Dan,

Thanks for your report.
Sean and I biked from Bingzhongluo towards the Tibetan border on January 1st, 2010. We thought we might have reached the Tibetan border after riding for a few hours from Bingzhongluo, but now that I see the sign in your photograph I realize we never actually made it. Where we turned around was a small wooden dilapidated house with a tiny store in it. Do you remember how many more km from that wooden house to the actual border it was?

Interesting that when we visited in the middle of the winter the weather was considerably better than it seems to have been for you in the summer. Blue skies, and beautiful blue water in river.

Also...did you really take a bus direct to Bingzhongluo from Kunming? Was that a standard passenger bus, or a private chartered bus? We saw no signs of passenger buses direct from Bingzhongluo to Kunming when we were there. In fact, we didn't even see direct buses from Gongshan. The furthest up the valley one could get direct from Kunming in December 2009/January 2010 was Fugong.

If there are to be direct flights linking Kunming to The Americas, Europe, and Australia, which cities in particular do you think are most likely to score one?

Please submit your guesses.

Mine:

Europe - London, Paris
Australias - Sydney, Melbourne
Americans - Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco

Is this too optimistic? I'm not sure really how much market there is for these routes. I'd benefit, but how many others are there like me? How many actual Europeans, Australians, and North Americans live in Kunmign? A few thousand?

Then of course there's foreign tourists. That might be where it makese sense. I'd guess a good chunk of the foreigners who come to China would like to include Kunming on their itineraries? Currently the fly into the hubs in Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Beijng, and then travel to Kunming by train or domestic flight. I wonder how many would be diverted onto the new direct flights.

And then the're the outgoing Chinese market, which I imagine would not be insignificant. The number of Chinese going abroad for business, travel, and study abroad is getting bigger every year.

But all together, how much aggregate demand is there for these direct flights? Maybe if they only operate a 2-3 days a week they'd make sense.

Please add your thoughts on this topic...

This post made my evening.
But I've gotta know...is Jenny part of the team, or for real?
:P

Thanks so much for this article, Chris!
I've been meaning to ride this train ever since I first moved to Kunming almost 2 years ago (I used to live on 建设路 right next to the train tracks and waiting for it to cross was part of my daily routine). Being somewhat of a train geek myself, I'm embarrassed to say I never actually did it.
But seeing your article now, I'm inspired. In fact, this very afternoon, I think I'll go to the North Station and take the afternoon run to 石咀！

Tangentially related anecdote:

I've recently been watching a Chinese TV series called 军人荣誉.
It's entirely filmed on location in Yunnan, and centers around the 缉毒警察 (anti-narcotics armed police division) and their efforts to control the drug trade between Myanmar and Yunnan.

At times it's pretty cheesy, but also quite entertaining. Every few episodes there's a new story arc focusing on a different drug trafficking party. Usually there a beautiful girl, led down a path of personal destruction by some nightclub boss or gangster. We see flashbacks of the girl's life when she was still innocent and pure, and then see how she was corrupted.

Can hardly vouch for its authenticity, but thought it merited a mention on this thread.

You can find all the episodes on youku and tudou.