China Discovery Tour: KUNMING (Yunnan Province)

3 March 2026

The two hour flight from Vientiane to Kunming was with China Southern Airways, our first exposure to a Chinese airline and we were duly impressed – efficient, friendly, punctual. Kunming Airport was huge, it was like being in the middle of a gigantic airplane hangar. We  passed through Chinese Immigration without a hitch and were relieved when our Chinese Uber App – Didi - worked first time, so that we could book a ride into town. We were off to a good start.

It was then however that things went quite rapidly downhill. We had booked into a Chinese hotel (the charming Pillowstone, complete with courtyard and traditional Chinese decor), wanting a full hands-on Chinese experience, but we could only communicate with the staff through a translator app. We tried to explain that the room they had allocated to us - directly over a Night Market in full swing - was a little loud. They changed it to a quieter one, except that being a smart room (as we would later discover was the case in many hotels in China), all the commands were in Chinese.

But that was the least of our problems. Our VPN App did not work, so there was no longer any access to FB, Google or WhatsApp. More importantly, we could not use Alipay (the Chinese App used for most on-line  payments in China) because each time we used it they needed to verify with our bank first that our card was valid. However, Revolut did not work either. In short, we could not buy or pay anything or use any search engine to plan our activities. We kicked ourselves for not ensuring that we had a China-compatible VPN network and for the first few nights, we felt quite isolated behind that giant Chinese firewall.     

Things gradually got better. A friendly staff member at our hotel brought us to a China Mobile shop downtown to purchase a SIM card; we took out cash at an ATM and later, were able to link Alipay to a different bank. We also started using a Chinese search engine Baidu, which also displayed some content in English.

Kunming is a major cultural, tourism  and transportation hub and home to well over 8 million people. Known as the “City of Eternal Spring”  for its mild year-round temperate climate, it is renowned for its scenic spots, diverse ethnic minority culture and role as a gateway to Southeast Asia.

We had not planned to stay very long there, just two nights. The first day was spent at Yunnan Ethnic Village, which showcases Yunnan’s 25 ethnic minority groups and Gunadu Ancient Town, featuring historic temples and traditional local stores. Our second day was spent on a tour to the impressive Stone Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage site  with stunning karst formations. We enjoyed the warm spring weather and viewing the local sakura (cherry tree blossoming).

Despite its size and number of inhabitants, we never felt submerged in the huge metropolis and probably would have stayed there a little longer if we had not already booked our next stop, a 2 hour high speed train to Dali.

Kunming had a nice laid-back provincial vibe and we never came across any other foreigners the whole time we were there (except at the Stone Forest). It has not yet been discovered by the international travel set and that is probably why we liked it. It was China at its most authentic and absolutely not geared to foreign tourists at all.