It is difficult to say whether you can get a ticket the same day, it just depends and it is not uncommon that the trains are fully booked. While there are several agencies that can book a ticket for you, the only one I know that might speak a little English is the one outside Camellia Hotel. Or you could just take a taxi from the airport to Kunming station and try your luck there.
Alternative option: since you are not doing the train ride for the scenery why not just fly to Lijiang from Shanghai? There are non-stop flights and others with a stop in Kunming. Have a look at ctrip.com for prices, it might cost the same or even less than flying to Kunming.
Kunming is not super interesting as a tourist city, consider a slow return trip via Shaxi and Dali.
The border at Ruili was certainly 'open' at one point, I crossed from Myanmar into China there almost ten years ago. But it was required to be in an official 'tour', even though that consisted of just a totally useless Burmese guide and me. The reverse was also possible and popular with (mostly American) war veterans interested in the Burma road.
I heard that if you ask at the Myanmar consulate they will tell you it is impossible, but that the Camellia Hotel travel agent can get such a tour together for you. Coming from China this will most likely be a tour guide picking you up at your hotel in Ruili who will assist you in the border crossing. On the Burmese side, in Muse, you will hop into a car, which you pay for, to drive to Lashio and on to Mandalay. The drive to Mandalay takes a good day on a very good road. There is little to see though and the whole thing will cost you a few hundred dollars.
The other border crossing that is open at least to Chinese tourists seems to be north of Tengchong and connects to Myitkyina. For the appropriate fee it might be possible to set a tour up to cross there as Myitkyina is open to foreigners.
I would not think that Pianma is open as the Burmese side is probably extremely poorly connected to the rest of Burma.
It is certainly doable in seven days, but you will spend a long time on the road and you will probably spend almost as much as you would by going by plane. As far as I am aware, China Eastern has a direct KM-CM flight again.
The very quickest way to do it would be to take a sleeper bus to Mohan (the Chinese side of the Lao border) (about 13 hours), cross the border and get into one of the cars probably already waiting on the Lao side for the run to the Thai border. It will probably take you six hours from Boten (Lao side of the Chinese border) to Huay Xai (Thai border) and then another four hours or so to Chiang Mai. Making connections should not be much of problem, and with a bit of luck you could arrive in Chiang Mai the late evening after departing KM.
Luang Namtha in Laos would be a good place to break the journey, it is less than two hours from the Chinese border, so arriving by sleeper bus you could get there before lunch, and leave the next day on a bus bound for the Thai border, which would make it a two-day trip to CM.
In Mohan there are always minibusses at the bus station, which is about half a mile from the border on the eastern side of the main street. They usually do the run to Mengla, but I am pretty sure that they would do hire jobs as well. I have not seen any other vehicles for hire in town, but if you took the minibus to Mengla you would have more options.
I have always found it a bit difficult to negotiate with drivers unless you can really tell them where you want to go, because only if they can estimate the distance they can give you a price.
However, my rule of thumb is that in a small minibus or a car the price for hire works out as RMB 3 per kilometer. Any waiting time should not really cost extra as drivers tend to spend all day waiting anyway, but you need to tell the driver, otherwise they get impatient.
There is at least one daytime bus daily, leaving the western station 西部汽车客运站 at 9am, arriving some 10-11 hours later. I have been on this bus once, and even with the bus being pretty good it was quite a tiring ride, but then it is one of the longest journeys in the province. The bus makes stops for toilet and lunch, but does not waste any time by pulling into Dali or Lijiang.
There is also about a dozen sleeper busses going overnight, but beware of thieves. (A friend of mine reported that his bag had been tampered with, but nothing stolen on this journey overnight.)
Alternative option, as mentioned before: sleeper train to Lijiang and bus from there.
The old ferry stopped working sometime last year, now you will have to go quite far west to the new ferry, which is a long slog (and a little difficult to find) unless you catch a ride with a local driver (try to hail any vehicle along the road - we managed to hitch a ride with some forestry van for 10Y from the old crossing to the new).
There is no fixed time-table for the 'ferry', it is operated by a few local guys who go home when they think no-one is coming anymore.
Daju does make a very nice stop, but as of last year they try to collect the mountain fee as well as the Lijiang old town fee also at the northern park entrance (when returning from Daju to Lijiang), amounting to a whopping 220Y or so. However, the mountain fee is not payable if you do not get off the bus inside the park area and technically the Lijiang fee should not be required if you do not stop in Lijiang, but continue on to, let's say, Xiaguan. Some people have avoided paying the fees by claiming to be locals (works less well for westerners).
The totally rushed (and a bit pointless) version of TLG would be to hire a car to take you Naxi Family Guesthouse and walk from there to Halfway GH, have lunch there and walk down to the road and onto Walnut Grove. There seem to be vehicles for hire at the guesthouses, who then could take you either back to Qiaotou or to the ferry to Daju.
However, my recommendation would be to stay on night at Naxi Family GH (few people do, even though it has the nicest afternoon views of the mountains), next morning to Halfway GH for lunch and continue on a bit to one of the smaller GH along the higher trail for another night. Halfway GH has become big business in the last decade and has lost its attraction.
Beatrix Metford, the wife of a British officer, wrote in her 1935 book "Where China Meets Burma":
"About ten years ago the British Government purchased a six-acre plot and started to build a consulate. It was a lovely site, just outside the west gate, with extensive views of the hills and mountains. The house was to be a stone building, comfortable but plain. It was bigger and more costly proposition than was realized. There were no workmen, no masons or carpenters, who had even seen a European house, so they all had to be trained, and when they were trained they struck for higher wages, and so it went on. [...] All tools, all fittings had to be carried by mule or coolie from Bhamo. At last, after eight years' work and vast expenditure, far beyond the original estimate, the consulate was finished and occupied.
It is a very plain house, painfully plain, with it smooth stone walls, its tin roof, its brown woodwork. But inside it is a bit of England. It is most beautifully fitted up and well furnished — a veritable oasis in the desert of mud and wood houses of the borderland. And in its spacious gardens, surrounded by a high stone wall, one can hardly realize one is in China..."
When I first found the building a few years back, the road it was on was called Huanxilu, the western ring road, which illustrates that for a long time its location was on the western outskirts of Tengchong. Today, Tengchong has sprawled beyond it. At that time it was still possible to climb up onto the second floor, where like in any proper English house there were also fireplaces, but everything else had been stripped out.
Two years ago we spoke to a Chinese guy there who seemed to have a certain interest in the building and he told us that the building had been the headquarters of the Japanese, which would not be totally surprising if it was the best-built and best-furnished place in town.
If one travels down to Lianghe, the next county town towards the Burmese border, there is the restored tusi yamen, where some iron-cast window parts still say 'Glasgow' on it if I remember correctly.
For those who want to find Shicheng on a map: 24.803N 102.58E.
There is a bus #33 from Kunming to Haikou, but it is not very frequent. Better to take one of the minibusses that run from the corner of Chunhui Lu 春晖路 and Renmin Xilu (this is just a little east of the big flyover). The fare to Haikou is Y8. From Haikou a tuk-tuk to Shicheng is 10Y, as the article says it is about 3km along a not-too-interesting road.
The bus to Haikou also passes the Xihua Wetlands mentioned in a previous post and Guanyinshan 观音山, a Bai village with a large Guanyin temple on a rocky outcrop overlooking Dianchi.
I found a route plan here www.kmbus.com.cn/line_ssyq_68.html with the stop to get off probably 西华街, but I thought the bus to Haikou does not start at the Xiaoximen bus depot, but further down on Renmin Xilu.
It is rare to find good approximations of western food anywhere in China and their lamb-chops (listed as lamb T-bone steak or so) were the best I have found so far. They came with good fries and the beer was cold. I liked the way that they serve the gloopy 'black-pepper sauce' separately, so one can just skip it. Pleasant and quick service too.
A pleasant modern eatery. The menu claims the chef worked for a large Chinese chain of Thai restaurants, but the Thai aspect of the food is difficult to find.
I gave the 'boneless chicken feet' a miss and had some spicy beef which while not bad was closer to the usual Sichuan fare than anything Thai. A dog under the table quickly lapping up any dropped food complemented the Sichuan experience.
The spring rolls were not bad though and together with a beer the bill came to Y58.
Easily the best bread to be found in Yunnan with friendly and efficient service. I have made detours to Dali just to pick up some bread on the way back to Kunming.
Cookie Preferences
Please select which types of cookies you are willing to accept:
Getting away: Daju Town
Posted byThe old ferry stopped working sometime last year, now you will have to go quite far west to the new ferry, which is a long slog (and a little difficult to find) unless you catch a ride with a local driver (try to hail any vehicle along the road - we managed to hitch a ride with some forestry van for 10Y from the old crossing to the new).
There is no fixed time-table for the 'ferry', it is operated by a few local guys who go home when they think no-one is coming anymore.
Daju does make a very nice stop, but as of last year they try to collect the mountain fee as well as the Lijiang old town fee also at the northern park entrance (when returning from Daju to Lijiang), amounting to a whopping 220Y or so. However, the mountain fee is not payable if you do not get off the bus inside the park area and technically the Lijiang fee should not be required if you do not stop in Lijiang, but continue on to, let's say, Xiaguan. Some people have avoided paying the fees by claiming to be locals (works less well for westerners).
The totally rushed (and a bit pointless) version of TLG would be to hire a car to take you Naxi Family Guesthouse and walk from there to Halfway GH, have lunch there and walk down to the road and onto Walnut Grove. There seem to be vehicles for hire at the guesthouses, who then could take you either back to Qiaotou or to the ferry to Daju.
However, my recommendation would be to stay on night at Naxi Family GH (few people do, even though it has the nicest afternoon views of the mountains), next morning to Halfway GH for lunch and continue on a bit to one of the smaller GH along the higher trail for another night. Halfway GH has become big business in the last decade and has lost its attraction.
Forgotten British consulate getting Chinese facelift
Posted byBeatrix Metford, the wife of a British officer, wrote in her 1935 book "Where China Meets Burma":
"About ten years ago the British Government purchased a six-acre plot and started to build a consulate. It was a lovely site, just outside the west gate, with extensive views of the hills and mountains. The house was to be a stone building, comfortable but plain. It was bigger and more costly proposition than was realized. There were no workmen, no masons or carpenters, who had even seen a European house, so they all had to be trained, and when they were trained they struck for higher wages, and so it went on. [...] All tools, all fittings had to be carried by mule or coolie from Bhamo. At last, after eight years' work and vast expenditure, far beyond the original estimate, the consulate was finished and occupied.
It is a very plain house, painfully plain, with it smooth stone walls, its tin roof, its brown woodwork. But inside it is a bit of England. It is most beautifully fitted up and well furnished — a veritable oasis in the desert of mud and wood houses of the borderland. And in its spacious gardens, surrounded by a high stone wall, one can hardly realize one is in China..."
When I first found the building a few years back, the road it was on was called Huanxilu, the western ring road, which illustrates that for a long time its location was on the western outskirts of Tengchong. Today, Tengchong has sprawled beyond it. At that time it was still possible to climb up onto the second floor, where like in any proper English house there were also fireplaces, but everything else had been stripped out.
Two years ago we spoke to a Chinese guy there who seemed to have a certain interest in the building and he told us that the building had been the headquarters of the Japanese, which would not be totally surprising if it was the best-built and best-furnished place in town.
If one travels down to Lianghe, the next county town towards the Burmese border, there is the restored tusi yamen, where some iron-cast window parts still say 'Glasgow' on it if I remember correctly.
Getting Away: Shicheng
Posted byFor those who want to find Shicheng on a map: 24.803N 102.58E.
There is a bus #33 from Kunming to Haikou, but it is not very frequent. Better to take one of the minibusses that run from the corner of Chunhui Lu 春晖路 and Renmin Xilu (this is just a little east of the big flyover). The fare to Haikou is Y8. From Haikou a tuk-tuk to Shicheng is 10Y, as the article says it is about 3km along a not-too-interesting road.
The bus to Haikou also passes the Xihua Wetlands mentioned in a previous post and Guanyinshan 观音山, a Bai village with a large Guanyin temple on a rocky outcrop overlooking Dianchi.
Around Town: Xihua Wetlands Park
Posted byI think bus #33 goes from Renmin Xilu to Haikou.
I found a route plan here www.kmbus.com.cn/line_ssyq_68.html with the stop to get off probably 西华街, but I thought the bus to Haikou does not start at the Xiaoximen bus depot, but further down on Renmin Xilu.