Immature fun with money

The Vietnamese currency is the dong.

I know, I know -- it never gets old. Especially to a guy whose favorite shows are "South Park" and "Family Guy".

I was crushed -- crushed! -- when I learned that it's actually pronounced 'dawm'. No matter. When dealing with tourists locals will use the English pronunciation.

The exchange rate is wacky. Sometimes currency conversion is easy. One dollar is worth a little more than 34 Thai baht, which means that 100 baht is about three bucks.

One dollar is about 4,000 Cambodian riel. So 1,000 riel is worth about a quarter. (Cambodia is even easier since, in places where tourists tend to accumulate, prices are given in dollars, and ATMs dispense dollars, so you don't need to worry about it at all.)

In Vietnam one dollar is worth about 17,000 dong. 17. A prime number that doesn't divide into anything. Three dollars is roughly 50,000 dong. That's about as helpful as it gets.

The bad part about currencies with massive exchange rates is adjusting your brain to the big numbers. Someone will quote you a price and you'll automatically think "That's nuts! I'm not paying -- wait, that's only 70 cents. Okay. Give me two."

The good part is that you feel rich, rich, rich! When I was in Mongolia I had to pay for a long tour in local currency. I went to the bank to get it. All two million tögrög of it. I had never had two million of anything!

I arrived in Vietnam by boat and ended up spending my first few nights in Saigon hanging out with two American guys. I think it was the first time on the entire trip I hung out with Americans! Get three American guys together, at least one of whom has the emotional maturity of a middle schooler (me) and the dong jokes just never stop. We were like Beavis & Butt-head ... and another Butt-head.

My favorite joke (which I think I actually came up with) is that being broke in Vietnam is worse than being broke in other countries because it means you have no dong.

Time to grow up, I suppose. Rats.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to hit the ATM. Do I take out one million or two? Hmm...