Washed red and blue in the glare of competing night-time neon, by day Ruili's broad pavements and drab construction pin it down as a typical Chinese town. Fortunately, the markets and people are anything but typical, and the Burmese stallholders in Xingshi Jie can sell you everything from haberdashery and precious stones to birds, cigars, Mandalay rum and Western-brand toiletries. Dai girls powder their faces with yellow talc, young men ask politely whether you'd like to part with your watch and street sellers skilfully assemble little pellets of stimulating betel nut dabbed in ash paste and wrapped in pepper-vine leaf, which stains lips red and teeth black.

The Burmese are very approachable, and some are refugees of a sort, as upheavals in Rangoon in 1988 and 1991 saw Muslims slipping over the border to enjoy China's relative religious freedoms. Many pedal their wares at the jade and gem market in an alley off Xingshi Jie, where Chinese dealers come to stock up on ruinously expensive wafers of deep green jade. You'll need hard currency (prices are given in US dollars) but most of the rubies, amethysts, sapphires, moonstones and garnets on show are flawed and poorly cut. The art of buying is a protracted process here, with dealers producing their better stones only for properly appreciative customers. For the newcomer, it's safer just to watch the furtive huddles of serious merchants, or negotiate souvenir prices for coloured pieces of sparkling Russian glass "jewels", chunks of polished substandard jade and heavy brass rings. When you've filled up your pockets, Dai and Jingpo haunt Ruili's huge produce market , ten minutes' walk past the post office off the west end of Xingshi Lu. This has been quiet of late, but on market days the piles of deer meat and wildcat pelts, limes, palm sugar blocks ( jaggery), coconuts, curry pastes and pickles make this a far cry from the standard Chinese effort.