A PICTURE | and the story behind it – Everything is fine!!

Text: Martin Wickert; Photo: Claudius Vasilescu

The sun beats down mercilessly from the sky, dust and sweat stick to our faces. We have been travelling on narrow dirt tracks for hours, and the heat makes it increasingly difficult to maintain the necessary concentration. We have long since left the main roads behind us. Dense forest, tiny villages, often just a few huts line the track. Only the military checkpoints, which are becoming increasingly frequent due to the proximity to the border with Myanmar, show us that we are still in the present day. While the infrastructure is hypermodern even in Thailand's smaller towns, time seems to have stood still out here. To make matters worse, the fuel gauge is relentessly approaching the bottom of the scale. It's high time for a refuelling stop. However, Charley, Elvio and I haven't seen a petrol station all day.

But even in the most remote regions of Thailand, the locals are travelling on scooters. So they have to get petrol from somewhere. As is so often the case, it's worth taking a closer look. We discover that even here in the remote border region, there is a perfectly usable petrol supply network. But at first glance, the petrol stations are not recognisable as such. They are just normal huts, as are still common in rural Thailand today. The living quarters and petrol station merge seamlessly into one another. While there is a large petrol barrel in the front area, a bed can often be seen in the rear rooms. Apparently, the petrol station operator lives here or uses the bed for rest breaks when there are no customers.

The petrol drum in the hut is usually equipped with a simple hand pump and a normal rubber hose is used to fill the vehicle tanks. The amount of petrol is measured with a stand vessel, as the older ones among us still know it from two-stroke petrol pumps. When we have quenched the thirst of our 1300s, we are in for a real surprise. We had already prepared ourselves to scrape together the last of our cash, when the petrol station attendant smiles and holds a wireless card terminal the size of a packet of cigarettes in front of our puzzled faces. "Your card please, mister!"