Thorn Tree travel forum

1

just a few of your local money for emegrency
Most imptt; ATM card, just like home (I guess, you dont seem to know where thats is.............
And why the heck would you think they wont change euro at banks? they even do Chinese Yuan and taiwan $$ nowadays (well, this whole century)

so you believe anything - on the news? on TV? in your guidebook? on this forum? good luck then - you'll need it!

2

Travellers Checks are readily accepted anywhere in Thailand. You don't really need to buy US dollar ones. US dollars cash are not accepted as a de facto currency as they are in some of Thailand's economic basket case neighbours. If the currency you're earning in is Euro, bring that. If it's UK pounds, bring those. The US dollar isn't accepted to a greater extent than these as far as TC's go but saying that, some US currency never goes amiss as a 100 dollar bill is still the most recognised bill there is and dollars can, for example, be spent at just about any international airport in the world. So they can come in useful during that four hour stopover in Kuwait or Qatar in a coffee shop that might not take a UK ten pound note, but will definitely take a US ten dollar one.

3

Gold... ;-P
.9999 fine!
recognized everywhere
jewelers will buy/sell
never gets inflated
no banks take a cut
little bit goes a long way (these days)

We have an obligation to act according to the dictates of our conscience, even if the latter goes against the majority opinion or the laws of the society. - - - Thoreau

4

ATM with cirrus or plus logo for thailand can get money at any ATM

ATMs are everywhere except bum fuck nowhere villages, basically most thais have an atm card unless they're homeless

Lao can be hit and miss when comes to atms working in vientiane (other places don't have them)

can arrive in Lao, cambodia with baht and use easily until you get your bearings

can change money to major currencies in tourist strongholds easily in thailand other don't know except burma

Bring some US$ for security and travellers checks but only emergency amount necessary in my opinion a couple hundred in each (cash 10 and 20s travellers 100s)

If backpacking $US50 a day will be party time
$30 would be reasonable but careful no gift shopping
$20 would be stay in one spot to conserve energy

I hate tourist thais only at my place

5

one time I was relieved to be carrying a few $100 bills with me was on my first time in Thailand on a Ko Chang satellite island, when I had to pay the bill for 10 days stay. They wouldn't take AMEX TC's. The only option I had was the US dollars cash I had because not only was there no ATM's on that particular island (there still isn't), but there were none on big Ko Chang itself in those days.

nowadays, you could just get a boat from one of those small islands to Ko Chang and an ATM, but that'd still be a bit of a hassle. Always a good idea to have some cash on you, and while Euros and UK pounds are usually fine, US dollars cash is marginally better to have.

6

cards and some pounds

7

ATM's are the way to go.

Take a couple of different brand/type of Credit/Debit cards. Just in case you have a odd problem with one.

Also bring a small amount of US dollars, Euros or Pounds cash and a couple of Travellers Cheques, all just for emergency backup use.

When you arrive at the airport or first town of a country, try to withdraw an odd amount so that you get some smaller notes from the ATM

Before you go, let the Banks know your going overseas so they don’t put a block on your card when they see the withdrawals in strange overseas places and also ensure the Banks have your current mobile number (once they rang me within seconds of withdrawing from an overseas ATM.)

A suggestion is to take a USB memory stick with Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (free download) on it and also a text document on it with your account numbers and passwords concealed amongst the wording. This allows you to access the internet by using your own Firefox programme instead of the virus and worm riddled Café’s Internet Explorer. You can then access your bank account to transfer money, check balances etc with a much higher level of security. Firefox leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on and by copying and pasting your passwords from your text document etc you avoid key loggers.