I found out that GTalk’s “Call Phone” function does not work in Thailand. When you load up the GMail UI, you’ll find that the Call Phone entry in your GTalk contact list has disappeared. Why so, I really can’t say.

The easiest way is probably to go through an external proxy or use TOR with an exit node in a country where the call function is allowed. But this usually means slower transfer rates, which may not be good for a real-time voice function.

But what you may not know is that Google only checks the origin country when you first load up the GMail interface. It will then enable the Call Phone function and as long as you keep that window open, you can basically make calls even if you turn off the proxy or TOR.

So essentially, the steps are to:

1. Connect to a US proxy or connect to TOR and point your browser to the local polipo proxy
2. Load up GMail and ascertain that the Call Phone function can be seen
3. Click on the Call Phone button and make sure you can see the dialing pad
4. Disable the proxy settings in your browser and turn off TOR
5. Make calls as you would like

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