User profile: AlexKMG

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > beihai or sanya?

Stay in a highly rated hostel and dodge where the Russians hang out.

Like TICexpats noted, some tour guides are minor level thugs, so don't get between them and there clients.

It's China beaches, so forget any visions of wide open freedom. The best beaches are all controlled, and the public ones have swimming boundary areas and lifeguards who blow whistles at you.

There was a very nice hot spring in Sanya, but since Yunnan has plenty of hot springs, save it for a rainy/bad day.

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Forums > Food & Drink > Wild mushrooms

I remember when I was cycling through Naxi and Yi minority mountains during summer, there were lots of mushroom pickers trekking about. I stopped in a shack to have some hot instant noodles, and inside was a very large vat of boiling water with mushrooms. The water in that vat looks like it had been boiling mushrooms for a long time, very brown and thick with spores. Seems the mushroom pickers dumped the mushrooms into that vat to cook for a while, before selling them.

Why and how long, I wasn't able to figure out. They just said they did that before selling them. That leaves a lot of guessing. I thought boiling mushrooms would be considered cooking them for a meal and not some step in preparing them for sale. Of course, it was only one type of mushroom in that vat, so maybe it's specific to that mushroom.

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Forums > Food & Drink > DaJiuJia 大救驾 - Where to eat in KM?

Most of the chao erkuai I have had in Kunming is smothered in heavy salty sugary brown sauce and oil. The picture in the article of dajiujia looks much lighter. Your right though, cooking yourself is best.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Changing money in Kunming

I have exchanged USD cash at a Bank of China teller window in Kunming. There was a lot of paperwork required, and cash rate wasn't particulary good.

The airport arrival floor has another fx currency booth at the end close to the information counter.

CRS machines have higher limits than ATM, but since foreign cards are capped at 3k or less, it usually doesn't matter, unless it's ICBC.

ATMs are the way to go for safety, and between ICBC, CCB, and BOC, you can usually find one in any town. However, many banks in the USA require you to notify them of international travel plans for security reasons, or the card could be declined. Not sure what stance NZ banks have on that.

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Forums > Food & Drink > Kunming Chinese Food

Spicy is ok, as long as they aren't trying to hide poor quality oil/ingredients. I'll give it a try this week. Also, going to see if the dajiujia exists in KM.

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Reviews

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Never gotten sick once at Sals. Their food is TexMex, so yeah, not authentic Mexican food, but pretty authentic as TexMex goes. Burrito wrap has improved a lot. Like the draft beer option now.

If you haven't had dairy products in a while, and do eat here, best forgo the sour cream. Nothing wrong with it, in fact it's the best sour cream in Kunming, but if you've eaten Chinese for month or months with no dairy intake, your system will react to sour cream or probably any liquid dairy product not so well. Maybe that's what happened with nailer and tallamerican.

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Update:

It's now 5 working days for regular processing. So I submitted my application a bit before 5pm on a Friday and was told to pick it up next week Friday after 5pm.

Cost is now 400rmb for a single 30 day entry. Or that was what I was charged anyways. There are no posted prices and its cash only with no receipt except for your passport pickup. That's like $65 USD.

You can pay another 150rmb for 2 day or 100rmb for 3 day processing. For 400rmb, they should process it in three days like they used to before, but now you'd pay 500rmb. The office is still like deserted most of the time, so why does it take longer now and cost extra. If you opted for 2 day, thats like $90 usd. All other neighboring countries charge like $25usd.

The rest of and cope review is still good for hours and location.

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Far out, less people. Big enough to get lost in. Pretty and quiet near dusk. 20yuan entrance fee.

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Like everyone else says, best Indian food in Kunming. They have lunch plates and dinner plates. Show up before 1pm for lunch.

They are on the 4th floor of the half empty shopping mall. Best way is too take the elevator past the KFC around the corner from Starbucks.

Most individual dishes can feed only two hungry guys, so order more if you are starving. Naan order can take care of one only.

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Five stars for the food. Go with Yereth's recommendations, plus any vegetable the waitress says is fresh.

Beware that Xue Fu lu is one way, so many taxis have to take a roundabout way to get here.