TACHILEIK, BURMA
Mae Sai is a pretty average Northern Thai town, but just across the border is an entirely different world. The sidewalks are covered in brick-colored betel nut spit, old toothless women smoke green cheroots and, perhaps most strikingly, everybody looks completely different. Cosmopolitan Thailand is fairly homogeneous (mostly due to the success of Thaification), but the population of Tachileik is a bizarre mix of Shan, Bamar, Lahu, Akha, Muslim groups and Indians from all over the place.

Also, everything is in Burmese. That sounds obvious, but you’ll find some familiar script almost anywhere you go in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam. In Tachileik even the license plates are written in a language you’ve never seen before.