Ma Ma Lay sat stunned and red-eyed on the steps of a small shop in Mahachai, about an hour's drive southeast of Bangkok.
The Burmese woman nervously knotted and unknotted the longyi around her waist. Suddenly deprived of money and friends in a 'strange country' she had no idea what to do next.
Ma Ma Lay, or little sister, had just narrowly escaped arrest by throwing herself under the shop's only bed. The police raiding party missed her but seized the owner and his wife and pocketed 300,000 baht (HK$60,975) from the cash box.
Welcome to Thailand's way of dealing with neighbours who overstay their welcome.
Similar scenes are played out every day in 'Little Burma' where women scream and beg police not to strip them of savings that may have taken two years of cleaning fish to acquire. Much worse, of course, can happen to the really unlucky ones.
On classy golf courses and at myriad meetings in plush hotels, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) squeak with delight at the pleasure of each other's company.
But in the dark corners of the region corrupt police and bumptious officials are deaf to the cries of workers without powerful friends.