I'm looking for a hire car or someone to drive me and my family from Dali to Yuan Yang around the 24th February, going through the countryside.

If anyone knows of anyone in Kunming or Dali offering these kind of services any info would be great. Or if anyone has any experiences hiring cars around Yunnan, how was it? My dad reckons he can drive (hes never driven outside Europe but is experienced) but I'm not too sure...

Cheers

First of all, I do not think your dad, or anyone in your group would be allowed to drive in China, lacking a local driving permit. So your only option would be to hire a car with driver.

This should be no problem in Dali, but I hope you realize that you will need more than one day from Dali to Yuanyang if you are going through the 'countryside'. Taking the fastest road, i.e. the expressway from Dali to Kunming, then down past Yuxi to Jianshui, then to Gejiu, down to the Red River and up to Yuanyang will take no less than 10 hours, unless you are willing to break the speed limit in some major way. Going on anything other than that road will easily double the driving time.

But with that taken into account, you can certainly do a trip much more interesting than what most people do.
My suggestion for a route would be to drive from Dali to Chuxiong, where you turn south towards Shuangbai and then down to the Red River from there. The main town in that part is Yuanjiang, a relaxed county town. From there smaller roads can take you to Yuanyang, but the most direct route, along the Red River, was blocked between Yuanjiang and Honghe due to a dispute over who pays for a new road. For relaxed travel I would plan at least three days for this route.

My friend has a car that he could take you in and he can go wherever you want or can recommend places. Let me know if you want me to ask him.

we could offer this service for you, we arranged lots of tourists to trip to yuanyang, Jianshui for photos tour around the worldwide. please click here to the reference tour schedule for yuanyang. www.echinaromance.com/routes/ecr0121.htm