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In the yard behind them a white limousine without a license plate number looks grotesquely out of place. The guards break their tongues while attempting to pronounce the name "Rolls Royce". As part of the anti-drugs campaign an opium museum opened in 1997. The reddish-pink building resembles a pagoda. The museum boasts of over a million visitors since its inauguration, but today there are more staff than visitors inside. "Let us join hands in the fight against drug menace [sic] to all mankind," reads a welcome sign. In the room downstairs, five elderly Chinese stare in astonishment at the tableau of two deadly pale youngsters with long hair, black hats and jeans shooting up. The next scene of the rehabilitation display shows one dying on the floor with a syringe in his arm while the other is being handcuffed and led away by the police. Via a spotless hospital he then reenters society, dressed in a white shirt and a green longyi. The underlying political message of his happy ending may get lost on the Chinese public—the clothes and the small badge identify him as a member of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, or USDA, a civilian front organization with compulsory membership for government officials that also often serves as a rent-a-crowd to boost support for the regime. A large collection of black-and-white pictures display small planes spraying poppy fields and Burmese officers staring at piles of burning heroin. Though Lin was a wanted man in the US, photos from the mid-1990s show several American congressmen joining him in inspecting drug eradication activities. At the tenth anniversary of the ceasefire accord, Lin was bestowed with "The Medal for Excellent Performance in the Social Field" by the SPDC. One of his aides gives a less successful account of the alternative economic developments in Mong La. He seems genuinely disappointed when he looks at one of the major projects, a sugarcane factory just outside town. The machinery, worth US $3.6 million, lies idle. "There is no market for the sugar, because China does not want it. Soon we may have to take out the machinery," he says. Other areas also indicate all is not so well in Mong La. Some Akha women rummage through a smelly garbage dump. In a field further down the road sit dozens of Wa and Akha orphans in a dilapidated study room. Some pages of their books are so worn out that the words can hardly be read. Mong La’s nightly glamour also seems to have faded away. In the harsh daylight the faces of the karaoke girls look tired as they hang out their laundry. A lonely transvestite in a miniskirt stumbles by on impossible high heels. In an empty restaurant a bored staff plays mah jong. Nearby, four dancers in silk nightgowns have just woken up. They have been performing in a nightclub for club for six months with another two to go before they return home to Kazakhstan. "Mong La is an awful place. We never go anywhere," says a girl with platinum-dyed hair. Her face is pale from the lack of daylight. She sighs. "Believe me we are here only for the money." As the morning passes by the town comes to life again. Buses and minivans cross the border from China. In the front seat, tour guides with microphones talk to passengers sporting baseball caps. Pandemonium breaks out as they run to make it in time for the Thai transvestite show, one of the town’s most popular attractions. Burmese visitors have different reasons to be enthusiastic about Mong La. "We are more free here," says a young jade cutter from Rangoon who frequents the town for business. "There is no Burmese army and very few MI. We can say things we would not dare to say elsewhere." "Mong La is a developed place," nods his companion. He is impressed with the international mobile phone connections. Rooms filled with computers offer another service that is highly restricted in the rest of Burma: Internet. But most of the clients are glued to militant computer games and the place makes as much noise as a shooting range. A few girls who explore the electronic highway break out into giggles as they visit a dating site. Mong La is not the only place where money is spent on public relations for the anti-drugs campaign. All along the road back to the border town of Tachilek efforts have been stepped up as well. "The fight against drug menace [sic] is a national concern," says a freshly painted billboard. Another new sign cryptically reads, "Cigar [sic] can start drug abuse." The passengers in the car have other matters to be concerned about. As the driver maneuvers past a depressing number of army and immigration checkpoints they swap stories about the blatant extortion on the way. Soon the car becomes a mobile conspiracy. "They asked for my money," confides a young Shan girl after she was pushed around by immigration officers. "I had to buy that from the army for 500 kyat," says the driver as others unfold his new calendar. He smiles wearily and says, "We are back in Burma." Joan Williams is a writer who recently visited Mong La.