My Phone

Cell phones in Laos are different than in the States. You pay as you go. When I run out of money, I go to a little shop and ask for Beeline money. You can buy between 5,000 kip and 50,000 kip (60 cents and 6 dollars). I usually get the $6 one. You scratch off the silver stuff that's on lottery tickets and enter the number into your phone. And I have plenty of money to call and text again. Anyway, all these different companies have different promotions if you buy their phone number - free money, free internet. . . I don't really understand it.

So, when the Lao people see a good deal for Beeline, they buy a new Beeline phone number. Not the number to use for money, but a new actual phone number. Then the next week when they see ETL has a special they will buy a new ETL phone number. You can also pay $20 to buy a "beautiful" number. A beautiful number has many of the same numbers and many 0s (I think). So my number, 7806 2207, is not beautiful and was only $1. But a number like 7778 8889 is beautiful and would be $20.

Most Lao people have 3 or 4 different phone numbers that they sometimes use. If there is a deal on their ETL number, they will currently be using their ETL number, but next week when Unitel had something good, they will use their Unitel number.

As a result, this is what my phone book looks like:

Bangon
Beeklor
Bouasone
Bouasone 1
Bouasavahn
Bouathand
Boua
Boua 1
Boua New
Boua 2
Bouaphone
Bouaphone ?
Bountang
Bountang 1
Bountang New
Bounthaphone
Bounmy
Bounmy 2 ?
Bounmy New

This gets a little confusing when I have to call 3 numbers to try to get a hold of my student or friend.