Mong La

       Mong La is just on the Chinese border. As with many borders with Burma, you can expect to see the dirty side of things. Here, in Asia, many border towns are no more than a pretext to build a concentration of casinos and prostitution bars for the neighboors of the "other side". In Burma, it could turn even worse, considering the usual way of things around here and also the fact that many teak and gems tycoons are... Chinese men, supported by the junta.
        So let's just say that I was not expecting to have a great tourist time in Mong La. Just open my eyes... But you do have a beautiful pagoda...


          The other interest of the city is... the border. You can actually cross it and walk in China, as the immigration building is 100m away. You can thus enjoy having one foot in Burma and one feet in China. From a dictatorship to another. I really wonder which foot was happier...

Gate to Burma

One foot, one country...
The 1st mile-stone on the Chinese road

          It could be surprising for some (it was for me) but you can see actually see a church from the pagoda. I mean, a real church with the shape of it. Most churches in Asia hardly have the bell tower or the traditional forms... You just recogniza them because of the size and the cross. And yet, this one was here and was looking almost like the ones at home. Except for one tiny detail... The naga-like stairs. In many temples and holy places, you have stairs with mythical snakes, the nages, on each side of the steps. Here, no naga represented but the curve of the stairs hint at it.

View of Mong La from the pagoda
Not so much of a paradize, hum ?

          At the bottom of the hill, a museum about Opium and the destruction of it within Burma. It is the 2nd most important Opium productor in the world, right after Afghanistan. With Stanley, we just enjoyed reading between the lines, while the others brushed by it to go and buy 'Burma souvenirs" in front of the museum. There is a huge stress on the fact that the Opium was not part of the Burmese culture at first, and that it was brought by the English (=we are innocent, it's not us, it's not our fault). The ways of driving people out of addiction, of destroying the poppy fields, with pictures to back it up. Foreigners were put forward on the pictures, as if to give them some credibility.

          I remember having read something about the elimination of opium. The junta took the production and presented the open bags to the camera. Later on, you see the same bags being burnt, one of them open and still showing its content. The UNO cheers and congratulates Burma. But... only one bag, the open one, was still full with opium. The other ones had been exchanged with bags full of grass.
             It's so easy to modify the reality of pictures and videos. Who can still believe a picture nowadays, in our digital era ? Especially in a dictatorship relying heavily on propaganda... It's so easy to take a European next to a bag, to give some legitimacy to the fact. Who can say whether this guy was a ally of the junta or not ?

        So lovely... Soldiers working hand in hand with the People for the interest of the nations... Don't forget to notice that we have beautiful helicopters...

         To sham two young addicted, they put two mannequins with long hair and wearing punk-style clothing. Two really western-like young guys.
         As a conclusion to the tour, there was an A4 sheet of paper, with much self-songratulation on the results, ameliorations, effective withdrawals, electricity within Mong La (a link with Opium ? Not much... But let's put all ameliorations on the behalf of the junta...)