This is a fifty-dollar bill.
This is what Cambodian ATMs dispense. Seeing the dollar is weird.
Kikundi and Oasis are working together for the month with New Life Ministries in Phnom Penh, helping them out with their website. Each of us has been assigned a specific ministry to research and write up on their website, which currently is (in their exact words) rubbish. So we’re here to make it not rubbish.
We’re also using the dollar. Cambodia’s official currency is the riel, but the ATMs dispense dollars, and instead of change in coins, we get riel. The exchange rate is 4000 to 1, so 100 riel is about 3 cents. It’s been kind of weird looking in my wallet and seeing money that I recognize and have used before in my life. And then I look next to it and see 14 cents in riel. Equally strange.
We’re here until June 21st, and then we head to Angkor Wat for a day, and then we’re off to Hua Hin, Thailand, for our final debrief. And then, at 1 am on June 29, I board a plane with seven other Racers (our squad is on three different flights) out of Bangkok to LAX. And then the real culture shock begins.
