Taking Your Mobile To Thailand

Mobile phones are now an essential tool for keeping in touch. Do you remember how difficult it was before they were so readily available? But what do you do when you go to Thailand for a short trip?

Keeping in touch with travelling partners, booking hotels and meeting up with Thai girls is so much easier with a mobile phone.

If you have plenty of money, I guess you can call using your normal phone, but for UK users and I guess the same applies to most countries, we are talking about very expensive international calls even if you are in the country you are calling!

My own phone from the UK is an older Nokia 6110 on the GSM network (900mhz).

A friend had purchased a prepay sim card for his newer UK phone and it worked fine.

Knowing that some phones are blocked for use in other countries, I didn’t want to waste my money buying a sim card that didn’t work. I tried his card in my phone and as suspected it wouldn't work.

As the cards in the phone shops were in sealed packaging, trying before you buy, seemed unlikely. However, I did persevere and found one shop with a very helpful Thai lady, who spoke quite good English. She was familiar with the problem and suggested using a 1 2 Call card for older GSM phones. The price quoted was 900 baht, which included the card with a number and 300 baht credit.

I was still unsure, but she happily let me try her own sim card. It worked fine, so I felt far more confident. As I had another friend with the same type of phone we needed 2 cards, so we were able to strike a deal at 1200 baht for 2, both with 300 baht credit. 600 baht seemed a reasonable price for the convenience factor, just under £10.

They worked fine and 300 baht was enough for 2 weeks, but if you need more, top up cards are readily available. Don’t worry if you don’t speak Thai as there are English instructions on phoning through the pin number to get your account topped up. There are also helpful reminders texted through to let you know when your balance is getting low

For those planning to give out their numbers or phoning bar girls using their hone, (remember they can save your number) a word of caution. Bar girls can be very persistent in their “telemarketing” using text messages and calls to keep you interested, which can be a bit tricky if you are with a new friend!

Another friend who is staying in Thailand for a few months keeps getting mystery calls, maybe someone checking up on him, to see if he thinks its someone else? Or maybe he is now on a farang database used by bar girls for their cold calling?

Oh and by the way, don’t forget to take your charger with an adaptor, I forgot mine, but a very helpful receptionist lent me one left by another guest!

Stickman says:

Yep, mobile phones are essential in Thailand!