In this blog post, we are going to share with you some apps that have saved us money, time, and headaches while traveling across SEA. We will also include some tips for you to learn from our mistakes and hopefully make your travels smooth, easy, and most importantly enjoyable!
The apps we are going to discuss are:
2. Grab
3. 12Go
4. Google Translate
1. Moreta Pay
Moreta Pay is probably the app we use most often when traveling across SEA. It basically replaces holding a wallet full of cash, without any of the headaches from locating ATMs, or paying the exborbitant fees, and counting foreign bills in the middle of a hectic night market!
Moreta pay works in Thailand 🇹🇭 Vietnam 🇻🇳 Laos 🇱🇦 Mongolia 🇲🇳 and Philippines 🇵🇭 with plans to expand into Cambodia 🇰🇭 and Indonesia 🇮🇩 in the near future.
Moreta Pay basically gives you a “foreign bank account” that allows you to pay for everything from street food to haircuts by scanning QR codes and paying in the local currency. You deposit money into your account using your home currency & pay a small fee depending on your method of deposition and home currency.
The best part about Moreta pay (and we wish we knew about it sooner) is that if you connect a bank account to deposit in USD, you pay a fixed $1 fee. If you deposit $1,000 and only pay $1 fee, that’s 0.1% in fees – significantly less than the normal 5-7% fees we have seen at ATMs in Thailand, Laos, etc.
We probably spent over $100 in fees at ATMs before a fellow traveler taught us about Moreta Pay, and we haven’t been to an ATM since! (Until we get to Indonesia 😅)
Almost every single vendor / business and even person has a QR code in SEA that will allow you to pay by “bank transfer” as they call it. Sometimes, though, they assume you aren’t able to pay by QR code because they think you don’t have a local bank account. BUT, that’s exactly what Moreta Pay allows you to do! If they are insisting you pay by cash and you prefer to use QR code, break out you Google Translate (see more on this below ⤵️) and politely ask to see their QR code, even if it’s a personal (non-business) code you can still pay them!
You will also really feel like a local when you see how shocked they are that you can pay by “bank transfer” 😉
2. Grab
There are many ways to get around SEA, from buses, trains, planes, cars, tuktuks, taxis, mopeds and probably countless other methods. But the worst thing, is finding yourself in a vulnerable position – with all your bags and weary from a long bus or plane ride, and being heckled by a dozen taxi drivers trying to charge you double the going rate to get to your destination. If you don’t have the Grab App, you have no negotiating leverage. Get this app, and if the taxi man who is standing right in front of you can’t match (or even better, beat) the price on the app, you simply make the call and get picked up just like Uber or Lyft.
Think Uber, Lyft, or calling a taxi for those readers from cities where ride share apps aren’t allowed! Type your destination, set your pickup on the map, if you like the price, call your ride to get you to where you need to go.
Grab works in every country on the SEA peninsula (besides Cambodia, where you will need to get PassApp if you don’t want to take the tuktuks which are everywhere and extremely affordable to begin with). If you don’t have cash or the correct currency at your destination if you have just arrived in a new country, having your credit card hooked up to Grab is a lifesaver for getting you to your first destination where you can settle in and get yourself squared away with cash for future transportation.
Bonus Tip:
If you are feeling adventurous and traveling light, you can even call a moped/bike to pick you up on Grab which is often extremely cheap and an exhilarating way of getting around the major cities in SEA.
3. 12Go
For longer hauls, Grab won’t get the job done and you will need a dedicated travel service. 12Go can get you into sleeper buses for 14 hour journeys where you fall asleep in Thailand and wake up in Vietnam. You can schedule transport that includes a minivan transfer to a bus station where you catch a luxury sleeper bus that will bring you to a port where you already have a ticket on a ferry to bring you to your island destination, all with a few taps on your 12Go app.
Enter your destination, enter your pickup location, number of passengers, and date of travel.
⚠️ Be aware that 12Go is a third party app working with local travel companies so after you purchase on the app, they still need to confirm with the local travel agency. Sometimes the confirmation can take a few hours, and sometimes you will be refunded if the company has already sold out of seats! For that reason, we recommend booking on 12Go as soon as you know your plan to go to a certain destination to ensure you don’t find your trip getting canceled on you last minute (which has happened to us more times than we’d like to admit).
The app default sorta by “recommended,” but you can change this to sort by “cheapest” which is what we usually do to see our options from least to most expensive.
Bonus Tip:
When traveling (in Laos especially) you will inevitably stroll past many travel agencies who will list their prices to go to major transport hubs on signs outside of their storefronts. When you get to a new city and already know your next destination, make note of the prices listed outside of these travel companies! It is not unlikely to see prices $5/$10 and even $20 cheaper if you book directly with the travel companies themselves, and also save yourself the uncertainty of booking with a 3rd party like 12Go.
4. Google Translate
Last but certainly not least, Google Translate is a must-have app for getting the most out of your experience in SEA.
In many markets, restaurants, and any place where a service is provided in SEA, the workers will speak enough English to facilitate the sale of their products.
However, if you are hoping to negotiate (which you almost ALWAYS should), or if you need to communicate specific details about your wants and needs, you should be able to quickly break out Google Translate.
Open the app, select the language you are speaking/typing in, and the language you are translating to. Speak or type, ensure that what you wanted to say is what is actually displayed on the screen, and show the person you are speaking with.
If you are going to be without a lot of data or without service / WiFi in general, it is a good idea to download the language and keyboard to which you are translating onto your phone. This way, the translation is much faster.
Bonus Tip:
If you have downloaded the keyboard to your phone, this also allows you to swap the translation order so that the person you are speaking to can speak their native tongue back to you without showing up like gibberish in the translation box due to your speech-to-text dictation “listening” for English or your native language.
