"In Mengla ... forgotten" Mengla by picek

It's city in transition - nowsadays typical Chinese trade city with traces of Dai and Burmese atmosphere. Not much of their architecture have been left here, though.

And has infamous rate of illegal business - most of what is done on the backs of poor women.
In the evening you'll be seeing lots of pink lights. Don't be naive... these really aren't massage/beauty parlors.
Mengla main street seems to be full of that. For real massage it takes certain amount of walking and searching.

We returned to Mengla in 2009.

Hey, isn't that the same man at the bus station whom we exchanged money from and seemed to be the only one who speaks a little English?
Oh, yes he was.
He got us last time to some really bad hotel where we got charged loads of money and only moved out next day at the earliest time possible. He got us into some brothel like place with no glass on the window and old sheets and broken bathroom - what I place!

Learning form that encounter I only smiled at him and took my bags by bus to other station. He had found another man to offer him his service and I was glad we didn't get soaked again.

New highway now connects Mengla and Laos and you'll get to Mohan in an hour or so.

In some aspect you'll be missing those really nice and authentic Dai/Tai villages now because most of buses will go new way.

Also there's higway between Jinghong and Mengla - long journey got much shorter and more comfortable. When we took the ride a year before we got into bus with loads of local people smoking on the bus, spitting and violently throwing up. We didn't manage to get to JH the very same day then - because we exit at the wrong place, still 2 hours driving to Jinghong. Anyways, we had enough driving that day.