Arriving in Yangon, former capital of Burma, I have no idea what to expect. The airport is slightly tatty, but other than that its just a normal airport, long immigration queues and slow baggage caroucels. As we exit the baggage claims hall we are greeted by taxi drivers, all wearing traditional longyis, asking where we're going, do we need a taxi? When we say no (we have to change a small amount of cash first) they, a lot like Indian taxi drivers, say 'ok maybe later?' and keep following us at a distance. I change my Malaysian Ringgit to Kyat (pronounced 'chat') and we get a taxi straight to the bus station to book our onward bus as we are only staying in Yangon for the day. From the taxi , Burma seems a lot like India but cleaner quieter and wih fewer people, so quite nice really. I think its the skirts t(longyis) that does it. The women are all wearing sandal wood paste sun cream, which leaves sandy golden smears on their cheeks. Their longyis are floral, whilst the men wear green, blue and red checks which look a lot like kilts. Both men and women arfrequently stopping to re-tie them. We pass the odd horse and cart, but there are a lot more cars than I had expected, and there is hardly any foreign advertising. On every corner there is a man selling paan (chewing tobacco rolled in a beetel leaf), and the pavements are splattered red with its results.
At the bus station we book an overnight bus to the hill station of Kalaw, and change our dollars to kyat. The best rate, and the rate we get, is 1000kyat to 1 USD. Changing $300 gives us 300,000 kyat... all in 1000k notes. We count it out carefully once, then again, then a third time before producing our dollars. The two money changers spend a long time inspecting them, making sure the notes have the 'correct bar code'. We knew that the bills had to be clean, new and unfolded, but I had never heard of this requirement, and I triple check they hand back all but the $300 we are changing. We take our pile of three hundred notes, divide it between envelopes (they wont fit in one), put the envelopes in a folder which then goes in Alex's rucksacks.
Although I carry around $300 quite often, the huge wad of notes makes it seem much more. We head to a quite cafe near by to divide the money between us. A few minutes into counting one of the money changers comes up to us and says 'I have your money, you dropped some!'. This is impossible, there is no way dropped any money on the pavement, but sure enough when we finish counting we find we are 80,000kyat short. The money changer hands over 80,000kyat exactly, all in a neat 10,000 bundles, and says 'a nice shop keeper found it and brought it back to me, you are very lucky the Burmese are so honest! Maybe you should give him a tip to say thankyou?'. He then suggests we give the shop keeper 20,000kyat. We explain that there is no way we dropped any money, that he saw us putting it in envelopes and we ask us to be taken to this shop keeper. After we make sure we have our full 300,000 and seal it in the envelopes we follow the money changer back to his own shop and to his colleague, When we tell him were not giving him any more money, that we have our kyat and he has his dollars, he offers to just give us our dollars back. He produces three folded, old notes - definitely not the ones we gave him, and we walk away.
After looking it up online, it turns out that many people changing money in Yangon get back to their hotel rooms to find that they have much less money than they had thought (around a quarter usually taken by slight of hand whilst the money changers fuss over the quality of the dollars). I can only assume that because we counted our money again in a near by cafe, the money changers saw that we would be coming back to complain, and returned the money under the guise of 'finding it'. Not a very convincing story but better than risking our going to the police which, in a country under a government know to be kind to tourists and very unkind to its people, would have been very bad news for them.
The excellent exchange rate (given only because they thought they would get 80,000 back) made them hold out for a 'tip'. The offer to just give our dollars back was a way for them to get rid of some damaged notes (which can't be used in Burma). Its definitely not the most sophisticated of scams, but it nearly worked.
At the bus station we book an overnight bus to the hill station of Kalaw, and change our dollars to kyat. The best rate, and the rate we get, is 1000kyat to 1 USD. Changing $300 gives us 300,000 kyat... all in 1000k notes. We count it out carefully once, then again, then a third time before producing our dollars. The two money changers spend a long time inspecting them, making sure the notes have the 'correct bar code'. We knew that the bills had to be clean, new and unfolded, but I had never heard of this requirement, and I triple check they hand back all but the $300 we are changing. We take our pile of three hundred notes, divide it between envelopes (they wont fit in one), put the envelopes in a folder which then goes in Alex's rucksacks.
Although I carry around $300 quite often, the huge wad of notes makes it seem much more. We head to a quite cafe near by to divide the money between us. A few minutes into counting one of the money changers comes up to us and says 'I have your money, you dropped some!'. This is impossible, there is no way dropped any money on the pavement, but sure enough when we finish counting we find we are 80,000kyat short. The money changer hands over 80,000kyat exactly, all in a neat 10,000 bundles, and says 'a nice shop keeper found it and brought it back to me, you are very lucky the Burmese are so honest! Maybe you should give him a tip to say thankyou?'. He then suggests we give the shop keeper 20,000kyat. We explain that there is no way we dropped any money, that he saw us putting it in envelopes and we ask us to be taken to this shop keeper. After we make sure we have our full 300,000 and seal it in the envelopes we follow the money changer back to his own shop and to his colleague, When we tell him were not giving him any more money, that we have our kyat and he has his dollars, he offers to just give us our dollars back. He produces three folded, old notes - definitely not the ones we gave him, and we walk away.
After looking it up online, it turns out that many people changing money in Yangon get back to their hotel rooms to find that they have much less money than they had thought (around a quarter usually taken by slight of hand whilst the money changers fuss over the quality of the dollars). I can only assume that because we counted our money again in a near by cafe, the money changers saw that we would be coming back to complain, and returned the money under the guise of 'finding it'. Not a very convincing story but better than risking our going to the police which, in a country under a government know to be kind to tourists and very unkind to its people, would have been very bad news for them.
The excellent exchange rate (given only because they thought they would get 80,000 back) made them hold out for a 'tip'. The offer to just give our dollars back was a way for them to get rid of some damaged notes (which can't be used in Burma). Its definitely not the most sophisticated of scams, but it nearly worked.
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