After a couple of hours, our lives still intact, we reached the camp. Named Umpium Mai, it is home to about 20 thousand refugees. A soldier at the gate let us through after a quick conference with Chris, who works for some sort of Thai border authority. We drove up a rutted dirt road, putting Norm's rented Honda to the test. It was still groaning from the trek, not to mention being driven like a rally car.

A short walk up a steep path found us looking at a dusty plateau, the remnants of what could have been a quarry at one point, as it was gouged out of the side of the mountain. There was a sizeable crowd lined around the edge of the makeshift field. The reason for the game was that it was part of a week-long celebration of the Karen New Year. Apparently the previous evening had been quite the event as well, involving traditional song and dance, descending into groggified mayhem. As for this day, the crowd was quite spirited, eager to see their camp leaders beat the team of farang, made up of doctors, teachers, NGO employees, and the randoms including myself and Norm.

We donned our blue uniforms, and stepped onto the rockhard field, which was obscured by sheets of dust everytime the wind picked up. The whistle blew and the game was on, accompanied by lively play-by-play in Karen over the loudspeaker. Although there were a few bright lights on our team, the majority of us were running around in hiking boots, making stopping and abrupt turns quite difficult on the hardpack, to the delight of those in attendance. As for me, I took my lousy soccer skills to the international level, eventually causing a penalty kick for swatting the ball out of the air with my hand. They scored, meaning I have to disguise myself should I ever want to go to France or Germany.

After two 30-minutes halves, the farang eventually prevailed, 5-3, and we got one last look around the camp before continuing down the Death Highway to Um Phang.