Our upcoming epic trip is to include 6
different countries with 6 different types of currency, each of them
ridiculously foreign to me, having never really traveled to Asia before
(Japan conversion was a simple 'divide by 100' at the time I was there).
I was lost enough having to deal with British pounds--I gave up trying
to count my own change and simply held out palmfuls of coins to the
retailers to pick and choose for themselves--now I have to deal with
Ringgit, Baht, Dong, Riel, Rupiah, and HK dollars! While booking our
itinerary through the countries of choice, we've been trying to stay
within budget which requires doing a lot of conversions between the
currencies to remain within reason. When we start our planning and
budgeting sessions in the early evening, it's not too bad.
Malaysia = RM = Ringgit = divide by 3 for CAD
Thailand = THB = Baht = divide by 30
Vietnam = VND = Dong = divide by 20,919
Cambodia = KHR = Riel = divide by 4,000
Indonesia = IDR = Rupiah = divide by 8,770
Hong Kong = HKD = Hong Kong Dollar = divide by 7.6
But then it gets really late at night and your brain stops working.
Jumping from Baht to Dong can really mess with your head. All the extra zeros that suddenly start to appear can be really daunting, especially when your next flight comes up at over a MILLION Dong.
"Holy crap, baby! Our flight out of Ho Chi Minh is going to be 1,079,000 VND! That's ridiculous!"
"What is that in CAD?"
"It's ridiculous! It's...*divide by 30*...oh, wait...*recalculate and divide by 20,919*...oh, never mind. It's $51.57."
And then reading up on travel tips to avoid getting scammed I learned that scams seemed to be par for the course in certain parts of Vietnam. I was looking up stories about how to get from Da Nang to Hoi An by bus and found that every post in the forum I was in had mentions of scams, overpricing, and drivers that would hike up prices for foreigners on a whim. I was starting to get upset to learn that drivers were demanding 10,000 VND for an hour long bus ride that should only cost 7,000 VND. That's an additional 3,000 VND! How could they demand such insanely high prices, above and beyond what is POSTED for the ride?!
And then I did the calculation.
They're haggling over 15 cents?
This is going to be one epic journey.
Malaysia = RM = Ringgit = divide by 3 for CAD
Thailand = THB = Baht = divide by 30
Vietnam = VND = Dong = divide by 20,919
Cambodia = KHR = Riel = divide by 4,000
Indonesia = IDR = Rupiah = divide by 8,770
Hong Kong = HKD = Hong Kong Dollar = divide by 7.6
But then it gets really late at night and your brain stops working.
Jumping from Baht to Dong can really mess with your head. All the extra zeros that suddenly start to appear can be really daunting, especially when your next flight comes up at over a MILLION Dong.
"Holy crap, baby! Our flight out of Ho Chi Minh is going to be 1,079,000 VND! That's ridiculous!"
"What is that in CAD?"
"It's ridiculous! It's...*divide by 30*...oh, wait...*recalculate and divide by 20,919*...oh, never mind. It's $51.57."
And then reading up on travel tips to avoid getting scammed I learned that scams seemed to be par for the course in certain parts of Vietnam. I was looking up stories about how to get from Da Nang to Hoi An by bus and found that every post in the forum I was in had mentions of scams, overpricing, and drivers that would hike up prices for foreigners on a whim. I was starting to get upset to learn that drivers were demanding 10,000 VND for an hour long bus ride that should only cost 7,000 VND. That's an additional 3,000 VND! How could they demand such insanely high prices, above and beyond what is POSTED for the ride?!
And then I did the calculation.
They're haggling over 15 cents?
This is going to be one epic journey.
2 comments:
oh Boo... You're traveling to and through VN! I am jealous. Live it up for me. NUFF!
Good luck Mel! That's what they smart phones are for! Hopefully we can meet up in Thailand but if not we'll have some stories to exchange that's for sure!
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