Coming Saturday I am flying to Calcutta (PVG-KMG-CCU).
At Kunming I have a six hours lay-over. Scheduled arrival time is just past 17:00, making it tempting to head into the city for dinner.

As I am a complete stranger to this city, I hope that some FT-er can point me in the right direction.

My plane to CCU is scheduled for departure at 23:50.

Thanks

I would go into town. A friend of mine spent the past 6 months there and had great things to say about the food and the bars. But, she said Lijiang was even nicer.

I can't imaging you have much time to do anything more than dinner. I'd pick a place and cab both ways directly. I have a few good places but need to ask someone for the names - will get back to you..

What type of food are you looking for? Just about 10 minutes north of KMG by taxi is an area with lots of restaurants that do wild mushrooms hot pots, and that's what many people from HK do when transiting KMG. But not sure if you're interested in those.

A bit more mainstream is a place for "Cross Bridge Rice Noodles" (过桥米线) that's attached to the Wal-Mart, also about 10 minutes north of airport by taxi. Easy to find. Huge bowl of rice noodles, with like 20 ingredients that they put into your bowl right at your table. And inexpensive.

KMG is one of the few places where the airport is in town. Go into town and check it out, or head west and take the cable car up for great pano views of the city. But don't underestimate traffic back to the airport.

KMG is just like any other big Chinese cities, I'm afraid. U just have time to grab a meal and back to airport, given the hours u have.

We're talking about 6 hours. Assuming 30 minutes in each direction, plus 1 hour to check in for onward flight, that still leaves 4 hours to spare.

Not forgetting he's arriving/leaving the airport during rush hour traffic. And most int'l departures require 2 hour early check-in.

In Kunming? I find that hard to believe, given the fact that 1 hour is the standard for every airport I've used in China apart from PEK T-3 (because it is massive). ETA: chinatravelguide claims 30 minutes is the proper number for international departures from KMG.

Regarding traffic, according to wiki, KMG is a mere 4 km south of "metropolitan Kunming". Since I've never been there (yet) --I'm unable to verify this claim-- but, if it's remotely close to accurate, even Bangkok style traffic wouldn't be much of an issue. Furthermore, only the ride into town would take place during rush hour. I'd be willing to bet that Kunming's roads are not teaming with cars at 10p.

Uh, I don't think so. Where is your information coming from? Besides, assuming this is all on an MU ticket, he'll possibly already be checked in for his second segment at the origin in PVG, which would eliminate one step in the process when he returns to the airport. I'd definitely leave the airport with 4 useable hours to kill.

I was tempted to say the same, but since my gf was required to fetch a BP at PVG during her HIJ-PVG-BKK trip, I held back. In any case, 30 minutes is 30 minutes. Even if I didn't have (line jumping) status on boatloads of carriers, I'd be completely comfortable at showing up at T-35 (assuming T-30 is the true cut off time).

All these are moot points. I have travelled so often I could write a book on the Zen of Travel. About how foreigners hold up planeload of passengers simply because they can't read signs in Chinese, can't ask for directions in Chinese, had a fight with the cabby, went to the wrong end of the terminal and so on.

My advice is always this, be at the airport well ahead of time especially if it's your first time. Two hours is probably best, allowing you time to browse for books or souvenirs, visit the washroom, have a cup of coffee etc.

TS has 6 hours, enough to grab a cab to a nice restaurant downtown (the cab driver will most likely take a longer route to get there for the extra earnings), take a 2-hour meal and head back to the airport. Sorry to say he has no time to see the pandas.

PS: Here's a personal experience. I speak Chinese and it took me all of one hour to finally figure out where to buy tickets for the fast-trains from Hangzhou-Shanghai during my first time there. And this was all happening within the train station itself. I asked about a dozen locals and was pointed towards a dozen different directions.

You can write all the books you want, but I'm living proof that "T-35" is totally doable without speaking a single word of Chinese (yeah, I can read it, so let's pad the schedule with an extra 5 minutes, for those who can't).

Thanks all for your input!

We overlooked one little thing: availability of taxi's
There was a cue of at least one hour... So I decided to start walking into town.

I ended up at ShuangQiaoLu, a small road heading into the neighborhood.
It turned out to be an endless street market, with all types of food. Local fruit, dumplings, noodles AND countless street hotpots!
At first I managed to resist, to avoid stomach problems. But passing by all these happy locals and seeing the fresh mushrooms, zucchine, shrimps and so on, I gave in to the temptation.

I was treated as a true VIP (laowai is now on a picture with owner) and it was a great experience!

Now I'm killing the last 2 hours in the extremely dull mu lounge.

Cautionary note to readers who will come to this thread late: the above discussion refers to the airport currently under use as of September 2011, which is close-in to the city. A brand new Kunming airport will be opening--supposedly at end of 2011--and all operations will be moved there. This new airport is quite a distance from the city and new timing parameters for layovers and transport to/from city to new KMG will apply. Enjoy old KMG convenient and quick access while you can!