Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After a relitively stress free journey, I am sitting in Heathrow terminal 3 waiting for my flight to depart.
I Guernsey the Guernsey to Gatwick flight could have been more pleasant, I dont mind admitting that high cross winds on both take off and landing made me sweat a little.
Also I caught myself grabbing onto the chair everytime the plane hit an air pocket. Why I do this is beyond me, I mean if the plane does fall from the sky that seat is going to hit the deck just a fast at I will.
My research into currancy exchange in Burma has revealed some amusing things. Appratently the official exchange reate is 6.5 kyat to the US Dollar, but on the black market you will get about 1100 kyat to 1 USD. Obviously everybody uses black market money changers for cash, which is not as sinister as it might sound. Strangely enough you will get a higher exchange rate for 100 dollar bills and more if they are crisp and unfolded in anyway. In fact some reports say that perfectly good money has sometimes been refused because of excessive folding!
Pity I read this after I had already got my Dollars in Guernsey because when I checked I had been given most of it in 50 Dollar bills and most were not very crisp at all. The quest of changing these into 100's in Guensey had failed miserably, no banks would do it.
Gatwick airport, however was a different story. But I did feel like an idiot insisting that they were crisp and unfolded and even more of idiot when I refused a couple that had a serial number starting with 'CB', these are considered fakes by the majority of Burmese locals. It crossed my mind that the people behind the desk might think I was a criminal or something because I was being so fussy.
One further thing to note is that crisp, unfolded 100 Dollar bills that DO have a serial number thatcontains only odd numbers recieves the highest exchange reate of all because they are considered very lucky in Burma. You may be relieved to read that even a tight traveller such as myself didn't have the heart to insist that I given these.
- comments