Laos Travel Forum

How to carry many:
Can i practice to pick cash at bancomat with Visa and Maestro card?
Should i take euros or dollars with me?

Must i take slipping bag and camping tend with me?
Or there are camping with small houses (bungalows) easy to find?
I'm little worry because of rain season (mont of may).
I'm looking for camping with divine nature to get a feeling to be in haven.
Maybe in some natural park.

Then if a rent a motorbike and live passport there what document should i have then with me?
Is a driving license good?

Do i must have medical insurance?

I know that in Laos are many Buda temples? I'm looking for some particular, which may me give me the best experience.

What about food?

Thank you

QUESTION: "How to carry many:
Can i practice to pick cash at bancomat with Visa and Maestro card?
Should i take euros or dollars with me?
………
I'm looking for camping with divine nature to get a feeling to be in haven.
Maybe in some natural park.

Then if a rent a motorbike and live passport there what document should i have then with me?
Is a driving license good?"

ANSWER: Oj! That’s a lot of questions. I'll answer only a couple of them.

If you want to rent a motorbike and you have a driving license it’s probably good but I don’t think they’ll ask you for more than your passport for identification. Anyway, you should ALWAYS have your passport with you. Actually, I’m not sure that you can rent a motorbike in Laos without “a chauffeur”.

It can be difficult to find a bankomat in the “divine nature”. I used only cash in Laos and you should change as much money as you think you’ll need when you enter the country. At the border, for example. As far as” foreign currency” U.S. dollars are best BUT have small denominations: ONE DOLLAR or absolutely MAX five dollar notes. I can assure you that you won’t find anyone who can change a 10 or 20 dollar note “in haven”.

As for bankomat: it's only in provincial capitals or tourist sites. Euro curse is better than dollar, and once you're off to the remote areas they prefer KIP (and sometimes bath) to any other currency.
In remote areas they lack accomodation for tourists, in bigger towns there are guesthouses and hotels; but usually they can arrange homestay for some fee if in villages. If you don't want to rely on that, take tent but in the intense rain it may be useless. May normally doesn't have too intensive rains yet, but it may differ from year to year. Camping in rainforest: beware of insects, leeches, snakes and lots of mosquitos. They're really annoying. Snake bites can be fatal and still many people die from it.

The renting company will give you copy of your passport. From my experience, they didn't want to give the motorbikes or cars for rent if you didn't leave a document with them - that's because some foreigners didn't give back what they rentend from them, and buying a new vehicle for them is a very very expensive thing which involves a lot of bureacracy. That's why they will want to keep the pass...

Food is delicious and they don't yet use too much fertilizers to grow vegetables or animal. There's a lot of restaurants in towns and cities, but in villages there are usually only one or two noodle shops with very limited menu.

you will find very few camping opprtunities in laos.
i have been there twice and i don't think i ever saw someonecamp there.
staying in small guesthouses is more the norm there.

Thank you

Just another question:
do i have to worry for some other animals danger in water or near the jungle?

snakes is your main danger in laos.
king cobras are fairly common there.

and talk to the locals about the local cluster bomb situation.
there a re still several hundred thousand unexploded cluster bombs from the vietnam war lying around the jungle areas.
the goverment and various NGO's are trying to clear the country for unexploded divices, but this will still takle many many years before the job is done.

it starts to sound dangorous in laos now i guess, but a little common sense and you will be totally fine.


claus (going to koper today by the way)