A portion of an E-mail written by Patrick Martino…

Burmese Money

Traveling to a foreign country usually requires changing money. Changing money can at times be difficult, stressful, and confusing. This is espically true when trying to find a bank with a good exchange rate or an ATM which will accept your bank card. Imagine then, the stress and confusion of converting and using cash in a country which uses not one form of currency but three.

The locals in Myanmar, formerly Burma, call the monochrome green U.S. dollar big head money, because of the framed oval over-sized portraits of American presidents and patriots. The Burmese love to use big head money, because of its notoriety around the world, its strength relative to other currencies, and because Myanmar's own currency, the kyat, has a history of inflation and being devalued by the government.

Besides locals, Myanmar's military government likes big head money too, with which they can buy fighter jets. The government likes U.S. dollars so much they make changing money into Myanmar's third type of specie, FEC, Foreign Exchange Certificates, easy. They force tourists, not on packaged tours, to hand over $200 on arrival to Myanmar.

Tourists' dollars are exchanged for an equal amount of FEC. The FEC are printed on cheap looking stiff paper and look more like monopoly money than currency.

Travelers can keep at least some of their big head money, however, if they are bold. I challenged the decree of blindly handing over $200. I wanted to keep as many portraits of Ben Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Alexander Hamilton, Abe Lincoln, and George Washington, depicted on the one hundred, twenty, ten , five , and one dollar notes respectively, not only because I didn't want the money to go directly into the military junta's war chest, but after having been traveling outside of the United States for four months it was nice to see some familiar faces.

After having my visa stamped at Yangon's International airport I was hustled by a stiff white collared official to a varnished exchange counter labeled with the sign "Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank." The desk attendant at the exchange counter was a young bronzed Burmese woman with spidery fingers. She analyzed each tourist's passport like a pedantic monk before demanding her fee of $200.

I was one of the last, in a long line of tourists, along with a dark skinned young man with black curly hair. I had met him while stepping off the gangplank of our recently arrived flight from Bangkok Thailand.

When our turn approached we collectively whined and lied we would be returning to Bangkok in just four days. We argued we would require far less than the stipulated 200 FEC. We told the desk attendant we were flying back to Bangkok to celebrate, at the time, the approaching Christmas holiday.

The attendant didn't believe us. My new friend had failed to tell me he held an Israeli passport, was Jewish, and didn't celebrate Christmas.

The attendant had a dour countenance, a saturnine air, as if she had heard it all before. Only by steadfastly sticking to my lie for twenty minutes and with a generous Christmas "present" of five dollars was I able to exchange just $50.

After the receipt of my five FEC ten notes, I was brought a large hardbound ledger with musty thin-ruled pages. Under the watchful eye of the attendant, I wrote down my name, country, passport number, and finally stated the reason why I had been unable to proffer the $200. The desk attendant with the thin spidery fingers dictated I should write "I have no money, " and then sign my name.

By the size of the ledger and the number of entries contained within the narrow rule, I was surprised the vast of majority of other tourists visiting Myanmar also had no money.

On the front of every FEC is written "one dollar equals one FEC." It does not take a traveler long to realize, however, one FEC is worth far less than one dollar and FEC's can be used to purchase very little, besides hotel rooms and admission to government controlled tourist attractions.

Using soley U.S. dollars can be inconvenient, in a country without coins, and where a bowl of soup cost around 8 cents and a soda 10 cents. If you want to eat you need kyat.

There are no ATMs in Myanmar which will accept foreingers' cards. The few banks which do exchange travelers checks charge exorbitant fees, usually $2 per check regardless of its value, and convert the check not into dollars or kyat but into FEC's. You can get kyat at hotels at terrible rates or you can try the black market.

Black market money dealers are easy to find in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, the capital of Myanmanr, but they are far from easy to deal with. You can find the dealers everywhere, in restaurants and hanging about the fringes of every tourist attraction. They will walk up to Western tourists, and in hushed tones whisper, "Do you want to change money?"

I found my black-market dealers near the Sule pagoda in the heart of downtown Yangon. Beneath the blazing gold leaf of the pagoda, which shimmered in the sun like a chalice, two men with black hair and spurious smiles were more than happy to make a deal. We negotiated the rate in the open, using a calculator passed back and forth. The shortest man looked vaguely over his shoulder ever few seconds to check for police.

We played a game of what is the tall tourist willing to part with his American dollars for.The mendacious men began the first round at 1,000 kyat for one U.S. dollar; if I changed $100. I laughed. I told them I wanted 1,035. They then laughed. They shook their heads. "No, No we sell dollar at 1020. Not Possible." they told me.

It was not until I began to walk away, toward another eager dealer, the two men changed their minds and settled on a fair deal of 1,030 kyat per U.S. dollar.

We moved behind a parked Toyota truck to consummate the deal. I counted out the largest wade of cash I have ever held, 103 blue-green 1,000 kyat notes with the image of a stone lion printed on each. The stack of notes was a half inch thich. The money changers were nervous as I slowly counted out the 103 bills. They urged me repeatedly to hurry, in fear of the police.

When I opened my own money belt and began to count out my Abe Lincolns and Alexander Hamiltons, to give in exchange, the men grew upset.

"No No No," they told me "No small bills, one hundred!"

In some strange mathematical way, I do not understand, $100 in Myanmar does not equal $100. One Ben Franklin is worth more than one hundred George Washingtons, twenty Abe Lincolns, or ten Alexander Hamiltons. It would take perhaps a dozen Wall Street analysts and a super computer to find any logic or any money making opportunities in exchanging currency in Myanmar.

I finally settled with the black market money dealers for a rate of 1,020 for one U.S dollar for my $100 worth of small bills. The official government rate was 6.9 kyat for one U.S. dollar.

If dealing with money wasn't already confusing, my first night in Myanmar at the White House hotel in Yangon made trying to figure out money even more difficult. I had the option of paying for my room with three FEC's, three George Washingtons, or with three thousand kyat. When trying to buy a bus ticket to Inle lake, from the same hotel, the seeming parity between the three currencies disappeared. For the bus ticket, I could pay 6,100 kyat or six George Washingtons plus one hundred kyat, but I could not use FEC unless I first exchanged it. If I exchanged my FEC, the White House was willing to give me 820 Kyat for one FEC, even though one FEC is supposed to be worth one US dollar, which is really worth 1020 kyat but which no tourist is supposed to have anyways because nearly everyone has signed the ledger and has "no money." I wonder what kind of rate the hotel would have given for my presidents and FEC if it was called the Department of the Treasurey instead of the White Ho! use.

Yoav Alfandari, 22, the Israeli who doesn't celebrate Christmas, called Myanmar's three currencies a "Catch 22."

He complained after having tried to cash several travelers checks, "you are losing money all of the time. You are losing money on the black market. I changed travelers checks and they don't give me dollars. They give me FEC and that cost me $2 to change the check. And then the FEC's aren't worth a dollar so I am going to lose more money."

Perhaps Yoav and other travelers to Myanmar would be vindicated to learn of the American quarter I found in a silver shop in Inle Lake. The face of George Washington was worn. The quarter's edges were smooth and the 1958 coin had lost its luster. This however did not stop the owner of the silver shop from trying to sell me the coin. When I asked the value the owner promptly stated the bargaining at 19,000 kyat. I countered with 5,000 kyat. He dropped the price immediately to 10,000 kyat and was still eager to haggle before I stopped playing with him. I told him the coin was probably not silver but nickel, worth about 250 kyat, twenty-five cents, and I couldn't buy it anyway because I had "no money."

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