Not enough vegetables of their own, Akha families spend hours in the market buying and reselling vegetables far from home.

Where ever you go in Thailand you can increasingly find Akha people who have been displaced for "mysterious" reasons from their mountains homes and are having to do anything they can to stay alive. Internally displaced immigrants in the place where they were born, few people see the story that has placed the Akha where you might find them. The Thai government needs to answer a few questions.

Repeated visits to the Chiangrai vegeteble market tell part of the Akha story. Buying vegetables in the afternoon off trucks that come from Chiangmai and as far away as Bangkok, the Akha pay for a small place on the sidewalk outside a temple to resell the vegetables. But they do more than just resell the vegetables, they practically live there. They can not afford to go home if the vegetables don't sell, as they will have no way to transport them, so often they just cover up the produce and sleep right there, waiting for it to sell.

Some of the Akha come from distant villages to sell vegetables or herbs they grow, but this is hardly economical to do day in and day out.

For the Akha who are in the market every day, they tell a repetitive story. Once living proudly in villages along the Rimkok river north of Chiangrai, they saw all their land taken right up to the village by the forestry department which was busy planting commercial pulp pine on land that they had farmed for many years. No compromise, no legal representation.

So now these Akha struggle with their families, trying to raise their children, stuck on the filthy street, breathing vehicle exhaust, day after day.

A day that never ends.