Buying in Burma

Let’s just say you want to buy something in Myanmar.  Just in case you find yourself traveling here on your next tour of the middle of nowhere, I thought that I would prepare these helpful directions:
1.       Go to Cambodia.  In Myanmar, you need to have US$ to do anything as a tourist.  Cambodia is the same way (after 30 years of civil war, the USD is much more stable than the riel).  The difference is that
Cambodia has ATMs and Myanmar does not.
2.      Pull out thousands of USD over many days.  ATMs in SE Asia usually only let you get a couple hundred out at a time to maximize the number of times they can charge the fee to use their ATMs.  You need
thousands of dollars because many of them you will not be able to use.
3.      Take your newly acquired Cambodian USD to the bank from which you got the money and go through each and every bill to trade in any that are blemished in any way.  Tears are right out, but any fold, crease,
discoloration, etc will render your money useless.  Get a few more hundred out of the ATM just in case.
4.      Go to Myanmar.  The official exchange rate set by the government is about K450 for $1.  That is a laughable rate and you would have to be a straight sucker to pay it.  Since all of the banks in Myanmar are run by the government, the government can then take that cheaply acquired USD and use it at a more realistic rate (about K800 to $1).  So, you hit the streets.
5.      You may want to practice this step by buying a lot of crack cocaine in a dark alley in a major city because that is precisely what exchanging money on the black market is like.  When walking down a street known as a good place to change money, many guys approach you and discreetly ask if you want to change money.  Then the haggling for rate starts and is contingent on the amount of money you want to change (the more money and the more $100 bills in particular you want to change, the higher the rate. So it is best to change all of your money in this one transaction).  They start at K700 and you work your way up to K800.  Once that is agreed upon, you and the dealer/exchanger go to a more secluded place.
6.      Once at your secluded place, you are handed stacks and stacks of money since there are only K1000 bills (about $1) that have to be gone through and counted individually.  Once that amount is established, out comes your money and the people who you are dealing with suddenly multiply.  Let’s say you are exchanging $200 and you give them two $100 bills, they are never new enough.  It isn’t enough that there aren’t any tears.  They should be perfect bills.  The bills get passed around and analyzed as if it is a diamond and invariably something is found to make it not good enough.  So, you give them another one and another one and another one until a suitable one is found.  Be sure to get all of your bills before giving any more for scrutiny as one of the scams is to just shuffle the bills around during scrutiny and you lose track of where they are.  I tracked down a loose $100 bill before I realized this and quickly collected all of my money.
7.      Count your kyet yet again.  Chances are that while someone was holding your giant stacks of kyet, and while the dollar bill scrutiny was happening, he was skimming off the pile.  In the course of one exchange, at this point and before I gave him my money, the dealer folded the money, put a rubber band around it and stuck it in my pocket, saying “Police! Police!”  I looked around and not seeing any police, I took it out to count it at which point he snatched it out of my hand and walked away.  I am guessing that it was short.
8.      Hide your giant stack of money and walk away.  Assume that you still got screwed somehow but at least you are being screwed by a guy on the street and not a corrupt dictatorship.  Get used to traveling with a large wad of cash.  Now you can buy something.  See?  Easy! Oh wait, no one will have change for that K1000 note.  Good luck with that.