Poste restante services are available in Vientiane and Louang Phabang; always address mail using the country's official name, Lao PDR, rather than "Laos".

The best place to make overseas telephone calls is the Telecom Office in Vientiane. A few towns have similar offices (8am-9pm); elsewhere, international calls can be placed at the post office, until 11pm. To call abroad from Laos , dial 00 and then the relevant country code . Calls to the UK and North America cost approximately $3 per minute, $1.50 to New Zealand and less than $1 to Australia. There's no facility for collect or reverse-charge calls , but you can almost always get a "call back" for a small fee: ask the operator for the minimum call abroad and get the phone number of the post office you're calling from. International fax services are available at upmarket hotels in Vientiane and Louang Phabang and at most provincial post offices.

Public card-phones are wired for both domestic and international calls, but at the moment aren't much use for the latter. Phone booths are usually stationed outside post offices in provincial capitals, and occasionally elsewhere in larger towns. Phone cards ( bat tholasap) are sold at post and telephone offices in denominations of 100 and 500 units; these are units of time rather than money. When the cards first came out they offered a relatively good deal for international calls, but by late 1999 it was impossible to make an overseas call that lasted for more than three minutes. You can also place domestic and local calls at hotels and guesthouses for a small fee. Regional codes are given throughout the guide: the "0" must be dialled before all long-distance calls.

The emergence of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Laos has drastically reduced the price and increased the availability of access to the Web. Currently you'll find email and Internet services at cybercafes, computer shops and some hotels in Vientiane, Louang Phabang, Vang Viang and Pakxe, although it won't be long before these services spring up in other tourist centres around the country. Charges range from 500K to 2000K per minute, depending on how far you are from the capital, where the lone ISP - Laonet - is based. If you plan to do a lot of emailing or Websurfing, contact Laonet, Samsenthai Road, mezzanine floor of the Lao Hotel Plaza (tel 021/218841-2; services@laonet.net), about setting up a temporary account ($20 for 21 hours of usage). For details on using email as an alternative to poste restante .