There days most people have smart phones and 3G Internet to surf the Net when in your home country. But travelling overseas and using Global Roaming can be a nightmare when you get back.
Don't fear, I have got some great advice for you when you arrive to Vietnam that can save you hundreds of dollars off your next phone bill. Once you land in Vietnam, or even if you are already here, either at the exit of the airport you have landed in or most small kiosk type shops that sell water, food, cigarettes etc and ask them for "Mobifone SIM". It will cost you 100.000 Vietnam Dong. If you have a newer phone you may need to get them to cut the SIM to your phone size. You can show them your phone and many shops will carry a SIM cutter.
Once you have your SIM inserted into your phone it is time to activate a 3G data bundle plan so that you can get access to the Internet at a cheap rate. Open up your SMS application and send a mesage to 999 with one of these messages "DK MIU" or "DK Max30" or "KM 120".
- DK MIU will take 70.000 VND from your 100.000 VND credit and give you 600MB of 3G Internet to use for 1 month
- DK Max30 will take 30.000 VND from your 100.000 VND credit and give you 500MB of 3G Internet to use for 1 month (this is a special plan and doesn't work all the time)
- KM 120 requires you to add more credit as it will take 120.000 VND from your credit and give you 3GB of 3G Internet to use for 1 month (this is a special plan and doesn't work all the time)
So for $3.5 you can get 600MB of 3G Internet to use while you are travelling around Vietnam. You even can send SMS from the remaining 30.000VND.
To check how much credit you have remaining on your phone you can call: *101# and wait for the message sent back
To check how much data you have remaining in your 3G data bundle you can send an SMS to 999 with this message "KT data" and wait for the message to come back. The message will be in Vietnamese, but the important part is the "con lai la XXX MB" which means you have XXX MB remaining.
