Monday, April 4, 2011

Change? What change? Not in the UAE, anyway

I absolutely love this piece by The National's Felicity Campbell about how the UAE is a country with no change. As in dirhams. It is the bane of my existence. Everyone wants change. No one has any. She writes:

The reason, as I see it, is this. The easiest way to get money is to withdraw it from an ATM. The smallest note to come out of any ATM in the country is Dh100. And if you want to withdraw Dh500, you are more than likely to get a Dh500 note. Which you are then stuck with for a long time as no one will give you change for it without a fight.

I also like how she thinks. Instead of walking around every day, getting cranky at the assortment of people who should have change that never have any (taxi drivers, I am looking at you), she just decided to arm herself with a fat roll of bills and bunch of coins and call it a day. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I decided years ago to short circuit the whole process - hand over 500dhs while saying sorry I don't have change. Its got worse though- I had to apologise for not having change for a twenty the other day grrrrr!

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