Taking care of the rupiah

Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves. Some old geezer said that and its true.

Here in Bali they use rupiah which come in 100, 200, and 500 coins. Notes come in 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000. It is a common occurance that shops and warungs don’t have change, and the staff will empty their personal wallets looking for spare bills to speed up a transaction. Recently i have noticed a trend, not handing back the coins. It happens to me about 3 times a day and just now at the petrol station in Kerobokan the guy at the pump tried it on. my bill was 13,500rp, I handed him 20,000rp and got a 5,000rp note back. Questioning him he gave me the old ‘don’t understand’ routine. The motorbike lane is only wide enough for 1 bike. Being at the head of it I wasn’t going to move so he had to give me the extra 1,500rp.

If you don’t care about the extra 100-500rp at every transaction no worries. If you live here its a pisser. Definitely pays to have change on you so there is no problem. The worst people at doing this are taxi drivers.