Travel bugs: The hassle of losing your phone while travelling

A Nokia 3310 mobile phone. Photo / Getty Images

Tim Roxborogh on the joys of moaning about your holiday

Barry Gibb, Myanmar and losing my much-loved Nokia phone

Somewhere in Myanmar is my old Nokia phone. This was the model of phone that both made and broke Nokia; it was a phenomenon that changed the mobile phone industry, while also being systematic of a company that would then ultimately struggle to move with the times. It wasn't just Nokia. It was the year 2013 and I was on holiday in the country formerly known as Burma and for some reason, I just couldn't let go of my old Nokia phone. That is, of course, until I literally let go of it.

Six years on and it's embarrassing to admit I was probably among the final remaining tourists on the planet without a smartphone. So off I went to what was then the last, great unexplored nation in Southeast Asia, armed with a digital camera in one hand and a phone that couldn't store more than 100 contacts in the other.

In those days it was always a nightmare anytime I made a new friend. I'd have to scroll through my contacts list, pick my lowest-ranked friend or contact and swap them out for the new kid in town. With just 100 contacts possible (not to mention a limit on text messages that meant you wouldn't get any new texts until you deleted a few — again, picking from the lowest-ranked texts from the lowest-ranked contacts), a place in my Nokia was always highly sought after.

Is it bad and wrong to admit that in those heady days in the early part of the decade that I'd occasionally show off at parties, barbecues and other pleasant social functions that among those 100 numbers was Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees? Well, sue me! I love Barry Gibb and as a radio host, I'd been lucky enough to interview my hero about half a dozen times. Barry was my top-ranked contact on that Nokia phone and no one could topple him.

Then one day I was in a cab in Yangon. I'd been sunbathing at an old colonial mansion-turned hotel and on the way back to my considerably less fancy lodgings my phone slipped out of my pocket. At least that's what I think happened. That night I turned my room upside down searching for the phone. Calls were made to the taxi company, next day searches of the colonial mansion conducted, and for days I held out a flicker of hope that my Barry Gibb-blessed Nokia would appear somewhere in my luggage.

That flicker was eventually extinguished and not without a few tears and a possibly unnecessary email to Barry's manager warning him that BG might be getting some mystery calls from Myanmar.

Against all odds, I eventually recovered from this horrific loss, though travel insurance for out-of-date Nokias with the snake game is not as lucrative as you may think. Back in New Zealand, I bought myself a smartphone for the first time and never again did I have to delete low-ranked contacts upon making new ones. Text messages are also no longer removed and the snake game has been replaced with photos, YouTube and various Lego games I'm probably too old for.

Sometimes, in the wee hours, I wake to find myself wondering: whatever did happen to that old Nokia phone in Myanmar? Did that taxi driver find it and refuse to return it because he too loved the Bee Gees? Did I leave it on the sunlounger at the flash colonial mansion only for it to be nicked by a fellow fan of the snake game? It's one of the great mysteries of our times.

Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB's Weekend Collective and blogs at RoxboroghReport.com