Viewed from the Thai border town of Chiang Saen, two golden domes dominate the sparse landscape on the Laotian side of the Mekong River.
After crossing the river, visitors are ushered into a grand hall beneath one dome, Chinese dragons snaking up the stairway, and into the immigration arrival hall. The other golden dome sits atop the casino. Welcome to the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.
Built with Chinese money, and catering mainly to Chinese visitors, the SEZ at Tonphueng in Bokeo province bears little resemblance to the sleepy, impoverished Laos that lies beyond its 3,000 hectares.
Alongside the SEZ waterfront, high-powered boats disgorge mainland and Thai businessmen, and gamblers. Most arrive via Thailand, but some travel directly down the Mekong from Jinghong in Yunnan province.
In the SEZ, everything from currency to cuisine is Chinese. Of the more than 4,500 people employed in the zone, only around 500 are Laotian. For visitors, the glimpse of a Laotian immigration officer or policeman at the quayside, and a stamp in your passport, are among the few visible reminders that you are in Laos at all, in this enclave where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos blur. In the words of the casino manager, E. Abbas: 'We have our own government inside the zone'.
The investors who signed the contract to create the SEZ with the Laotian government back in April 2007 have pledged to change the image of the Golden Triangle, once the epicentre of the global heroin trade, into a tourist haven with glittering nightclubs, ecotourism and a new international airport.
Yet despite the influx of cash and grandiose plans, there are plenty of concerns about the project, with a prominent Thai business leader and a UN agency worried that the centrepiece casino will be used to launder money from the region's infamous drug trade.