I bought a SIM card and used it successfully!!

I visited Myanmar for 9 days in January. On the first night of my arrival in Yangon, I went to a small shop selling mobile telephones and bought the newly introduced SIM card that enabled tourists to make and receive calls from overseas.

I paid 20 US dollars for a SIM card that lasted 14 days. Cost of making an outgoing call was 1.5 US dollars. Incoming calls from overseas were charged at the local call rate (the exact amount per minute I cannot remember, but it was far less than making outgoing overseas calls).

It was useful to have this SIM card, not only for keeping in touch with family and contacts back at home, but also for making local calls to confirm bookings, arrangements etc. It was also much cheaper to make calls via the SIM card than through hotels. Particularly when some hotels informed us that they would have to charge overseas outgoing calls made that were unsuccessful because such calls were made via operators and the government levied charges on such unsuccessful calls as well.

I bought a SIM card and used it successfully!!

Thanks for your update and please share your experience with our country .

Once again thank you for visiting our country.

I bought a SIM card and used it successfully!!

BooFit - Thank you very much for this information. We are due to visit Rangoon next week and I am wondering if you know whether I would also be able to use the new SIM card to send texts?

BooFit, this is great news. Any chance you remember where the shop was?

It%26#39;s Chinese New Year today! (First day of the Lunar New Year of the Ox) So - Kung Hei Fat Choi!!

PoshEngland, I did not use the SIM to send or receive texts, so I cannot say for certain. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say probably not, because the very simple instructions which also listed the charges for making calls did not list the charge for text messages.

If you need to keep in touch with folks back at home (or whereever), I%26#39;d suggest you fist go to CYBERWORLD (which is directly opposite Traders Hotel) and use their computers (600K or around US60cents on weekdays for one hour%26#39;s use of the internet)and email your new SIM phone number to your contacts overseas, and tell them to phone you if necessary. That way, you%26#39;d probably be able to get more value out of your SIM card.

FlyingHourglass, the name of the shop I bought my SIM card from is GLOBAL Digital Electronic Sales %26amp; Servicce Centre.. They are on 181, Anawrahta Road, Yangon. If you stand with your back to the Traders Hotel, walk towards your right. You arrive at the first cross-roads (Where Anawrahta Road intersects with Pagoda Road), the shop is on the across the crossroads, diagonally opposite. There are a lot of vendors and tiny shops along that street, and GLOBAL is just a few shops from the cross-roads. I have also included this shop in my Trip Report Part 1 post in Tripadvisor, describing how nice they were.

I tried getting the SIM from City Mart, but the people there said they no longer sold it.

You do not need to provide your passport or any form of identification when buying the SIM card.

Thank you, BooFit, for the very detailed information! I will be in Burma for two weeks in March and I had resigned myself to finding an Internet cafe every few days to keep in touch with home. This is much better!

By the way, they also sell a SIM card that costs 40USD and lasts for 4 weeks. I suppose if you have to make many calls whilst you are visiting Myanmar, a 40USD card will be better than two 20USD cards.

Boofit - thanks again for this valuable information.