I'll say. It doesn't take a a leap of faith (maybe just a series of smaller leaps, and a well-secured front-pocket carry bag?) to realize: it's amazing what kind of gymnastics those Australians are capable of. I'm all for innovation across the pond, but they've clearly taken the lead here. The competitors are merely sheep.
China Eastern may be crap (and their website has massive security holes, too), but:
1. They fly direct to Paris and Chiang Mai, which nobody else does.
2. Their Tuodong Lu ticket office have a separate international section which is usually always vacant and makes booking more pleasant than usual.
Both Lijiang and Dali are awash with violence and gangs, often police are part of these networks. (Sources: Personal experiences, local business proprietors, long term residents).
Lijiang is widely known to have a high proportion of involvement by North East Chinese gangs, who are known China-wide for their thuggish nature and migrated there on mass about a decade ago.
It is unfortunate that China has such a relaxed attitude to local corruption.
Perhaps the telephones of police and those who interact with them regularly (eg. spouses, immediate family) should constantly be big-data (metadata) surveilled by the state to help detect corruption and create transparency.
In addition, any and all visitors to and interactions with high ranking police at their place of work should be video surveilled by out of province authorities. This is not technically difficult.
PS. When you get the bus to Guanlei from Jinghong consider overnight in Menglun, which has a fantastic tropical botanical garden. They also have really yummy mushroom mi gan (flat rice noodles) near the bus station.
I took it in about August last year.
The number of vessels depends heavily on the season (water level) and there isn't always a vessel waiting.
To be sure, you can call the immigration staff in Guanlei and they will tell you how many vessels are available, since arriving in Guanlei and having to wait a few days for a boat would not be much fun. It should cost about 300-400元/person for a private room with cooked meals included. It is a really nice trip.
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@nailer is being unfairly dismissed: they are certainly fallible. At one point they were well managed and the only game in town, and their outdoor bar had an interesting social vibe. Recently, none of these is the case (was given a bad bill to the tune of ~300% - no managers present and a subsequent complaint resulted in a less than ideal outcome, many more places are now open, and the outdoor bar is closed). Unless you are specifically seeking faux-Americana (often far better examples elsewhere) or two degrees removed faux-Mexicana, there's little reason to go there. How come French Cafe can serve a great sandwich for 24元 but Sals requires 50元 for a pretend-exoticized nibble? Certainly the business will continue, but the hey-dey is clearly gone. Romaniticizing the past aint gonna help. E-waste recycling by shipping (non carbon neutral) junk across the country? Puh-lease. Garbage processing people here recycle anyway! I applaud the ethical stance of one of the managers, but the place has frankly lost its mojo.
Hands down the best draft craft beer in Kunming. On top of that, very reasonable prices for food and other drinks (especially wine).
Called the number provided on a Friday at 2:15PM while a 10% discount was advertised "on Friday and Saturday" (listed in GoKunming specials).
A Chinese person answered the 'English' phone number in Mandarin then explained in broken English that you need to order 3 hours in advance. (Subtext: As their business is so slow)
Grumble. False advertising. Waste of time. Seems 100% Chinese run. Probably bad pizza.
The listing here is wrong! Teresa's are not defunct, they are just back to being one store instead of two stores on Wenlinjie now! They are still in business, still answer on this phone number, and are still delivering! Points for consistency, it's been years! As of right now, it's 68元 for the more toppings vegetarian at the largest size. They will do thin or thick crust. Yes, it's not to everyone's taste, but I always used to find adding dried chilli powder and some extra salt brought it up to tasty. Might go for a dash of Sichuan pepper oil to spice it up this time around. (You know you've been in China too long when...)
I also had a bad experience here recently.
Honestly, I wish them the best of luck, but I do think the staff are poorly managed and the owners have the wrong attitude and a clear lack of experience in service-oriented business. While the pizza is OK, everything else I have tried (including overnight stay) can be had cheaper and better elsewhere, and the pizza at Roccos is better in my opinion. The service has always fluctuated between acceptable to don't care.
Since they don't have their situation resolved yet, and it has been a few years, I have made the decision not to go there anymore or send anyone else. It's just not worth the hassle, given the crappy location (masked as private or lost). Better pizza with more quiet and privacy on Roccos' terraces.
Beijing green-lights Nu River dam
发布者They already have sluicing there. Make no mistake, these plans are for proper dams.
Around Town: Biking the trails of Changchong Mountain
发布者Nice bit of writing but a bit light on detail. I've ridden here on and off for years thanks to the Xiong Brothers so I should point out there are many routes up and down this mountain, almost all of them only suitable for mountain bikes.
The easiest and best climb is the one mentioned, basically as far north as you can go along the eastern edge of the mountain, past the cigarette factory, through a village and some older factories, and then turn left when you absolutely run out of trail. You wind up snaking up the north-eastern edge of the mountain. Traffic here can be a little heavy at times but there are some good spots to stop for views, and the killer feature is a restaurant at the top. It is a reasonable idea to eat or refill your water here before continuing, particularly if you want to summit or have people with you in less than stellar shape.
Opposite the restaurant is a village. Normally you just go up through this village, continue along the road, and hit another village. The aforementioned "not welcome" occurs at this point during part of the year. You can work around this issue by dragging your bike through fields some distance to the west.
In any event, passing the final village there are a few more fields before the mountain trails begin. There are two main trails in this northern portion, the westerly (more technical to begin with, better connected and the normal choice) and the easterly (less well trodden, less interesting, but offering a different view).
Both converge some distance to the south, as the dominant topography changes from open landscape to planted Australian wattle forests with their distinctive yellow flowers. A spot of denser forest then appears, which can be fun to tear through but has some very difficult little rocky corners... so watch out!
A road now bisects the mountain on the east/west axis. If you're wounded or a bike has given up you can choose to descent via a small road or a small trail, the latter being rather short and taking you down above a minor temple on the eastern slope. Note that proceeding further south along the mountain from that point will enter the military area (ie. don't).
Normally though, you head west a little then turn left (south) down a major fire trail which will be self-evident (if you continue you'll reach a place where you can also emerge if you've taken the eastern trail and stuck with it instead of going through the forest).
From here on, there's a reasonable period of wide road. Left (west) of this area, down through the sparsely-planed wattle forest, is an area of graves, some of which can be ridden. Locals sometimes collect undergrowth here. Normally though, you continue to a junction, where there is an option to drop down the the right (west-nor-west) on a major vehicular access fire trail. That descent isn't very exciting and leaves you essentially miles from anywhere, but does provide an alternate route up if you are lucky enough to live in the north-west of Kunming.
Continuing south instead, after a time you reach a small covered building on the right and a paved road descending left, U-turning and climbing right. Descending here is mainly boring and will take you out fairly close to town, through much roadwork of late. This is the main route by which new car drivers drag their posses up the mountain, which never used to be possible, but is a development that the government is apparently trying to facilitate. Climbing to the right, continue just a little and you will see the bare peak of Changchongshan. To climb it, turn left after descending slightly at the carpark. With a couple of steps near the end excepted, you can ride all the way to the summit, which offers a killer view and some serious high-altitude exercise!
If you instead continue directly straight south at the carpark, you reach a sort of wetland/depression area which seems far too convenient and conspicuous to be natural and might just have an ugly history. A path through there is not really accessible by MTB, but you can see the southern (far) side, where it is possible to connect from the summit to the trail you should probably take instead, to the west (ie. left) from the carpark. This trail is quite overgrown but is one of the best parts of the mountain. If you continue to the wider portion, when you climb the first small hill turn left (east) to reach some steps that allow you to access the summit peak (this is a good alternative for descending from the summit if you are cold, thirsty, hungry or short of time, since you can cut out some of the overgrown trail).
Following the trail south will descend along a fairly rocky and steep section to the westerly gateway of the military area, which is really not a hassle (I have never heard of people having problems here when descending) and lets you out in farmlands relatively close to town, behind the Yangxianpo / Huangtupo / Xuefulu area.
Farmers protest land grab south of Kunming
发布者Does Yunnan really need more modern Chinese corruption-money-millionaire visions of grand resorts? I have just been down at Chengjiang area and Fuxian lake is being destroyed by them as well. To say nothing of the land-hungry golf courses.
The government should halt land theft. This affects all of Kunming who will suffer increased pollution and poor health since fresh food will need to be transported from further afield, concrete runoff from more construction will further pollute Dianchi Lake, and the historical topography of the Dian kingdom becomes invisible to a cloud of northern Chinese skyscraper bling bullshit.
You should see how badly they've fucked up Jinghong, I'm surprised there haven't been riots or organized armed incursions from the Shan states.
Donglianhua: Muslim outpost on the Tea Horse Road
发布者Cool. Had heard great things about this area and was planning to visit. Definitely going now.
I can also recommend further south from that area around Jingdong/Jinggu .. putting in some time in that area will reveal some well preserved wooden and stone Dai Buddhist temples that are far older, grander-scale and more interesting than those easily found in Xishuangbanna (now destroyed with rubber-money). Particularly the valley west of Jinggu.
Also on the cards for Dali-region is Jizushan, or Chicken's foot mountain, a mountain that was famously praised in the Ming dynasty but rarely receives much attention today. That's north-east of Erhai.
Cycling the hills around Jiaozi Snow Mountain
发布者Nice area. I've only been up there by public bus and motorbike, about four years back, but also had a great time.
Really nice map there ... how'd you make the base-layer (ie. not the I-guess-it's-a-GPS red line?)