Sébastien Page

After about 5 months of traveling through Australia, New Zealand, Bali, Thailand, and Cambodia, my lovely fiancee and I decided to check out Laos. Before even going there, I had a bad feeling about the place.

I had done some research online to find out what seemed to be the carrier of choice so I can enjoy the freedom of the Internet on my iPhone. I found some contradictory information and was more confused than not. I gave up on my research thinking that as usual, I'd be able to find a SIM card for my iPhone while at the airport in Laos.

Well, we got there and nowhere was a phone shop to be seen. After settling in our hotel room in Luang Prabang, we went for a walk around town and I bought a SIM card from one of the zillion stores that sell them.

There are several carriers to choose from. I went with Tigo because that's what the lady at the store gave me. It could have been any other carrier, I don't think it would make a big difference in the end.

I asked the lady about Internet. She said "yes yes". After a few months spent in South East Asia, I can tell when someone has no idea what I'm talking about, and she clearly was just saying "yes" to please me and close the deal. So anyways, I have nothing to lose but my $2 so I get a SIM card, pop it in and bingo, it's working without requiring me to tweak the APN settings.

So now I can enjoy calls and data on my iPhone, in Laos, on the Tigo network. Turns out there is no 3G (not a big surprise), and Edge is painfully slow. What's more annoying is that this data plan is costing me a fortune. The $1 credit I was given when I bought the SIM card was gone in 4-5 tweets.

There had to be a better plan than that. Like I did in Cambodia, I have to be able to subscribe to some kind of plan that gives me unlimited Internet for a good price.

I went back to the shop where I got my SIM card and asked the woman about plans. She was absolutely clueless. To this date, I still think she had no idea what I was talking about. So I asked her the phone number for Tigo Customer Service, which she gave me.

I called Customer Service, hoping someone would be able to help me figure out the best option for me. Well, if I hadn't hung up the phone after 15 minutes, I think I'd still be trying to get in touch with them. Basically you just go through an automated menu with no option to talk to a real person. I managed to find an alternative phone number for Tigo's offices and the phone rang and rang forever, with no one answering.

I was really really pissed. I think I was more pissed than I would have normally been in such a situation because I didn't really want to be in Laos in the first place. This whole phone thing was just an excuse for me to justify even more my desire to leave this country asap.

For the next few days, I just recharged my iPhone plan $5 at a time each day. I spent about 4 days in Laos and decided to go back to Cambodia.

Next step is Vietnam. This should be fun!

Oh, did I tell you I shot a bazooka in Cambodia?

After spending about a month on the beautiful beaches of Thailand we decided to go to Cambodia for a couple of weeks. Before flying there, I had done a little bit of research and from what I had read it would be very hard for me to get a SIM card. Well, that was not the case.

We landed in Phnom Penh, the capital. The airport was so small that while I was walking and looking around inside the airport to find a Mobile Store, I realized that I was actually out of the airport. Does that make sense? Anyways.

So right in front of the airport exit, I see a handwritten sign saying "Local SIM cards", provided by the local carrier Hello. Nice! I head over there and ask the woman if I can get Internet access with this SIM. She says "yes" but I can tell she's not really convinced by her own answer.

The Hello SIM card is $5 and I get another $5 of credit so we can make a few calls while in the country. After making the mandatory copy of my passport, she gives me the SIM, I put it in my phone, reboot, and bingo, it's working.

First things first, I check if the Internet works. It doesn't because I need to know the Cellular Data APN for this particular carrier, which is hello. Before leaving, I ask her about APN info and she has absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Finally she says to me "for Internet, call this number", which is the Customer Service Department for Hello in Cambodia.

While on our way to our hotel, I deciced to call Hello and figure out how to get Internet on my iPhone. The rep I talked to spoke very good English and after asking me about what device I use, he gave me all the info I needed to get 3G and Edge going, namely the APN hellowww.

He also told me more about pricing. It charges 1 cent per 100KB of data used. For $2/day, you can get unlimited data, which is the option I chose. So everyday, I had to send a text message to a specific number to activate my 24 hours of unlimited Internet. Not very practical but not inconvenient either.

I was so stoked at first to be on 3G. After a few months in Thailand, Bali, Australia and New Zealand, this Cambodian network was without a doubt the fastest.

As soon as you leave the borders of major cities though, you're on your own, no 3G, no Edge, just the uber slow GPRS. While in Phnom Penh, I was on the fast 3G pretty much all the time. When in Siem Reap, I was mostly on Edge, although there was 3G coverage.

All in all, my experience getting a SIM card and a data plan for my iPhone in Cambodia wasn't too bad. Now that I'm in Laos, I actually regret how easy Cambodia was...