Freegate has had problems well before now. When I first used it in 2010 it was already fairly unreliable. Luckily I have a VPN (which is free in my case as it's provided by a company I used to be associated with) that does the job reliably everytime.

@filipd, thanks for that info. Seems like the clerk I dealt with was correct then. I have plenty of credit cards but they are all international ones.

Any ideas about other car rental firms in Kunming, particularly ones that accept international credit cards and/or cash, not mentioned on this thread so far?

Does the remaining visa validity really matter? I thought that having a Chinese driver's license is what counts. Sounds a bit strange to me, but anyway, you have direct experience renting from them. When I went to Zuche near the airport back in late 2010, they didn't care about my visa, but the main issue was the deposit. Apparently they don't accept international credit cards. On the other hand, another poster on GoKM mentioned that they do as he had successfully used his visa card with them; in fact it was probably the particular clerk that I dealt with that didn't know the rules.

For a better deal and less paperwork, how about renting from John Xie's car rental? He has a couple of vehicles available and accepts cash. He advertises here on GoKunming. He normally charges 250 Yuan a day for his sedan. Only 140 for the minivan. There is also a refundable deposit payable at the time you pick up the car and refundable immediately upon return.

@dazzer, you obviously aren't a linguist and I don't understand what you are trying to say - I think I was being very clear though. Then again, I'm not a linguist either (I'm an engineer with a passion for languages though!) I am just pointing out what every Chinese language student starts to realize: the number of different sounds in Chinese is very limited. A syllable is a sound. I apologize for using the word "words" to describe what is actually a syllable in an earlier post.

Chinese has 2000 syllables with which to create every possible word. Many words consist of single syllables, others are composed of two syllables; a few words have 3 or more syllables but in general not many. Whereas in English many complicated medical, engineering and scientific terms have been borrowed from other languages including Latin and German, in Chinese, you'll find that unfamiliar words are composed of familiar syllables (or sounds). The characters for these words could however be very complex or different to anything you've ever seen.

That's why it's so important to be able to read Chinese characters. I can't stress this enough. There aren't enough syllables in Chinese to be able to make sense to a learner that doesn't have any knowledge of the written language. It's also another reason why Chinese can never use a phonetic writing system: every word would look the same even after adding tone markers. There are too many homonyms.

Absolute insanity.

Anyway, as I have previously mentioned on another thread, and as is evident in the news all over the world, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and many other countries around the world will become even greater recipients of Japanese investment as a result of these crazy incidents in China.

The news channels in Thailand are currently showing reports featuring economists and businessmen rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of increased Japanese investment inside the country. Already Thailand is "Japan's manufacturing hinterland" with most Japanese pickup trucks built in Thailand these days, both for domestic consumption and export. Japanese electronics and supporting industries for cars, electronics and hard disk manufacturing are all big industries in Thailand, where a pro-Japanese and pro-foreign investment business environment are in force. Vietnam is also an emerging destination for Japanese investment thanks to a large, skilled laborforce and low wages.