Thorn Tree travel forum

1

In inner China ATMs that take foreign cards are few and far between.

Bring cash, a debit card and a credit card (for cash advance in bank).

Han Girl

2

visa linked cards work in kashgar, and hotan has a boc atm. after that, aint squat till golmud. personally i have a maestro card that wont work in all xinjiang and for some reason sometimes in golmud. lhasa is fine for cards.
bring a fair bit as the good buses are about 180rmb a pop (kx - htn - chchn - chklk). consider these as its a fairly gruelling journey.
from charklik it can be expensive getting to huatuogou or da qaidam or golmud. looking at 3 or 400rmb for private transport, tho there may be a bus if enough people want it.
problem with this route is that from golmud its hard to get to lhasa cheap. even if cits dont get you first, its still about 700rmb to get to lhasa covert on a bus.

for halling cash i sew a little pocket inside my pants. much safer than money belts - if i got my pants on i got my money.
dont bother with $US, go straight rmb.