Mae Sai 05/03/2010 Charcoal Gang

Daeng went to meet a man that wants to buy her land that is a few miles out of town. I am hanging out and I thought I would tell you about the story of the "Charcoal Gang".

Thailand has logged out all the trees. That means a couple of things; the thousands of elephants used to haul trees have lost their jobs and there is no more lumber, mostly teak, to build homes, furniture or to make charcoal.

There are two main types of fuel used to cook with in Thailand: bottled gas and charcoal. With no lumber, where does the charcoal come from? One of the places it comes from in Myanmar (Burma).

To read about how charcoal is made CLICK HERE!

Now for the story of "Charcoal Gang" that brings it across the river here in the Mae Sai area. I should say "Black Charcoal Gang" as when you handle charcoal you get BLACK.

The "Charcoal Gang" puts the big bags of charcoal on rafts made of bamboo and rubber inter-tubes and float it across the river from the Burma side. Then they carry it up the steep bank of the river to a flat area. This all happens before dawn.

Not only do they bring the charcoal but they bring their own two wheel carts to haul it in. I tried and I can not lift one of these cards, let alone carry it up the steep river bank.

They assemble everything in this area under the watchful eyes of the armed Thai military.

The morning we took these pictures someone was trying to smuggle Burmese rice across the river.

Charcoal is okay but no rice! Check out the "NYPD" T-shirt on the Thai soldier.

The head military man had a little meeting of the "Charcoal Gang" to tell them "Charcoal is okay but no Burma Rice!"

They then paid the "duty" for bringing the charcoal onto Thailand.

At dawn they pushed the carts with the charcoal over the little hill into this little town of Mae Sai.

Once it is over the hill the carts spread out to different areas of the town and they divide up the big bags of charcoal into small bags and sell it for 5 THB (15 cents USD) a bag.

At the end of the day or after all the charcoal is sold they cross back over the bridge into Burma to repeat the cycle again, tomorrow.

All that so we can have a HOT cup of tea as my Aussie friend, Peter, says.