Thailand, are plentiful. Hard liquor costs a few bucks – and not just the obscure, bootlegged stuff, but the name brands too. So say the labels, at least.
The most unusual thing about this 150-metre row of stalls on the edge of the dry riverbank, though, is the thigh-high barbed wire fence separating seller from customer.
Why would a market adorn itself in such a way?
The wire, in fact, is the border.
On one side is the Thai town of Mae Sot, a six- or seven-hour drive north-west of Bangkok and one of the main crossing points to and from Myanmar. On the other side, where the vendors are working, is ... nowhere, technically.
'It is No Man's Land,' one stallholder says, rows of Myanmar smokes stacked behind her. 'There are still arguments between Thailand and Myanmar about who takes responsibility for this land.'
You can see Myanmar through the gaps in the wooden stalls on the other side of the Moei River, about 50 metres away. That's where the vendors live, in the town of Myawaddy, mostly.
Even when fighting ripped through Myawaddy last year – resistance groups fighting the military junta temporarily controlled the town – these vendors still came to work to flog their knock-off booze, tobacco and aphrodisiacs (the sex drops).