Please could you advise me of the best way to...

Please could you advise me of the best way to telephone home from the Maldives? Last time my husband had to go there for work our Vodafone bill was huge. I dont want that to happen this time.

Mobile telephone roaming charges are notiriously high. With Vodafone you would have had to pay up to ?1.69 per minute to call home and a hefty ?1.25 per minute just to receive a call whilst in the Maldives. Normally I would suggest you buy a roaming Sim card which allows you to received calls for free and charge calls made at the local rate. As yet there isn't one available to buy in the UK for the Maldives

So your options are to either use one of the two newly installed public payphones (all the islands now have two) and use a local phone card. Alternatively you can rent a local phone. For more information contact the telephony company in Maldives Dhiraagu Tel: +960 3322802.

13 July 2006