I will be spending most of a month in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Does anyone know if there is a SIM card I could buy for my quad band phone that would work in all of these countries? Two of the three? Is cellular coverage good enough to make this worth thinking about?

Anyone? I'm hoping the cellphone plus a phone card will be an affordable way to go, and make it easy for those at home to reach me. This is what I do traveling in Europe, but haven't been to SE Asia for 10 years, way before the cellphone explosion.

Sorry, I don't know the answer to your question, but I expect there are others on this forum who do and will answer.

I always use email for communication with people who need to reach me when I'm in SE Asia. Internet cafes are readily available, so I can plan to check my email as often as is necessary.

check some of these threads

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34753435

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34676898

Aloha!

1. If you already have a phone which works outside the US, then the sim card you have will work, assuming you have an international long-distance calling plan, which you can set up before you leave. You don't need to buy a special sim card for Asia. You will of course pay international long distance charges for all calls you make, including local calls, but if you don't plan on using the phone very much (see below) this may be easier than buying different sim cards, and may be cheaper than buying pre-paid sim cards and then not using the value up fully.

2. You can buy a pre-paid sim card that will "work" in all three countries. That is, you can buy a sim card in Vietnam which will work in the other countries. You can find them in phone shops and in many other shops, look at airport shops when you arrive you will often see a kisok. They will have a stored value which you can either re-charge or buy a new sim when the value has run out. However, in 2 out of 3 of the countries, when you make a local call you will be charged for a long-distance international call, because to the sim card, you are calling from another country. This may cost more than you want. It probably would be cheaper to buy a different pre-paid sim card in each country you visit.

3. If you buy a different sim card for each country, you will have a different number of each country which you must then somehow get to people at home who want to call you. That means either spending money to call them by phone, or sending e-mails. IMO you might as well just then stay in touch by e-mail. Go to cybercafes.com for a list of places by country where you can find cybercafés; your hotel may also offer free e-mail. If you only buy one sim card and use it in all three, you will have to get one number to people at home, a bit cheaper, but then you have the long-distance call charge issue. (Also, in the olden days before cell phones, hotels had phones in the rooms and you could leave your itinerary with your office and family with the list of hotel phone numbers. I think this is still possible.)

4. In large cities in Vietnam and Cambodia you will find very good cell coverage (better than the US in many cases). It is fairly good in the Ankor Wat area. Can't speak for Laos.

5. What is the purpose of having the phone? Do you want to stay in touch with your office? If you are from the US, remember that the time difference will be 12-15 hours or more, so you will most likely be having to reach people in the late evening your time, when you will be in your hotel anyway, and when a land line might be a better connection. An AT&T international long distance calling card may be a cheaper and better option. Also, as many people at home may not realize the time difference, you may be awoken in the middle of the night by people at work trying to call you during their day. (I live in Hong Kong and this happens to me more than you want to know; yes this can happen with a hotel room phone too).

If you are planning on using the phone for local calls, who do you expect to call? Making restaurant reservations can be done much more easily by your hotel, as you are unlikely to find an English-speaking person on the other end who could understand your request well enough to get time, date, and number in your party correct. (Also just making a local call in different countries is sometimes a challenge, sometimes you have to dial a 0, sometimes a 01, sometimes you have to dial the local city code, sometimes you don't). In an emergency, a phone is going to be useless to you in the countries you're visiting, as even if you now how to dial for an emergency operator (generally 999 but can vary) you will be very, very unlikely to encounter and English-speaking operator, and also you will be very unlikely to be able to tell an operator where you are located. (You can't pronounce street names or even know what street you are on.)

As you can see, I think the "need" to have a phone while traveling for pleasure in Asia is somewhat unnecessary.

Thanks for the responses. Since I assume making phone calls from hotel landlines would be hideously expensive, I wondered whether it was possible to buy preloaded SIM cards which would, in combination with a low cost phone card, bring costs down to a few cents per minute range. Cicerone, thanks for reminding me that I would be making long distance calls from 2 out of three countries. Duh!

I guess I'll stick to email.

With an AT&T calling card, the calls are not that expensive. YOu will get a local access 800 number and then will be charged AT&T rates, which you can look up on their webiste. Some hotels now charge for the "free" calls to the 800 number, so do watch that. If you complain, they sometimes will remove that charge.

You can also keep in contact with people via SMS/Text messaging. Easy to do and around $0.35 per message for international and much less for local to local messages. People can also call you back using the text message so that's a way of getting them your new phone number if you get a sim card in each country.

You know, I used an AT&T calling card for many years, but since I bought a quad band phone I've gotten used to having local SIM cards that I just swap in and out when in Europe,which is where I usually do most of my traveling. Very easy, but I think this will be a trip where AT&T gets my business once again, and I try to break the "keep in touch" habit.

I remember the days when a teletype was the way to go...