For those of you who have arrived more recently to China, some of you may not know what a place Yunnan/China was in the early 2000's. How much good energy, spirit and dreams there were. A natural curiosity everywhere, everything being alive, and with spontaneous joy. This all created a very unique and vibrant atmosphere - almost like a drug. Its over the years that something started to change here, and China is a very different place now, compared to then. Not so long ago. And it all changed quite fast, not at all, everything negative, there were many good things changing too, and people in general wanted change.

Is this something of a topic? Many of us who experienced Kunming in early 2000 - and the spirit back then - find it a very strange place today.

Any comments out there?

Point to write this was just to say that for those that have arrived recently may not be aware of this. Many people who passed by Kunming, say in 2001, and planned to stay only two days ended up staying two years or more, so captivating place it was.

Any old timers on this forum left? Any thoughts?

Off the top of my head: here were few foreign-run bars or restaurants, few western foreigners, and we mostly all knew each other, ran into each other in The Box, Salvador's, Speakeasy, Wei's Pizzeria, the Camel. Eating out usually meant Chinese, likely up & down Wenlinjie or Wenhua xiang, cheap. The Hump was then an interesting place for parties and to hang out, and there was activity at Nordica. Wicker Basket had (and has) good bread. A lot of the westerners here were here simply because they found they liked it, and got jobs, or not, as they could. A larger percentage of them, perhaps, spoke reasonably good Chinese. I can't remember any Americans who would have voted Republican - well, maybe one guy - among Brits, there was one Tory; the Italians were all passively or actively culturally radical, and politically too, more or less; I doubt if any of the few Aussies were conservative. There were very few private cars in Kunming, so transportation was more convenient - bicycles, buses, no traffic jams or rush hour, few stoplights as they pretty much were not needed. The air was cleaner, and there wasn't so much construction going on all the time, and fewer modern high-rises, etc. Rents were, of course, cheaper, and most westerners lived in 7-floors-maximum xiaoqus. There was a lot less complaining about local customs, food, etc. Nobody had much money but everybody got by. A lot fewer marriages between western foreigners and Chinese -

a lot of the westerners were in their twenties. Beers were about 7 kuai in a bar - all Chinese beers, the first foreign beer I remember, with alcohol content all of 5%, was Beer Lao, which arrived maybe 2005. Nobody bought bottled water that I can remember. I don't remember anybody whose bottom line was to make money. Some people arrived from foreign countries after months on bicycles, and some of these people are still here. There was no Walmart, Metro or Carrefour until, maybe, 2005, and nobody missed them. People did not fly around in airplanes or go 'home' so often, and if they went south of the border anywhere they probably went by bus. There were a few foreign/western musicians, now there are more better ones, but the ones then were friends and were often hilariously insane.
There's been a lot of Progress since then, and some of the Progress has indeed been improvement - e.g., local economy is now better - but I remember it as having been more fun.

I arrived in Xiamen in 2005 and met my future wife who had been there since 1999. Gu Lang Yu, or "piano island", a well-known and over crowded tourist attraction now, used to be very quiet and charming. You could hop on any ferry to go there and coming back was only 1rmb. Now you have to wait in long lines to buy a ticket there and the place is packed. Never in my life have I seen a city grow so much and so quickly as Xiamen. And it's still growing like crazy.

My wife and I first visited LiJiang, via Kunming, in 2006. We loved both places, especially LiJiang. It too has grown since then.

Now I work in GZ. It's just way too frickin' big for me. Gargantuan growth as far as the eye can see.
But when your country has 1.3 people, many more of them prospering in the last 20-30 years, you can expect change.

Also Kunming: no 2nd ring road up in the sky, or much of any of the rest of that mess. Very few ebikes.

Yea. I used to live on Cuihu South Road with two room appartment for 650/Yuan a month. I cant even imagine what it would cost today. I boiled that water too and the mixian down the street was 2 yuan a bowl. You got a bread for 50 mao if you wanted extra. Money was no issue, you could even dig out some coins under the sofa and live on them a week. My ATM card broke and made it with 30 yuan for a week, until a new arrived with express. Besides that people were paying your bill all the time, and being foreigner you had free food in places and as much beer as you wanted.

One thing I recall is the markets. Everywhere small markets. Sounds, smells, and so much energy going on. Down drom Wenlin Jie there was this huge street market with frogs on the street. In Jinbi area the second hand clothes. The farmer market. The second hand market. And so on. You just walked out into all this energy.

Thats how I ended up in Kunming, walked out of the Kunming train station on the way to Laos, and there was just something very very special about the place.

Virtually no back cards for Chinese bank accounts, and if you had one there was virtually no place to use it, especially if you traveled away from Kunming.
Weed was all wild.
The Dali scene was better, more laid back, friendlier, not as overrun by tourists as now, though that had started. Jinghong did not have all the new crap expensive hotels etc. along the river, but it took a lo-ong busride to get there. Probably 2 days by bus to Hekou.

Yea, 22 hours to Jinghong on a very bad road, still in 2003. The new road was ready around 2004, the old one was one sliding those slopes up and down mountains, maybe the old tribute road to Laos. And you knew you were approaching Jinghong when the temperature in that crap bus started reaching 50 degrees celcius, combined with the odor of sweat. I wonder if ever made it down there without at least one of the bus's tire broke on the journey. You got so used to these breaking tires, you knew its about 1hour rest always extra.

It was much drier, as Kunming was suffering from a drought. So much so that one year the airport runway was cracking due to the earth shrinking underneath the tarmac.
Camelia hotel on Dongfangdonglu was a good place to stay, with the AoMa (I think was the name) bar on the corner of DongfangDonglu and Baita lu.
No one had even thought of the DiTie, the bird market was still thriving and a great place for buying cheap and cheerful tatt. Most places to eat were closed at 9pm. Very little shaokao compared with today. Did they even have draft beer here then?
Spending hours trawling through thousands of DVDs in the many DVD stores around the city. There was even one next door to the police station on Wenhua Xiang.
Paul's Shop, when it was one of the few places to buy import groceries. Otherwise you went hunting for things we consider staples now, like cheese, or even muesli.

Having to pay 20-30rmb for imported beer in Carrefour and being so grateful to see it that you never complained.
Fiddling around with pay as you go mobiles and dodgy international phone cards and IP cards.
Very few people trusted Taobao.

Anyone remember when first McDonalds opened, and the huge queue? Its circled for hundreds of meters on renmin zhonglu. You had all these rumors going on McDonalds is coming to town and it seemed it was all false. Suddenly they came and it was like the first airplane had arrived to Yunnan. Thats around 2003.

it was months before i bothered going