China Yunnan's most westerly town, RUILI is barely thirty minutes by road from the sober formalities and politely quiet cross-border sneaking at Wanding, but infinitely distant in spirit. Once the capital of the Mengmao Dai Kingdom but now an ostentatious boom town, Ruili revels in the possibilities of its proximity to Burma - 5km south over the Shweli - with such a heavy flow of illegal traffic pouring over the dozens of crossing points to Mu Se , its Burmese counterpart, that locals quip "feed a chicken in China and you get an egg in Burma". Though things along the Burmese side have tightened up considerably in recent years, trade is very much a two-way affair, and Ruili is the main conduit for Burmese heroin entering China, reflected in the town's high incidence of addicts and AIDS patients. Burmese, Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals wander around in sarongs and thongs, clocks are often set to Rangoon time, markets display foreign trade goods and most Chinese in town are tourists, attracted by the chance to pick up some cut-price trinkets and the decadent thrills of commercial sex and night-long karaoke sessions. Ruili's karaoke craze is so intense that there are not enough clubs for the howling hordes of late-night revellers, so scores of entrepreneurs set up videos, microphones and amplifiers out in the streets, blocking pavements and making the town audible kilometres away. While all this might sound like something to avoid, here at the fringes of the Chinese empire Ruili is a surreal treat. If the town's nightlife appals you, the markets are fascinating, and many foreign traders speak good English and make interesting company - and the surrounding countryside, studded with Dai villages and temples, is only a bike ride away.