We’re still getting used to the currencies (plural). Cambodia uses both US Dollars and Cambodian Riel.

The rule of thumb is 4,000 riel equals $1 although the actual exchange rate is closer to 4,100.

The government has made some recent moves to discourage the smaller US notes ($1, $2 and $5) so it’s hit or miss whether they’ll be accepted (and therefore whether we should accept them as change). So far they seem to be mostly acceptable.

The smallest note we’ve seen is 100 riel (approximately 2¢). Apparently 50 riel notes also exist.

The most common notes we see are 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000. We have seen 2,000 and 20,000 notes too (the latter being the rough equivalent of $5). We are yet to see a 50,000 riel note.

The conversion is not difficult, but it is tiring and sometimes confusing figuring out prices, conversions and change. Today I paid $25 for $23.28 worth of groceries and received 7,000 riel change (the correct amount, but I would have needed a calculator if I’d wanted to check it at the time).

Below is a very thick stack of bills totalling 67,100 riel (according to Banker Ben). That’s a little under US$17 or AU$23. It can be a nuisance to carry it all around and make sure you have a variety of notes for small purchases.

The bigger challenge though is perspective. That thick stack of bills is a nuisance to us… but for a textiles worker (for example) that’s almost 1 week’s wages for a physically demanding job.

Another example is tuk tuk drivers. A 32 minute journey to a bank in the city cost us 6,300 riel ($1.60) the other day. It’s a low paying job and sometimes I have to catch myself getting frustrated when a tuk tuk driver doesn’t have 2,000 riel change on hand for a 10,000 note.