You do NOT want to be able to make international calls directly with your Chinese SIM card, it would be prohibitively expensive. Before you know it all the credit on the SIM card would be gone. Buy an IP card (I personally use 17908) and use that as a calling card from your SIM card or a landline to call overseas. Alternatively, just get whoever you want to contact to call you instead.

If you'll be travelling all over China, get a Shen Zhou Xing SIM card as it would work nationwide. A SIM card would cost about 80-100 RMB and might have 50 RMB of pre-charged credit. You should be able to receive local and international calls and SMS, and also able to SMS locally and internationally, and also make local calls. You just can't call internationally directly, which isn't a bad thing anyway considering what I've already explained at the start of my post.

As for the transport, which railway station are you wanting to go to? Guangzhou East or Guangzhou main train station?

Thanks of your mail I only want to go to Guangzhou about sim card which sim card is better to use in

Guangzhou ,with sim card can I recive international calls,

Where can I buy sin card

Where can I buy ip card(personally use 17908)

what is cheap way to travel from airport to main railway station, where to stay I want to visit wholesalr market near main railway station which one hotel is good, where can one have nice & cheap Indian food, etc,etc

Get China Mobile's Shen Zhou Xing SIM card, that would be sufficient for your purposes. SIM card would cost about 60-100 RMB regardless of the amount of credit in the card -- it might be 0 or 50 RMB.

Look around for small roadside shops selling telephone cards in order to buy the SIM card and IP cards. IP 17908 with 100 RMB face value would cost about 30-60 RMB depending on where you buy it and your bargaining skills.

hi ellyse,

i m going to guangzhou/zhuhai & macau (on a day trip). considering the numerous international calls i will be expecting, was thinking of getting a prepaid sim card for call diverting purposes. would need a sim card with free incoming calls.

1. i saw your post on IP cards. how are IP cards different from sim cards?

2. which mobile co. has prepaid sim card with free incoming call?

appreciate your useful advice :)

shoppingqueen247

1) SIM cards are put into handphones. IP cards are calling cards with PIN numbers and a number to call, to call overseas or domestic long-distance. Similar to Phoenix cards etc in Singapore.

2) SIM cards and packages vary greatly from province to province so I don't know what would suit you in Guangzhou.