Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong (秦光荣) asked India to open a consulate in Kunming during a meeting with Indian Tourism Minister Ambika Soni in New Delhi last week, according to Indian media reports.

Direct flights between Kunming and Kolkata, capital of eastern India's West Bengal state, were launched in late 2007, but visa regulations and lack of a Kunming consulate make it difficult for Chinese living in southwestern China to visit India.

In order to obtain a visa, applicants must go to India's embassy in Beijing or its consulates in Shanghai and Hong Kong. For people living in Yunnan, it's often easier to skip the Kunming-Kolkata flight and fly to nearby Bangkok where there is an Indian embassy and more flight options to India.

While meeting with Qin and a delegation of Yunnan officials and entrepreneurs last Wednesday, Soni invited the visitors from Yunnan to invest in India's tourist infrastructure and called for closer cooperation between the two countries.

During the visit, the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the West Bengal Tourism Directorate, West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation and Travel Agents Association of India Eastern Chapter to "build a mutual bond on tourism practices, exchange and understanding."

Indian tourist visits to China are roughly quadruple the number of Chinese visits to India.

Tags: Beijing, Hong Kong, India, Kolkata, Qin Guangrong, Shanghai, tourism, travel, visas, West Bengal

With much of the city's traffic in disarray, travelers leaving Kunming via Kunming Wujiaba International Airport have needed to allow some extra time for their journey to the airport. Now that the airport has tightened security – especially with regards to liquids – it is advisable to give yourself even more time.

According to Kunming media reports more than 60 percent of passengers going through the airport's security check have had their bags searched recently. The increase in security at the airport – which previously had been quite lax – has reportedly led to many travelers missing their flights.

The recent tightening of security comes after Chinese media reported a foiled hijacking of an Urumqi-Beijing flight last week, which quickly and mysteriously disappeared from Chinese media.

On an unrelated note, Indian media is reporting that a China Eastern flight from Kolkata to Kunming this weekend had to dump its fuel and make an emergency landing when the plane's landing gear failed to retract after takeoff.

Tags: China Eastern Airlines, Kolkata, Kunming Wujiaba International Airport, security, terrorism, travel

Kunming will be the starting point of a four-country, 2,500-kilometer car rally next month that is aimed at promoting friendship between China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, according to a Xinhua news report.

The report, citing Myanmar media reports, said that 18 cars from the four countries will set off from Kunming in April – the date of the race's start is still under discussion – and will arrive in Kolkata, India ten days later. Each country will have three cars in the race, which will also include six support vehicles.

The China leg of the race, all of which will be in Yunnan province, will end at the border town of Ruili in western Yunnan, as the cars pass into Myanmar via the town of Muse. Nearly 1,000 kilometers of the rally will be in Myanmar.

As transport infrastructure between the four often uneasy neighbors continues to improve, it is hoped that the rally will promote trade and tourism among the countries, the report said.

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Tags: Bangladesh, car rally, India, Kolkata, Myanmar, Ruili, sports, tourism

Next month Kunming will host joint military exercises between China and India, a major milestone in relations between the world's two most populous countries. China and India went to war with each other in 1962 over their shared Himalayan border and have only in recent years begun to open up to each other.

December's first-ever Sino-Indian war games will feature 200 personnel from the Chinese and Indian armies and will focus on anti-terrorism exercises. Army officials from the respective armies are scheduled to meet next week in the West Bengal city of Kolkata - headquarters of the Indian army's Eastern Command – to hash out the details of the joint exercises, which were approved in Beijing at the beginning of the month during a meeting of military officials from the two countries.

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Tags: Himalayas, India, Kolkata, war games

China Eastern Airlines will begin offering direct flights from Kunming to Kolkata before the end of the year, according to an interview in the Indian Express with China's General Consul to Kolkata. The opening of the air route between the two cities is expected to increase business and tourism exchanges between the world's most populous countries and their rapidly growing economies.

The route will be Kunming's first direct link to India and Kolkata's first direct flight to China. Kolkata is home to India's largest Chinatown and will soon be home to China's second consulate after Mumbai. The Kolkata consulate will be opened by Consul General of China to Kolkata Mao Siwei, who emphasized the large Chinese presence in the city and the need of residents of eastern India to have direct access to China.

"Every year a lot of people from eastern India visit[ing] China, either for business or for travel. That has necessitated the inauguration of direct flights between Kolkata and Kunming," Mao said.

Manmohan Singh and Hu Jintao

After decades of icy relations, China and India are quickly warming up to each other both diplomatically and economically. As trust has grown between the two countries' governments, commercial exchanges have mushroomed from less than US$2 billion in bilateral trade in 1999 to a projected bilateral trade of US$30 billion this year.

In April of this year India began working on rebuilding its section of the Stilwell Road, a World War II-era supply route that connected Kunming to northeast India via Myanmar. Once completed, the road will be the only highway linking India to a major city in China.

Update: Kolkata-based newspaper The Telegraph is reporting that the Kunming-Kolkata route will launch on October 29. The thrice-weekly flight will arrive at Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at 11:40 pm and Kunming Wujiaba International Airport at 5:10 am (both local time).

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Image:

India Daily

Tags: China Eastern Airlines, India, Kolkata, tourism, travel

Aside from discovering that Kunming has its first Bangladeshi restaurant we also found this little gem buried at the end of this story about Yunnan in the Indian magazine Frontline:

'Finally, the Yunnan government is prevailing upon China Eastern airlines to start flights between Kunming and New Delhi/Kolkata before the end of this year.'

Our source at China Eastern Airlines have confirmed that direct flights from Kunming to New Delhi/Kolkata will be launched soon. Rather than the end of this year, however, our source said the flights would be initiated in 'early 2007'.

It seems hard to imagine direct air links with India not having a major impact on Kunming. The precedent that comes to mind is Shanghai, which experienced a significant influx of Indian residents (and restaurants!) as well as business and leisure travelers from India after launching direct flights to New Delhi/Kolkata in 2003. Although it is less dynamic than Shanghai or Beijing, Kunming should be an interesting alternative to China's megacities for Indian businesspeople and tourists.

On the other side of the coin, Kunming residents have a lot to gain from going to India. In 1999, China-India trade totaled US$2 billion. In 2005, it reached US$18 billion. Major business opportunities between China and India are just beginning to emerge, with the most-connected cities standing to benefit the most.

Business aside, India's rich culture and history plus its natural beauty should prove a major lure for Chinese tourists. Hopefully greater interaction between these two Asian giants via trade and tourism will foster greater trust and cooperation between these distant neighbors.

Tags: China Eastern Airlines, India, Kolkata, New Delhi, travel