It's the bit on the chinese side, which "will reduce the travel time from Kunming to Bangkok by half, to about 20 hours."

This would appear to make the journey doable by sleeper bus - while we wait for Air Asia to get their act together. But is such a service up & running yet?

See story here:
news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/21/content_7835756.htm

Sounds like the road's set to be finished in 2008. See:
www.kln.gov.my/perwakilan/kunming/news/578

If Chinese tourism board expect more tourists to visit Kunming they must first ban those chinese smokers on the coache,they got to aware most of the tourists from Singapore,Malaysia,Thailand and some other countries are non-smokers,also,the sleeper coach is not suitable for travelling in the day or they can follow Thailand to use the 24 seats Vip class and charge with a higher fare,this way tourists from those countries can get use to it.

The worst thing I want to ask is that; why the public toilets have no door ? and no flush system with the worst hygiene that scare off many users from all over the world.

Does the authority feels no ashame when they hear the complain for such a long time?

Here's a story on land transportation between China & SE Asia from the IHT: www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/30/asia/road.php?page=2

The BKK - KUM highway help a lot to Laotians,they have no capital and the population is so low,with the Chinese investment that will be great influence to make livelihoods to increase their income,I have travelled along the highway few times,I will say Laos is a better place to invest than Thailand.