The SIMs

In order to ensure that I don't receive a mobile phone bill for approximately ten trillion dollars worth of data and voice roaming upon my return from Thailand, I've decided that the best course of action is to buy a Thai SIM with a Thai phone number. These plans are pretty cheap (a 300 GB 30-day data plan is about US$37.50, but it's not clear whether that includes any voice minutes) and it's even possible to buy the SIM before getting to Thailand. The SIM is theoretically emailed to you as a QR code (what a future we live in) and you activate it once you get to Thailand.

Simple, right?

Here's where it gets complicated. Because of a know-your-customer law in Thailand, it's now necessary to provide your passport and a photo of yourself in order to buy the SIM. AIS, the Thai mobile phone carrier, uses your webcam to capture images of you and your passport. And this is the frustrating bit, because absolutely nothing I did with my webcam produced an image of my passport that was acceptable to AIS. I tried for what felt like an hour before giving up and trying the button that lets you submit an "unacceptable" image of your passport.

At this point, I thought I was in the clear, but it was a false sense of hope. Next, they wanted me to take a photo of myself with my webcam. Despite lining my face up with the guide image, the image capture website flatly refused to see or recognize my face at all. And this time there was no button that lets you manually snap a photo.

I gave up.

In theory, it's possible to buy an AIS SIM at the Bangkok airport once you arrive. I can only assume that, since they're in the business of actually selling these things, their system is set up properly for taking photos of new customers and their passports. I will keep my fingers metaphorically crossed for the entire flight and hope that it's actually possible for me to give them my money in exchange for a QR code or even a physical SIM.