My fellow comrades,

I am planning a solo trip from Kunming to Menglian (Southwest Yunnan bordering Burma) and then stay south until Yuanyang following the above itinerary. The challenge is I have 9 days trip only.
My questions are multiple:
1/If i take mostly night bus, do I have the time? The ratio Enjoyment/(Bus+planning etc) won't be too low?
2/ I stop at Pu'er because it is on the road but I can't really find what is to do there on GKM or other...What to do in like one day?
3/From Pu'er to Jianshui....how to go? It seems there is no direct bus..
4/ Am I missing something? I am more into breathtaking sceneries, possibilities to rent a bike, hiking.... than cities, even very old and cultural (already seen a few).
Any advices would be grantly appreciated, I'm struggling with hesitancy.

Thanks!

Night buses you miss scenery; bicycles rentable virtually anywhere; surely there are buses from Pu'er to Jianshui, almost surely there are direct buses; 'above itinerary' is Menglian-Burmaborder-Pu'er-Yuanyang-Jianshui? My choice, for only 9 days, would be to cut out everything after Pu'er - also, I wouldn't go during the week or so following first day of CNY, room rents will all be excessively elevated; I'm not sure about getting bus tickets, but a lot of people are going to be traveling then.

Thank you Alien for your answer.
Unfortunately, I have the government official CNY holiday from 18 to 24 feb and I already 请假 2 more days...
After consideration, I will follow your advice and skip Jianshui&Yuanyang which I hope I can do in 2 weekends in the future.
What do you mean by Burmaborder? Like Ximeng or Ruili?
Also, you confirm that Pu'er (Simiao) is worthing?

@Alien
I disagree with the statement "bicycles rentable virtually anywhere". They aren't easy to find for rent even in large towns. Most bike shops will only sell you new ones. Only sometimes near touristy lakes will you see them for rent out in the open, but not even Greenlake has them for instance.

@paulwind6
You want to visit 4 distant places in 9 days and return to Kunming. Your enjoyment ratio will be stinky feet on the night bus and a luke warm shower in a bus stop hotel. I suggest picking two targets, one to get to and one to stop on way back. Also be aware some bus stations only have one bus a day to some destinations, and it's not a night bus.

@Paul: I thought you meant Burma border as part of 'above itinerary'. I have no particular opinion about Pu'er for scenery, though I plan to go there again to see more of it just because it's an important town and has some history that interests me personally - may not be your thing. Alex may be right overall about renting bicycles, but tourist towns have them, & I'd think Ruili would; on reflection I'd agree with Alex about less than 4 destinations, would avoid night buses because I like to see the world; shower situation doesn't bother me so much; I'm pretty sure that you can do better than a bus stop hotel & lukewarm shower in Ruili, anyway, especially in the afternoon when the sun heats the water in the solar water heater.

I certainly wouldnt recommend modern Puer for anyone. And even less bcs of history or tea - whats left of that anyway, a few new hordepack steele statues on main road.

Wouldnt recommend anyone to choose it over Jianshui or Yuanyang - both which are still pretty okay. But we all got our preferences, dont we.

Now the names of Puer, Simao and Ninger are mixed up, so theres the question of whether its Ninger or Puer, or whatever may be the new name.

New name Pu'er, old name Simao. Simao is still the name of the prefecture. Ninge'er is the new name of what was called Pu'er before. Change of names was maybe 5 years ago?

Well yea, but local people still used old names two years ago, and if anyone got a map, (that old paper thing we old folks we used before internet) it better be a recent edition.

But I assume if you end up in Simao, Ninger or Puer, they all look the same anyway. Maybe just choose the most convenient.