Daily and Wall preside over this operation, which is Western at the top and pure Thai at the ground level, with a gradual shading of cultures in between. FLAG has dealings in many countries, and the arrangement is different in each one. Here, the top level is a 50-50 partnership between FLAG and Thailand's CAT. They bid the project out to two different large contractors, each of whom hired subcontractors with particular specialties who work through sub-sub-contractors who hire the workers, get them to the site, and make things happen. The incentives are shaped at each level so that the contractors will get the job done without having to be micromanaged, and the roads seem to be crawling with inspectors representing various levels of the project who make sure that the work is being done according to spec (at the height of this operation, 50 percent of the traffic on some of these roads was FLAG-related).

The top-level contracts are completely formalized with detailed specifications, bid bonds, and so on, and business at this level is done in English and in air-conditioned offices. But by the time you get to the bottom layer, work is being done by people who, although presumably just as intelligent as the big shots, are fluent only in Thai and not especially literate in any language, running around in rubber flip-flops, doing business on a handshake, pulling wads of bills out of their pockets when necessary to pay for some supplies or get drinks brought in. Consequently, the way in which the work is performed bears no resemblance whatsoever to the way it would be done in the United States or any other developed country. It is done the Thai way.

Not one but two entirely separate pairs of conduits are being created in this fashion. Both of them run from the idyllic sandy beach of Ban Pak Bara on the west to the paradisiacal sandy beach of Songkhla on the east - both of them are constructed in the same way, to the same specifications.