Travellers Checks For Laos-y Travel

[Jingthing]

Planning on a trip to Luang Prabang Laos and Laos is one of those no ATM countries. That freaks me out. So, anyway, what I have read suggests bringing cash and traveller's checks, the cash can be in dollars or baht, but I get the idea if not converting, the dollars would be usable for direct payments more commonly.

Any comments on the idea of bringing travellers checks. Now, I assume you can buy them at a big Thai bank, right? Would you suggest buying in dollar or baht currency. If baht, I would have to use baht to buy dollars, so thats a small hit.

Also, is it even worth it to bother? Suppose your travellers checks were stolen in a place like Luang Prabang, would it be feasible to actually get new checks replaced quickly in such a place? Yeah, you could get a refund later, but that wouldn't help much being stuck in Laos with no cash, eh?

[johnnyk]

I used US$ TCs in Laos in 2004. But there was a limited number of places you could cash them and I suspect they could be pretty useless beyond 3 or 4 cities.

I cashed them in Vientiane at the big market and US$50 or $100 will last quite a while. Trouble is you will be carrying around a brick of Lao kip.

They like baht in cash, dunno about baht TCs.

[Soju]

I've never tried to bring in T/Cs and have not seen places that will cash them, though obviously there are a few places. I always bring in about an equal amount of US Dollars and Thai Baht. Accepting US Dollars seems a bit more common than Thai Baht, but both are very commonly accepted. If I'm quoted a price in US Dollars, I pay in US Dollars. If I'm quoted a price in Thai Baht, I pay in Thai Baht. If I'm quoted a price in Kip, and I don't have enough Kip, I'll pay in US Dollars at the rate of 10,000 Kip to 1 USD. I once didn't have enough US Dollars or Thai Baht on me but only had a wad of Kip and needed to pay for something quoted in US Dollars but was charged a slightly poor rate for using Kip. Since then I always try to be sure to bring enough Dollars with me whenever I'm out and about.