A very authentic scene of cramped local transport in Northern Thailand on the road to Mae Salong, with people packed into a songthaew or small minibus — a village perched high on Doi Mae Salong ridge, near the Myanmar border, whose access roads were little more than mountain tracks barely paved in time for vehicles to replace pack horses.

In 2012, the minibus service ran only until early afternoon and public transport remained notoriously sparse, leaving hill tribe communities — Akha, Lahu, Lisu, and the Chinese descendants of KMT soldiers — with no real alternative to squeezing into whatever shared truck happened to be making the climb.