I'm pretty sure it's not the cheapest, but I purchased a pre-paid roaming card for my cell phone in Hong kong. It lets me call and use my cell phone most countries in Asia. IT was about $1.50 I think to call the US. And only $.30 to call within Thailand. Since it was a HK comapny. In HK it was $.05 a minute in HK. ANd from HK to the US it was a ridiculously low rate of about $.07 a minute. Sorry but that's all I know. It was nice to be able to use my cell phone in each country with this prepaid card. Voicestream and Cingular charge way too much to let you roam using their account.

I cannot tell you the lease expensive way, but I can tell you I used my AT&T phone card and it was about $10.00 a minute.

I don't plan to bring my cellular phone on this trip, so that's not an option (but thanks for info anyways dko3tgk!) .... and I'll certainly not use my ATT card (@$10 a minute!!).

Anybody know of any other ways?

I don't remember exactly, but I bought a prepaid phonecard while in Thailand and dialed direct. It was way cheaper than AT&T rates (I paid about $6 per minute calling the US from HongKong using AT&T direct - won't make that mistake again). When I was in southern Thailand (KoPhiPhi and Railay Beach), I went to one of the internet/phone cafes and used their phone service. They charged about $1 per minute and I either used the guys mobile phone or the businesses phone.

Suprisingly, I just checked out the Sam's Club prepaid cards and was told (by AT&T) that they charge 14 minutes of long distance for each minute of talking when calling the US from Thailand. That's under 50 cents a minute. No mention of surcharges of hidden fees, but they say to use a "Lenso" phone - anybody know what that is? (I may be spelling it wrong)

Pay the one minute calling card rate and ask them to call you back. It will only cost the person in the USA about 40 cents a minute to call Thailand.

Howard's suggestion omits fact that USA based caller needs to have an international calling plan as part of their service to avoid high rates. Need to organize this before you go overseas. When I travel abroad, I sign up for the int'l plan then cancel it when I get back stateside. I usually use pre-paid cards in pay phones in hotel lobbies. Happy trails......