The shops are open all day, but they're especially spectacular at night. The vendors mostly sell fruits, homemade snacks, juices - all brightly wrapped and lit up by mega-watt light bulbs. In the pitch black of the Thai countryside, the radiating colors grab you like visual MSG. You can almost feel the primal warmth of the reds, yellows and greens soothing your starving retinas that have been staring at nothing but illuminated gray concrete for the last 150 km.
The shops are about 100 kms outside of Bangkok in the middle of nowhere and serve only one purpose - a last chance to buy a gift for family and loved ones before you return home from a trip upcountry. 
If you come home empty handed, you might as well not come home at all because it's obvious that during your trip, family was as far from your mind as you were from your home.
The fact that most of the products have the location of where they were sold stamped on the label is also useful evidence to prove that you actually went where you said you were going and not playing hooky in the dark alleys of Bangkok or on a clandestine road trip with friends to a seaside resort.
All in all, the souvenir snack shops are a subtle, indirect way of showing (proving to) your loved ones where you went - at least 100 kms outside of Bangkok (in the right direction) and what you were doing - struggling to be productive during your business trip due to the overwhelming pangs of homesickness.
Nothing says there's no place like home like a bushel of candy-apple red rambutan or some freshly squeezed guava juice from Pak Chong District in Nakorn Ratchasima.
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