User profile: Tom69

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > to Yuanyang and Xishuangbanna

Most Asian countries (probably even all) and that will most certainly include China, currently have or will have, an insurance requirement when they first reopen. It isn't just Thailand. Cambodia has such a requirement (the Thai requirement will be lowered to US$50000 coverage starting November 1, down from the present US$100000), so does Singapore, where the coverage required is just S$30000 (strange for such an expensive country that the limit is lower than in Thailand and Cambodia).

In any case, insurance requirements alone won't deter too many people. Chinese, Thais etc. have required insurance to get a European Schengen visa for touristic purposes for years.

For me it's the vaccination and testing requirements that will put me off travel for the foreseeable future. Not to mention the likely imposition of a short quarantine period (probably for one night). I can totally see the authorities waiting for travelers at the destination station and bringing them to their pre-booked accommodation where they will be tested and they will have to wait until negative results are obtained. I'm sure this will be the system when borders first re-open. After a few months, they'll probably scrap this and revert back to a more normal entry scheme.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > to Yuanyang and Xishuangbanna

Any word on whether the train will carry passengers into Laos? Haven't heard either Laos or China agreeing to lift quarantine anytime soon, and parts of Laos are still under lockdown (for example Luang Prabang).

I don't see that changing in just 6 weeks from now.

I've heard people say that the train will only be for freight at the beginning. Now it appears that passengers will be allowed aboard but I suspect ONLY for the domestic component on either side of the border. If you're coming from Kunming, I'd imagine you would have to alight at either Mengla or Mohan station, with only freight permitted to cross the border for the time being.

I anticipate full service to begin sometime in 2022, as land borders reopen. Since Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and even Myanmar have announced tentative reopening schedules, I suspect Laos will be under pressure to reopen around the same time and the same can be said for China (despite previously stating that the country won't reopen before mid-2022). China may have to abandon it's current "zero Covid" policy for that to happen though.

According to the Bangkok Post, the Thai-Lao land border should reopen starting on January 15, 2022, but I expect it will involve much more than just arriving with your passport and visa like before Covid. I can't see China having any looser requirements in place.

In fact, I'd imagine that a passenger getting on this train will need to be fully vaccinated and may also need a negative Covid test. Once the Lao-China border re-opens, both of these requirements (or at least vaccination alone) will be mandatory, certainly at the beginning.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Gokunming-Where have all the foreigners gone

JR305, I totally understand your sentiment. I left China a few years ago, although I have continued visiting regularly for business, up until not too long before Covid.

I remember seeing the signs posted on Chinese businesses refusing entry to foreigners, especially people of African descent in the early days of Covid. Such stories went viral on the Shanghaiist and other foreign media. Although these signs seemed to disappear after around the middle of 2020, I think the writing was definitely already on the wall.

I'll always be fond of China, especially Kunming and rural areas of Yunnan, which I'm most familiar with. That being said, although I have some great friends there, most of whom are locals, I find it can be a lonely place to be, if you're staying long-term. Most foreigners come and go. Few remain long-term, other than those married to locals and who own businesses such as restaurants and bars.

Chinese apartments can be nice, but what would be nicer is a big house with a large yard, something that is almost impossible to find in any Chinese city, where 99% of people now live in some sort of apartment and the 1% well to do in a townhouse that is kind of a glorified apartment.

While I haven't faced what you have when I was living in China, I did experience some minor cases of racism here and there. This was especially apparent when I was with another Chinese or Asian woman similar or younger in age to me. One time in Yuxi, south of Kunming, my female Chinese friend was called a whore by a jealous local dude. Even though I felt like hitting the guy, I don't think that would have been a good idea!

I was also verbally abused by an elderly Chinese couple once in a Kunming shopping mall back around 2011.

Other than that, I get the feeling that a lot of locals look down on us as simply being English teachers with few other skills. In nearly every interaction I've had with Chinese, I was stereotyped as an English teacher even though I'm not.

Although there are certain complaints made by expats living in SE Asia that are similar; for the most part, experiences are much more positive than those of China. There are more foreigners in SE Asia, English is more widely spoken and a lot of things look more familiar to us than what we'll find in China.

Going forward, I'd love to visit China again once the borders reopen. I'll gladly visit once or twice a year. I don't know if I'd want to live there again though, even though there are some charming aspects of life that I miss. I love the western cafes like A slice of heaven and the French cafe and similar ones in places like Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-la. The backpacker hostels are quite luxurious and their proprietors very nice people. I don't stay in such places anywhere else but China. The landscapes are fabulous and the diversity and richness of the food is almost unparalleled anywhere.

In other words, China is fantastic for travel and short-term business, but not that great as a place to live.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Gokunming-Where have all the foreigners gone

@livinginchina, that occurred to me long ago. Covid is the perfect excuse for governments to keep populations under their grip. Indeed, many countries' GDP is based largely on tourism such as the Maldives. Although they're kind of open, when you have quarantine in the reverse direction (as many places impose on returnees from there) the tourism industry can't be sustained and the entire economy is at stake.

While China doesn't have that problem and it's domestic tourism industry, though large, is mainly made up of domestic visitors, being a hermit kingdom isn't going to do any country any good.

In a globalized community, we need the whole world to go back to normal, not just a few countries (such as Denmark).

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Gokunming-Where have all the foreigners gone

Exactly. I just hope the good times return soon. Seeing happy Chinese tourists traveling all over Asia and the world, and vice versa is how I want things to be like again. Splashing their money around.

I think maybe that will start to occur again during the second half of 2022 if China eases off it's "zero Covid" policy, which is shared by Australia and New Zealand. Then by 2023, things might finally start to look pretty normal again.

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The article mentions the planned "Kunming-Laos-Thailand" railway. My understanding is that line has been delayed numerous times and it is currently unclear if construction has already begun or when it will begin. Even if it has, as the author of this article eludes to, it does not necessarily mean that once it reaches the Lao border that it will be able to continue inside the country. I suspect that if things don't go according to plan, then at least there will be a line down to Jinghong as that won't be affected by any change of plans.

And as for an extension into Thailand, this would be even further off. The current government there has not made a commitment to using Chinese technology to build the Thai line - in fact, recent announcements suggest that initially, there won't even be a link to Nong Khai on the Thai-Lao border, connecting to the Kunming-Vientiane line, but rather, only a Bangkok-Phitsanulok line (which is part of the Bangkok-Chiang Mai line) and Bangkok-Nakorn Ratchaseema (less than half way to Nong Khai) and also a Bangkok-Pattaya-Rayong line. Only the second line would connect to the Kunming-Laos line, but according to the Thai government's plans, this would be many years off as the Bangkok-Pattaya line is the first one likely to be constructed.

Of course this article is about the newly opened Yuxi-Mengzi line, but I just wanted to point out that in the absence of any definitive news on the Kunming-Laos line, I wouldn't jump to conclusions about anything happening on that line so far. Even the Vientiane Times, which has talked about progress on this project in the past has had very little to say since last October, when it claimed a new agreement on this line was reached with China.

@bluppfisk, as clearly indicated in the article and the replies, you must be in transit to a third country not on a simple return ticket. For example, Hong Kong via Kunming to Kathmandu, Seoul via Kunming to Kolkata or Bangkok via Kunming to Mandalay. In the latter case, a stopover in Kunming would only make sense if you really had business to do in Kunming, but this new visa-free transit stay will allow you to enter China via Kunming for a short period without needing to apply for a visa. As more destinations are added to Kunming's airport, it will become more attractive as a stopover destination. Rumours suggest that next year, Sydney will be served by a direct flight from Kunming, which would mark the first non-stop, direct flight from Kunming to an intercontinental destination. If this happens, then flying via Kunming to say, Kolkata, Mandalay, Yangon or Kathmandu, all destinations not served from Australia and generally few other non-regional cities will open up another option to stopover in Kunming for some travellers.

The problem with this policy is it is too limited. China is trying to woo international travelers to it's shores this way by promoting a 3-day stopover, but the problem is that compared to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and even Hong Kong SAR, all of which offer lengthy visa-free stays of at least 30 days and up to 90 days for some nationalities, China's policy is so limited in scope and the requirements are so specific that many would be travelers under this policy are likely to give China a miss. Indeed for any trip from Australia to Europe for example, I would always fly either via Thailand or Singapore and would never consider China as a stopover, even with attractive airfares.

While Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou can get some traffic under these rules since they are hubs for airlines such as Air China, China Eastern and China Southern, respectively, with the exception of Hainan Airlines which also has a second hub in Beijing, very few other airlines and no foreign airlines use any mainland Chinese cities as transit hubs for their flights from say, Australia or SE Asia to Europe - indeed, there is no need and previous stringent visa requirements made such plans unlikely to ever be implemented. Even under the current terms, Virgin Atlantic is much better off using Hong Kong as a transit stop on it's Sydney to London flight, for example. This is in addition to Cathay Pacific and previously Qantas, which now uses Dubai as it's transit hub.

The policy would be much better implemented if the requirements were: must only be in possession of a round-trip ticket say Kuala Lumpur-Guangzhou-Kuala Lumpur, Sydney-Shanghai-Sydney or Los Angeles-Beijing-Los Angeles or even Sydney-Shanghai-Melbourne, rather than an onward ticket to another destination and a 1 or 2 week visa free period were implemented instead, even if it only allows limited travel in the same province or 1-2 adjacent provinces.

In the case of Kunming, it is highly unlikely that there would be a reasonable number of travelers using the policy for onward travel, since few airlines use Kunming as a hub - a traveler flying from say Bangkok to Seoul could use Kunming as a transit stop under this policy flying China Eastern but this would be rather inconvenient as direct, non-stop flights would be far cheaper (besides, there are like half a dozen operators flying the route anyway) - I don't think there would be any good deals available for flying via Kunming either, maybe via Shanghai but definitely not Kunming, which would likely require the purchase of 2 separate tickets. For all other possible combinations, separate tickets would need to be purchased thus driving up ticket costs and making Kunming an unattractive hub, unless the government and airlines can work together to implement a more attractive policy.

Still, I think if the implementation of this policy is a step towards some kind of future visa-free travel policy for foreign travelers, then bring it on. However, China would be wise to learn from the examples of the SE Asian countries (including Hong Kong SAR) I have mentioned, as they have earned billions of dollars in valuable foreign exchange from their open visa policies.

Thanks Dazzer, but irrespective of who you are, if you commit a crime you need to be held accountable. This guy could have said he is the most powerful person in China, that doesn't make it so, it's all hearsay. Most people wouldn't recognize him for anything other than his behavior. Of course, in this instance he was arrested, but I think it was disturbing that it took longer than the length of this video for that to happen - bystanders just watched him destroy thousands of dollars worth of property. Half the damage could have been avoided if he was pinned down more quickly. The thing is, people like this guy represent security threats. Of course, it's better this happened on the ground than in the air, because I can assure you that nobody would have let this guy have a tantrum up in the air - he would have been pinned down quite quickly.

What I don't understand is why this guy wasn't immediately pinned down by officers at the first moment he smashed a computer. Instead, everyone including the police just watched, behind the safety of a line. I can guarantee you in virtually every other country on Earth, the second someone destroys even the smallest airport property, half a dozen police or security officers will come and make an arrest. I didn't see any evidence of an arrest even at the end of the video, more than 2 minutes after Yan smashed the first computer.

I used to be told that if you do even the smallest bad thing in China such as stealing a loaf of bread, you'll be immediately arrested and locked up almost indefinitely. It seems that those people who told me those things were quite wrong - it seems like you can do almost anything before you actually get arrested.

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