User profile: Tom69

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Chinese National going to Thailand Overland Issues

The Thai ministry of foreign affairs website should be able to tell you whether or not a 15-day visa can be granted on arrival at land crossings for Chinese nationals, however, also remember that your girlfriend will probably need a visa to enter Laos and this may need to be arranged in advance for her, but not for most other nationalities as a visa-on-arrival is available for Americans, other western nationals and most ASEAN member states get a free one month permission to stay in Laos.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Chinese National going to Thailand Overland Issues

Not sure about arriving overland for Chinese nationals, but I know that Chinese nationals can get a 15-day on arrival visa for 1000 Baht at airports only I believe. Therefore, it may be necessary to get a 60-day tourist visa from the consulate in Kunming if your girlfriend wants to stay longer than 15 days since those visas are non-extendable I believe. I don't think it is really necessary to produce a return or round-trip air ticket but each consulate has its own rules, and for Chinese nationals they will probably enforce such rules more rigorously than for other foreigners.

A return bus ticket is probably not of much use, as I never heard of this being accepted or even heard of anyone purchasing a cross-border return bus ticket, I think it has to be a plane ticket - but do check to confirm.

China Eastern has 3 weekly flights from Kunming to Chiang Mai. Otherwise, Thai flies 5 times weekly from Kunming to Bangkok with connections to Chiang Mai.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Dali to Myanmar

The Burmese do allow vehicles into their country - but mainly from Mae Sai in Thailand. I have asked about this and it is indeed possible. Even non-Thai foreigners have managed this, but driving a Thai vehicle of course. It does require lots of permits and money to pay for these permits along the way aswell, but I have seen a personal account of a foreigner who did this - I can't remember the website, but it's easily searchable by googling it. There are restrictions and you can't go everywhere you want either. I think it may only be possible to drive from Tachilek (opposite Mae Sai in Shan State) to near the Chinese border and back.

From China, the conditions and restrictions may be very different. Myanmar is a fascinating but also very strange country with some of the most bizzare laws in the world. You can definately drive your own Chinese car to the border at Ruili but as for progressing further into Myanmar you might want to enquire in Kunming or Ruili if anyone can help you further.

I think it's unlikely, or maybe you'll be permitted to take the car to the town across the border (Mu-Se or something I think it's called) but no further, since that town is just an extension of China anyway (Chinese is spoken, most people are Chinese and Yuan are used). Then again, just being able to spend a day driving in a border town is probably not what you want so do enquire somewhere official that may be able to help you further as I can only comment on driving in Myanmar from Thailand.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Driving to Thailand

Do you mean that Laos used to drive on the left hand side of the road like Thailand? I don't think so. Laos has always driven on the right due to the French colonizing their country until 1945 although they officially gained independence in 1954 I believe it was.

Myanmar (Burma) used to drive on the left until 1970 until a fortune teller told the then leader to switch to the right to improve his karma or something. You can do a search on the internet and you can easily confirm what I just said.

You are right about Laos having many right-hand drive vehicles though. Many, if not most of these are from Thailand, but since Laos has legitimate car showrooms now, there's little reason to buy a Lao-registered right hand drive vehicle unless a particular model is not available in Laos these days.

I have stopped in many Lao villages between Vientiane and Vang Vieng along the way (driving a Lao vehicle) and they were a pleasure to pass through. People were friendly and helpful. Mind you, the only reason to stop would be for petrol/gasoline, a toilet break or buying some snacks to eat or stopping for a meal.

Don't drive at night because there's no lighting, you can't see the stray animals/kids/grandmas and grandpas etc. on the roads, dangerous overtaking/passing is prevelent and many vehicles drive without their lights on. No service stations would even be open at night either (all gas/petrol stations even in Vientiane close by 7 or 8pm, in the countryside possibly even earlier). Also, no sane local would drive at night outside the cities and yes banditry may be an issue on some routes though I think things are considerably safer these days. I would say the risk of driving at night comes more from the fact its extremely dangerous in terms of all the things described above - don't do it, just get up early and start driving again during the morning and you'll be fine.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > 2 week rental in BANGKOK?

My post may come a bit late since I just saw your post now, but for future reference, stay at one of the many hotel apartments that with signs in English and/or Thai as follows: Daily/Weekly/Monthly รายวัน/รายสัปดาห์/รายเดือน since they offer the best rates. Hotels away from the city are better value and may offer something similar.

If you want to save money stay away from touristy places such as Sukhumwit (with Sois numbering 40 or less) or Rajdamri etc. as they are expensive. Yes, you may have to sit in a cab for a while if you stay further away from the city, but if you can find a place to stay near an expressway on-ramp you're often not going to spend much more time traveling than if you were staying somewhere like Sukhumvit soi 11 as the above poster has suggested, even if distance wise it's much further but given the traffic in Bangkok I'd much rather stay further away and you'll probably save both money and yes, surprisingly even time....believe me, I know Bangkok as I've lived there for a while and I know that traveling 30km can sometimes be quicker than traveling just 3km depending on where you are in the city.

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@Alien, you are right about the nationalist "protecting our country from ....." part, which is indeed a smokescreen that most people still fall for.

As for the opposition that I referred to, the real patriots, liberty and freedom loving people etc. are generally not tied to any political party because they are able to think outside of the two party paradigm. Traditionally they probably thought of themselves as conservatives, however, these days not that much separates the democrats and republicans anymore as they both largely run the same agenda even if they use slightly different means of getting there. Libertarians would be closer, but even that's not specific enough as some Libertarian candidates aren't true enough to the core values of that brand if you will. "Conservative Libertarian" is perhaps the closest term that describes what I'm referring to. There are certainly Europeans who share these values, but far fewer than Americans.

As for the student who made the speech, it's hard to say exactly what she meant because I didn't hear her whole talk, only read this article. However, I suspect that she, like many others are successfully drawn into the whole ideology that students are taught at American universities and this not only made her worldview conform to these values, but she has probably been so convinced that these "progressive" values are what makes America great and what China should strive for.

@Peter99, LOL. Yeah nihilism seems to have replaced any sort of sense of self-worth, self-preservation or pride in one's being, culture and overall values in Europe. It's disturbing, though sad more than anything. At least China still clings onto most of these things. Not that everything traditional about say Chinese culture is good, or that change should be rejected at all costs, but preserving the most important cultural values and having at least some sense of history and identity is important. Otherwise I think there's not much purpose to life.

@Peter99, 100% agree with you. It's insane the way things are going now in Europe, in many ways it's even worse than in the USA because you have almost no conservative opposition in Europe. The patriotic, freedom loving revolutionary spirit is still strong in the US, but it's fading fast in Europe.

China and most parts of East Asia are a refreshing change, which makes living here so refreshing, in many ways. At least that's been my experience over the years.

@Alien, you make an excellent point but the US is not making wars/regime change for nationalist purposes. It's actually for the exact opposite reason, which is to advance the interests and pockets of multinational corporations like Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin big oil companies and many others (and of course the big banks and big oligarchs) for whom nationality and patriotism is meaningless.

I am absolutely 100% opposed to all imperalistic US-led actions since the late 1800s, all these wars were unnecessary and have brought with them untold misery.

I used to buy all that bull about China being a "dictatorship" whenever the NY Times, The Washington Post or The Economist used to bring it up in my younger days, but I've since become much wiser now that I can predict their writing style in my sleep. Hence why I now frown every time I read a story similar to this one - the writing style, the things said are always pretty much the same.

Globalism is relevant here, because it's the dominant ideology that is being force fed down our throats, at least in the west for the past few decades. Just because the media, popular culture and western governments like to force us to accept that crap doesn't mean it should be considered the 'norm' or 'good', which is why I object to people dissing nationalism, without being objective by also criticizing the left's tactics because to me it is a blatant double standard. You would have made a better point if you had correctly pointed out "ultra-nationalism" as being the problem here, which is quite prevalent amongst a significant proportion of the Chinese population and explains the negative reactions of many Chinese netizens to this student's speech.

From the responses here, I can see many GoKunming posters still have their wits about them, but I can guarantee you back in the west you have to assume everyone is a liberal when they only attack speech that is contrary to their worldview.

This student's speech was a sort of subtle way of dissing her country. While it may be a bit excessive for her countrymen to criticize her for correctly pointing out that China has air pollution problems (which would suggest that a Chinese person can't even slightly criticize their homeland), I think what really got Chinese netizens fuming is the claim that there is complete freedom of speech and freedom in general in America but none in China, which is a typical tactic employed by western propagandists trying to make China look bad. I call complete bull on that. You have freedom of speech in America that is protected by the 1st amendment of the constitution, but in practice, there are many places (such as most universities) or situations where anything other than left-wing, liberal, SJW speech is not welcome. Anything of a conservative or libertarian nature is criticized, ridiculed, taken out of context, dismissed etc. and to pretend there's complete freedom of speech in America in 2017 when you have both active and passive censorship taking place is ludicrous. It's also not true that there is absolutely no freedom of speech in China. Yes there are a few things you have to be very careful talking about - but I find it's possible to talk about the vast majority of topics with Chinese people, many of which I would only carefully raise with a westerner or even avoid altogether unless I knew said individual very well. The other thing is when I talk to Chinese people about these topics, sometimes they even bring them up themselves, nobody gets offended, but they relish in the lively discussion.

Another example are publications like The Shanghaiist, the Global Times etc. all allow unfiltered comments of any type to fill their comments sections - some newspapers in the States like the NY Times will delete unfavorable ones. Let's not forget Facebook, or should I say "censorbook", which is increasingly employing the same kind of tactics. Hmm. Double standard much?

Yes, something like that but I think you've misinterpreted my point. I was trying to say that extreme viewpoints on either side of the spectrum are problematic as evidenced by my examples contrasting two ideological opposites that have resulted in largely the same outcomes (violence, rioting, property damage, vandalism etc.) It's always best to reach a conclusion somewhere in the middle by considering both angles to a story. Being perpetually offended by playing the victim card is stupid, but so too is deliberately antagonizing someone or something else.

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