Email Update/Newsletter #19 |
Lisa and Joel's Excellent Adventure: Issue 19 ------------------------------------- - Money Change In Syria- by Lisa A. Listro and Joel A. Sward A few days ago we found ourselves perplexed by an interesting dilemma. We think you might find the problem and the way we dealt with it interesting. There are no ATMs in Syria and you can not (legally at least) even get a cash advance on a credit card! Nowhere, nada, zip -- not even the National Bank of Syria! Some of the finer hotels and merchants can accept credit cards as payment for goods and services, but they can not legally give you back any cash above and beyond the cost of the purchase. When you get to Syria you must have enough cash in convertible currency (good ole' greenbacks are best) or travelers checks (even these are tough to cash) with you to cover the cost of your entire trip. Also, after you convert into Syrian pounds it is almost impossible to convert back to anything else -- plus, you can't take Syrian pounds out of the country! We have a stash of US dollars for "emergencies only", but things like the ferry from Nuweiba, Egypt to Aqaba, Jordan ($43.00 US a head) and changing money in Damascus had left us with a meager $66.00 US in cash. We have cash available on our credit cards, but, as you can see, we had no way to access the money. Well, in addition to our $66.00 US we had 500 Syrian Pounds -- just enough to pay for a bus to Antakya, Turkey, some dinner that night and breakfast the next morning. No problem right? We could just wait until we got to Turkey to hit one of their abundant ATMs and convert some Turkish Lira into US dollars (to increase our "emergency supply"). Oops!! We forgot one "small" thing -- our visas for Turkey. To our dismay we read in the guidebook that a Turkish visa was going to cost $45.00 US each! We didn't have $90.00 and there was nowhere to get a cash advance and even if we could we would get the money in Syrian pounds which are impossible to convert back into US dollars and you can't take them out of the country anyway. (Way to plan ahead huh?) It looked like we were screwed! We racked our brains trying to find a solution to the problem. We could just head for the border and hope there is an ATM and money changer willing to sell US dollars sitting next to the Turkish border. Fat chance! We could go over the border from Syria into Lebanon (you can get a 48 hour transit visa into Lebanon for free) and hit an ATM there, hopefully be able to convert the money into US dollars and return to Syria and then go on to Turkey. That wouldn't work -- our visa for Syria is only single entry, we wouldn't be able to get back in. What's a couple of broke world travelers to do? Simple, you find an underground, black market, Syrian mafia, money merchant who deals cash illegally. He should be able to give us a cash advance on our credit card and give us the cash in US dollars. Sound crazy? Well, believe it or not, that's exactly what we did. The process which eventually led us to a fake jewelry shop, fronting an illegal, black market money operation, run by a Syrian version of the Godfather, went like this. First we decided to go to a legitimate money changer (at this point we didn't even know there was such a thing as an illegitimate money changer) just to see if he would sell us US dollars for Syrian pounds. We didn't have enough Syrian pounds anyway, but we just wanted to see if it was a possibility, in case we could get Syrian pounds somehow. Nope, not going to work, but, he did give us a lead. He told us that a girl working the desk at the "snobby snob" Amir Palace Hotel might be able to help us. After telling the cutish Syrian girl (who spoke excellent English) at The Amir our plight, she made a few phone calls (speaking in Arabic so we had no idea what she was saying). After getting off the phone she wrote some indecipherable Arabic on a piece of paper and said, "Give this to any taxi driver. He will take you to a "jewelry shop". They will help you there." After a cab ride to the other side of town (we had no idea where we were), we found ourselves in a small "jewelry shop". Bizarro! That's the best way to describe it. It was so obviously fake. There were a few gold chains hanging in the window, a lame attempt to front as a "jewelry store", but the main thing that went on here was MONEY! During the 10 minutes we were in "the store", three different men came in and exchanged one bag of money for another. We know the bags had money inside because one was opened and at least 20,000 US dollars worth of Syrian pounds was laid out right in front of us! This is when the counting started. Two young boys came out of the back and just started counting, one stack of money after another. It was hard not to stare at the wads of cash, but our attention was turned away by the husky voice of a Syrian Godfather. "Here's how it works. For every $100.00 US I charge your card you get $80.00 US and I get $20.00. Ok?" Under normal circumstances a 20% commission rate to get our own money would be a "little" steep, but we were in a jam and who is going to say no to this guy anyway? After collecting our cash we scurried out the door and left the crew to the more important chore of counting all that money. When we got out the door, after our "jewelry shopping" we looked at each other and smiled. We were both thinking the same thing. Wow! Did that actually just happen? Well, we got our greenbacks and the next we were off to Turkey. Just wait, when we get there an ATM will be sitting right at the border or the price of our visa will be less than $66.00 US. Oh well, then we wouldn't have this amazing story to tell you, would we? ------------------------- Attached photo: Lisa and Joel at Krak Des Chevaliers, Syria ------------------------- (c) Lisa and Joel's Excellent Adventure 2001. All rights reserved. ------------------------- Lisa Listro and Joel Sward are currently unemployed, homeless world travelers. For more information on their adventure see www.JoelSward.com ---------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to this newsletter send email with subject containing "subscribe". To cancel subscription send email with subject containing "cancel". To change email address newsletter is sent to send email with subject containing "change" and list old and new email addresses in message. SEND EMAILS TO: lisa@joelsward.com ----------------------------------------------------- P.S. (When we got to the Syrian/Turkish border there were no ATMs or anyplace to get a cash advance. The visas were indeed $45.00 US each and if we wouldn't have had enough greenbacks we would have been screwed.) |