Very detailed Africa travelogue with lots of information for anyone planning a trip. Indexed for easy reference. 11 Countries over 3 months.
3 months in Africa -- detailed travelogue, travel tips, indexed
Larry2006-05-27 03:11:54
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office, I
used the card phone to arrange some accomodations for myself in Namibia for
the next few days...
While calling ahead for reservations, the question always asked is "what
is your contact number?", and even if you say you're visiting from the
United States, most places will still assume you have a working South
African cel phone. Each time I'd say I didn't have one, the response would
almost always be "Hmmm..." -- but in the end, I never was rejected due to
not having a contact phone.
Public phones are found everywhere in South Africa, and are generally
quite good. Telkom is the monopoly telephone provider in the country, and
there's hardly ever a problem placing calls (the blue phones accept coins,
the green phones accept cards). South African telephone cards are of
credit-card thickness, with a small chip embedded in them rather than the
thin, flimsy telephone cards you'll find in Japan or Australia -- and an LCD
display on the phone will show how many credits you have left on the card,
with the amount ticking down as you talk. Except in Cape Town (where for
some reason, the phones seem to be smarter), most card phones in South
Africa cannot automatically detect when a call is answered on the other end.
This means that when the party you're calling answers, you need to press the
"TALK" button -- which will start the credits ticking down, and enable your
mouthpiece to work so the person you're calling can hear you. However, a
benefit of this hassle is that if you don't actually NEED someone on the
other end to hear you, you can make your calls for free. For instance, if
you want to call home to check your answering machine, just don't push the
TALK button, and you won't be charged for the call (however, after about a
minute or so, the LCD display will finally warn you that if you
...
See photographs from:
Botswana Gallery
,
Cape Verde Gallery
,
Kenya Gallery
,
Lesotho Gallery
,
Malawi Gallery
,
Mauritius Gallery
,
Swaziland Gallery
,
Tanzania Gallery
,
Zambia Gallery
,
Zimbabwe Gallery
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I just thought it might be helpful for you to know how i am finding your system.
Thank you
Susan J, 2008-01-28 14:00:20