I have a one year multi-entry tourist visa with 120 day entries whose "enter before" date is in about a month. As far as I understand I can exit China and re-enter the next day, and as long as that is before the "enter before" date, I get another 120 days.

First, just to sanity-check, my understanding is correct, right? I have done my research but I've also heard that sometimes officials mis-read the "enter before" date as a "expires on" date.

Second, has anyone heard of difficulties re-entering in a situation like this? Any border issues, in general or specific to certain border crossings? Anything I should think about? e.g. would border guards get fussy because you're re-entering within a few days of the last entry date? Would they get confused, per above?

Third, I wanted to know where people usually go when they need to do a visa run. Remember I do not need to visit a consulate/embassy (unless of course I should expect difficulties, per above).

Do folks just take a bus to the land borders of Vietnam, Laos, Burma, etc? What kind of time/transportation cost is involved? Are there known cheap international flights from Kunming on reliable airlines? The cheapest roundtrip flights I see on Kayak are about $240 USD to Hong Kong.

I may be interested in staying wherever I go for a few days up to a week, since I'll be going through the effort and expense to get there, but it's not necessary.

Thanks for the help!
Matt

Yep, your right about your visa (as far as I can tell, without actually looking at it!).

The authorities won't care if you leave for 10 minutes and then come back in, let alone a few days, so don't worry about that. However, they may require that you have a visa for your place of entry before letting you OUT of the country. This is necessary for citizens of most countries that go to Vietnam, but not for some going to Laos. Check your visa requirements for travelling on the passport you have.

I recommend Sapa in Vietnam for a reasonably cheap and easy place if you want to go somewhere to visit that's fairly nice. Its not that hard to get to (a bus ride to Hekou, cross the border, then a ride up the hill to Sapa) and fairly pleasant. You need to take USD with you when going there but they can be obtained before you go. Getting a visa at the Vietnam consulate in Kunming isn't that hard either and reasonably priced.

www.gokunming.com/en/blog/item/2818/getting_away_sapa
www.gokunming.com/[...]

There are various threads on GoKunming about this already, recommend you search.

Just make sure you count the days correctly. Entry date counts as day 1.

No China/Burma land crossing is available. You can fly into Burma with a visa.

I recrossed China/Laos at Mohan without entering Laos. I exited and pretty much just walked right back to the re-entry. However, upon re-entry I did get a bit more questioning, but I was allowed to re-enter. It might of been because I was on the very last day (90th for me)

You could consider these entry/exit points also; Shenzhen has multiple land borders with HK. Xiamen has a ferry to Taiwan. You could fly to Macau or Bangkok.