We took it last summer both ways and liked the flight. The food was not memorable (as always) but it was overall a fast and pleasant flight. Baggage comment is a good one.

Disagree, I think Beer Lao is awesome.

All that heavy euro beer is nice now and then but not to drink regularly in volume.

I've had a few bottles of a globally #1 rated beer (a single crate volume-limited, book-ahead, 1 year waiting list only, Belgian trappist brew) - which is best described as 'not beer, but another drink entirely' ... so I'm not exactly sticking my head in the sand.

Also, and this will get some people's backs up, I personally feel most of the so-called 'craft beer' here in Yunnan is disgusting... often characterized by variable output, unjustified pricing and poor carbonation. The latter may be fine if you're from northern England and love your Guinness, but otherwise it can be seriously offputting.

@Napolean, architecture isn't that bad in the center of town, certainly better than most Chinese cities. While it's true that we've lost a lot, we still have some heritage stuff preserved from all periods, plus some ultra-modern iconic sites (Wuhua District Government comes to mind). Most of the new malls/apartment farms/car-centric districts are shocking though, I agree there. I think China-wide there needs to be a reassessment of the cookie-cutter approach to temple 'restoration', however this is not a local issue and many of our temples are unique/historic enough to get some special consideration when such projects are proposed, eg. Yuantong Temple, Golden Temple, Bamboo Temple, Xishan.

The city planning office are the biggest problem, they should be put in prison.

@Alien, on the contrary, I definitely think Yunnan is the cuisine capital of China. Better ingredients, not expensive, cuisine from the rest of China is easy to find. International, well ... no. But Chinese stuff, yep. Definitely.

@Zhudan "Old ladies of 60 or more years should not be wearing leather mini-skirts with a t-shirt that says Lucifer over a pentagram on it, while gnawing on a greasy chicken leg." Why not? Go granny! One of the refreshing things about Yunnan is the lack of Western-style social judgement around clothing, which I put down to the minority heritage. It's possibly changing a bit now, as you don't see people wearing that stuff so much anymore, but it's definitely still there and I think it's awesome!

The main China Unicom office is on the Panlong River, I think just south of the Renmin Lu / Qingnian Lu intersection. If you take a passport they can sort you out. However, beware their coverage in rural China is generally worse than China Mobile... you will only get fast speeds in major towns, but their speeds are good and costs not bad. Also beware their dongle driver software on Mac, make sure you get a new dongle (non-Huawei, or Huawei 2015 or later) as the old ones from Huawei replace critical libraries on OSX systems and cause no end of problems.