Moving Money.

So one day I'm walking the streets of downtown Hanoi carrying 90 million in cash in a brown paper bag.

The odd thing is that there's nothing particularly odd about that here. This is truly a cash-based society. No such thing as a checking account. A few places (mainly stores, restaurants, and hotels that have a significant tourist or ex-pat clientele) take credit or debit cards, but mostly people use cash. Stacks and stacks of cash (at 19,100 dong per dollar the bills stack up fast).

We get paid in cash once a month: big fat envelopes of cash. The largest bill we've seen is 500,000, so it takes a lot of them. We regularly see people at the bank depositing briefcases full of money, like drug dealers in a movie. We once saw a guy withdraw a sack of money so large he had to sling it over his shoulder like Santa delivering a load of presents.

It works because there's so little street crime here. People (especially westerners) can walk around with wads of cash without fear, even late at night.

The hard part is moving money out of the country. We have to submit a letter from our employer stating that we work for them as well as a statement of earnings that proves we earned the money here. Each time the process takes well over 45 minutes, even though they know us at the bank by now. Our financial system may have problems, but Vietnam's is about 40 years behind time.

BTW, I was carrying all that money to pay for our health insurance for a year. Can't write a check. Odd.

P.