I have a friend from America who is flying into Kunming tonight at 11:20pm. I live in Mile, and was going to take a bus to pick him up today. However, the busses just said they are not running to Kunming because the snow forced road closures.
What should I have my friend do? He has never been to China, and has no Yuan. We communicate via email, but only when he has wifi. I told him that he might be able to get yuan in change from a restaurant at the airport. If he did that he would be able to go to a hotel, but other than that I am out of ideas.
Can anyone offer me any advice for this situation? Thank you so much.
The wifi is snowblocked too unless he got vpn. And at airport the wifi need a phone number, and a phone number needs an id number....., oh well, pasport can work out at some places. But not speaking chinese doesnt make it easier. Now, roads snow blocked too. Oh well.
You need a guanxi (connections, friends and "friends") for these situations to help out. Your girlfriends relatives or something like that. If you have no guangxi you can use travel agency or some student offering english exchange or looking for work on gokunming, but you need to pay. For a few hundreds you could probably sort out someone to pick him up with a sign, and acommodate him in a kunming hotel/guesthouse.
Most ATM:s accept Master Card, Visa etc. We all know that dont we. You can withdraw from an ATM. Your buddy aint got a bank card?
Send him a sms with your Chinese address, sit him in a cab. Let him show the address in Chinese I assume as a foreigner he has roaming service. When he is on his way, wait for his arrival, you pay the cab driver in RMB and he can refund you when he has changed the money, or getting wechat pay service.
At the airport there are a few places where people speak English, the information counter, McDonalds [shouldn't be too busy at almost midnight]....so he should be able to survive Kunming's first day of arrival.
Dudesons suggestion with cab to Mile in midnight, guy speak no chinese, driver no english, snow blocked road, is not a good one. the weather report aint say it better tonight.
Call John Xie car service;
www.gokunming.com/en/listings/item/32962/john_xies_car_service
It wont be cheap to get your friend to Mile. Talk to John, he can suggest something and drive him somewhere. His English is very good.
there are people outside of baggage claim, that hold paper lamenated signs that have english and chinese on them. They offer hotel rooms, there are pictures in them. They will most likely take usd. or he can go to an ATM for yuan.
Just a note, Laofengzi. Normally its not advisable to deal with any of those touts/friends outside the baggage claim, whether in China or anywhere else. Some work out fine though, some aint.
Some cab drivers at Changshui - not to mention the unlicenced ones - sometimes take you to wrong hotel, where they get comission. The trick is, some hotels have very similar names. Crap hotels change one character with same sound and scam this way - its a deal with a driver.
Recently Yunnan newspaper had a top-5 list of most common scams at Changshui. I liked this one: scammers put a fake sign that the self check-in tool is broken. Target persons in hurry. Then they dress up in official airport workers clothes and approach the travellers saying they can fix the check-in backway but theres an additional fee.
Well anyway, its not a jungle out there, but its midning right, and a few days before Spring Festival. Maybe some readers aint know, but this is high season for petty theft, robberies and such right now.
(Geezers advise is good)
oh crap...
I over read that you live in Mile....yeah that sucks.
This is what I would do:
Find out what bus goes close to the city center. Book him a room, or bed, at the Hump, or any other guesthouse.
There he could meet other travelers, have a beer, some warm food in his belly.
Then you have one more day to arrange his further travels. You could meet him there, and at the hump they have travel services. They can even book him the train to Mile. They speak awesome English . And getting to the Hump is a reasonable endeavor even without Chinese.
If all goes apesh*t, give him the humps contact info and let the cab driver call him. Most staff at the airport if not crazy busy, wouldn't mind to make a call to get him a cab, with the required Chinese directions.
Contact him somehow. IP call. Or SMS and explain him how to get to the city center.
