Overload

Trip Start Dec 09, 2006
1
25
90
Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Saturday, March 24, 2007

That's it... I can't take it anymore! I'm so full of different flavours of hello and thank you and cash that I really don't know what is going on anymore. The Sri Lankan Rupee was pretty easy to deal with, but you know I can't even remember what hello and thank you were in Sinhala. It was only about a month ago that I was there! The Thai Baht is harder to deal with, because of the obscure exchange rate which I can no longer recall, but adjusting was ok. Then you go to Myanmar... some people will speak English to you, some Burmese, some Shan, some Thai. In the first town people ask you to pay in Baht, but in the second town they suddenly want Kyat which you don't have (partly because you didn't know you needed it, partly because there is no bank and partly because you've never heard of it) except for some people who want dollars because the Kyat is so unstable. Oh, and they don't have change because of course you came travelling with hundreds of pounds worth of Dollars in $1 and $5 bills even the banks only give out $100s 01. drying out my wallet
01. drying out my wallet
 .
When you do get hold of kyat from the tea shop down the alley off the lake at some random exchange rate which may or may not be anywhere near reasonable everything seems outrageously expensive because there are about 3000 Kyat to the pound and what used to cost you 20 Baht is now 500 Kyat!... I'm not paying that! So if there is 1.93 Dollars to the Pound, 30 to 34 Baht to the Dollar depending on the moon cycle, 36 Kyat to the Baht and the train is travelling at 47km/h with a 10mph wind which blows both ways saying shawaddy crap for hello and Jay Z eBay for thank you, how many mosquito bites will Pablito have by Sunday morning?

Of course, I'm in Laos now and it's a whole new ball game... or is it? Same same but different. New words, like the old, but different. New currency, Kip, good name! But sometimes they use Dollars and near the borders it might be Baht or whatever they use in the bordering country. And it still seems wrong paying 20,000 Kip for a meal.... I mean 20,000!!! I changed some money at the bank the other day. The guy wrote down the amount and then gave me 200 Kip less than he was supposed to so I wanted to know why? Of course I was embarrassed when he explained that they did not have denominations that small and it dawned on me that 200 Kip is about 1p. Even the village bum in Laos has a big fat wad of cash! There are no coins and the smallest note is about 3p. The banks have plastic bags on the counter just like a supermarket checkout because most people withdrawing cash will need a carrier bag.
Apparently there are a couple of ATMs in Laos... they must have massive rooms behind them with someone constantly feeding notes into the raging machine throwing out suitcases full of cash... a millionaire every time! But why did they make all the notes the same size and colour?... Doh!
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