Buy a $2 book /$1 DVD on the river front.

Insert money.

Mail.

Cheap as hell.

Just make sure you have a PO BOX here for the return journey.

THE KID.

Thanks for that. A good suggestion.

The obvious question is: Are the mails here tampered with?

Do they do searches for drugs, contraband - or for that matter cash?

The 2 parcels I've sent arrived okay. However one letter has not (after a month), so I'm still a bit wary.

Drugs ? Contraband ? I thought we were talking cash ?

I have never had any problems using the above method. I don't send $1000 though - usually a few hundred.

I have had letters take up to 2 months to arrive in country and then othe times it takes a week !

THE KID

Cheapest way I've found to get cash *to* USD from AUD is the ANZ Travel Card (USD) - it's expensive to do a transfer to an open card (ie "recharge"), but when you open a new one, the charges & commission are very low, I think AUD$11 total and no currency exchange commission. They charge no fees for withdrawal from an ATM, so all you then have to pay is the $2 fee that most Cambodian ATMs charge foreign cards. It can be mailed to Cambodia with reasonable care taken, or sent with a traveller to you.

Sending back from Cambodia to Australia, I've not looked into that yet. If anyone cares to save me some legwork, feel free... now that credit cards can be had here, one way may be to put your Cambodian credit card in credit ahead of time, then use it to buy travellers' cheques in Australia in AUD?

BC

Thanks for both suggestions.

In the end, I think I am going to balk at putting $1000 inside a CD and dropping it off at the Phnom Penh Post Office. I may be being overly paranoid, but I just can't see myself taking that risk.

The ANZ travel card sounds worth checking out for Australia- to-Cambodia transfers - but most of mine will be Cambodia-to-Australia.

Anyone have any good ideas for the latter?

The Union Commercial Bank PLC on St 130 #61 offers a commission free credit card service if you want to get money off your credit card. The only problem is that you still get whacked with a 'Currency Transfer' fee on the Australian end because of changing from AUS to US.

As for sending money back to Oz, I am trying to find a way to do it too.
Eight years in Cambodia and STILL LOOKING.

I send money over from the U.S. every 2 weeks or so by calling my bank and having them Western Union my own money over here to me. It's only $14.50 no matter how much I send. Wire transfers cost me $30 and I've had them take up to a week.

I did try to send money from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh though and Western Union was $110, commission for CAB bank.

If your bank will do the same its an easy and pretty cheap way to send money.

If Carson hasn't found a solution to transfers *from* Cambodia after 8 years, I'm beginning to suspect there isn't one. (Other than paying high bank transfer fees.)

Thanks everyone for trying tho...

Ask at the Canadia bank.

I can transfer money here from England with my Nationwide debit card and passport for free (ANZ is 5 bucks). Have not tried the other way, but i guess it will produce a small charge - my understanding was normally there is about a $30 charge for international deposits - England anyway, but i think read recently you can transfer direct from one bank to another for much less - so this would mean to open an Canadia bank account.

if you check it out let us know the score.

nick

The best way to send money within cambodia is with Ac leda,inside the bank and not with western union.
It costs two dollars and is same day,within an hour or two.
Ac leda are great,always helpful.
I re opened an old account with ANZ the other day,an inefficeinet bunch of aussie gougers they are.
Account cost is one dollar a month but if the balance falls below $25 it becomes $2.50 a month!!!!
Hows that a 150% increase in account keeping fees,imagine how many khmers they catch with that one.
Ac leda all free!

Interesting ML.

So maybe I'm not the only expat here who has told ANZ where they can stick their bank!

I didn't mind paying reasonable fees, but they got totally out of hand with their pure greed and incompetence.

...as you suggested above.

They charge $30 for Cambodia to Australia money transfers.

That's only $5 less than ANZ, & thus way too expensive in my book.