Spendin' all your money on me

Egypt can be fairly cheap to visit since 1. 1 dollar (USD)= ~5.3 Egyptian Pounds (EP), 2. Hostels, food, etc. can be extremely cheap if you do as the Egyptians do. What is more of a headache though is change. The ATM's mostly give you 100's & maybe 50's. While these bills are fine when you're planning on a bar tab or buying 20 scarves for souvenirs , most of the time its a perpetual headache.

The thing is, if you want to buy a pop, a few falafels, or get a taxi ride, handing over that 50 pound bill can be a potential problem. Even though this is far & away a cash-based society, "no change" is something heard over & over again.

When you add in the language gulf, the situation can become more frustrating/difficult. I actually feel more rich when I have somehow collected by shrewd means some amount of 1's,5's, & 10's (20's are okay). Simply, having these bills makes everything far easier.

On another note (ha), the government has seemed to have turned away from minting coins & instead only make new Piaster (cent) bills. When I was here 3 years ago I remember getting coins, now its actually pretty rare to get one. These guys though can quickly fill up your wallet, & you will dump them ASAP.

For a rather funny (to me) ending on this one, my friend got a 200EP bill (which I don't think anyone realized existed) when he went to the money exchanger. This is one you don't want. A tactic I've adopted is go by an American place (Hardees, McDonalds), which you know they keep change & dump it on them. Breaking these 200's, thats probably another animal. They are also gigantic.