beautiful on the outside....

the worst thing about the mae la refugee camp is how picturesque the setting is. without knowing who was inside and for what reasons to a westerner it looks like a beautiful, charming burmese style town set on the backdrop of beautiful mountian ranges and lush greenery.
of course inside it is a totally different story, people struggling for their lives and living in constant fear of being deported back to  burma to oppressoin landmines, rape, forced labour and torture....
we visited on a special day, there was a graduation ceremony for a bunch of students so there were huge celebrations. the most amazing thing was that in one of the speeches (there were many!) during the ceremony a professor talked about hope, faith and finding the blessings in the current situation, she also spoke beautifully about rebuilding the land and the people. such positive and proactive attitudes in such exterme circumstances was incredibly humbling.

so on a lighter note, had an eventful day on saturday - on the way to check out some impressive waterfalls with tom of belgium (they have over 1000 beer there...) and got into a bit of crash on the motorbike - nothing really damaged but will be a bit stiff for a couple of days i think. and it was totally not my fault, some of the drivers here are rubbish - even worse than me!