Basics - The Rough Guide to Cambodia - page 42

horseriding excursions are available through The
Happy Ranch in Siem Reap (see p.145). There's
some outstanding birdwatching around the Tonle
Sap lake at the Prek Toal Biosphere Reserve and at
Ang Trapaeng Thmor Crane Sanctuary between
Siem Reap and Sisophon. Visits can be most easily
arranged through tour operators in Siem Reap such
as Osmose tours and the excellent, albeit pricey,
Sam Veasna Centre (see p.145).
There are balloon , helicopter and microlight
flights above the temples of Angkor, while real
adrenaline junkies should make for Flight of the
Gibbon in Siem Reap (p.145), offering tree-top
ziplining adventures through the forest canopy or
rock climbing in Kampot (p.270).

coverage, with Cellcard/Mobitel perhaps being the
best. A pre-paid mobile broadband account costs
around $30 per month, although given the
universal availability of wi-fi, it's unlikely to be worth
the money unless you're spending a lot of time in
very out of the way places.
If you want to use your home mobile phone,
you'll need to check with your phone service
provider whether it will work abroad, and what the
call charges are to use it in Cambodia. Most mobiles
in the UK, Australia and New Zealand use GSM,
which works well in Southeast Asia, but a North
American cellphone is unlikely to work unless it's a
tri-band phone.
You can make domestic and international
phone calls at the post o ces and telecom o ces
in most towns. These services are invariably run by
the government telecommunications network,
Camintel ( W camintel.com).
Many internet cafés also allow you to make calls
via Skype ; better places have headphones with a
microphone so that you can talk in reasonable
privacy.
For domestic calls only, the cut-price glass-
sided booths found in all major towns are a cheap
option at around 500 riel per minute, payable to the
attendant. The booths vary in their coverage of
Cambodia's various networks: accessible numbers
will be written on the side of the booths.
To call Cambodia from abroad , dial your
international access code, followed by T 855, then
the local area code (minus the initial 0), then the
number.

Phones

If you are going to be spending long in Cambodia
or making a lot of calls it's well worth buying a
local Sim card , which will get you rates for both
domestic and international calls far below what
you're likely to pay using your home provider
(although obviously you'll need to make sure that
your handset is unlocked first - or buy one locally
that is). Sim cards can be bought for a few dollars
at most mobile phone shops; you'll need to show
your passport as proof of identity. International
calls can cost as little as US$0.25 per minute,
while domestic calls will cost about 300-500 riel
per minute.
Cambodia's three main mobile phone service
providers are Cellcard/Mobitel ( W mobitel.com.kh),
Smart ( W smart.com.kh), and Metfone ( W metfone
.com.kh), all of which offer reliable countrywide

Photography

Cambodians generally love being photographed -
although it is common courtesy to ask first; they
also take a lot of photos themselves and may well
ask you to stand in theirs. It's best to avoid taking
photographs of anything with a military connota-
tion, just in case. You can get your digital shots
transferred to CD or printed at most photographic
shops in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, although the
quality of the prints may not be as good as you'd
get at home.

CALLING HOME FROM
CAMBODIA
There is no international directory
enquiries service in Cambodia.
To Australia T 001 or T 007 + 61+ city
code without the initial zero
To New Zealand T 001 or T 007 + 64 +
city code without the initial zero
To the Republic of Ireland T 001 or
T 007 + 353 + city code without the
initial zero
To South Africa T 001 or T 007 + 27 +
city code without the initial zero
To the UK T 001 or T 007 + 44 + area
code without the initial zero
To the US and Canada T 001 or T 007 +
1 + city code without the initial zero

Time
Cambodia is 7hr ahead of GMT; 12hr ahead of New
York and Montréal; 15hr ahead of Los Angeles and
Vancouver; 1hr behind Perth; 4hr behind Sydney
and 5hr behind Auckland; 5hr ahead of South
Africa. There is no daylight saving time.