Before we set off, I had totally no idea about the exchange rate, didn't know how the notes look like and didn't know the notes come in what denominators. It was all taken care of by my Minister of Finance. "I'll take all the Dong and you take care of all the US dollar," he said and passed a stack of USD to me on the plane. He knows I have a poor sense of numbers and worried that all the zeros behind will get me confused. True enough, the first time I tried to pay for something on my own, I handed a 100,000D note to the cashier thinking it was 10,000D and walked away. Luckily, the cashier was honest and called me back. But not everyone is so kind. A sneaky taxi driver told us the fare was 25,000D when the meter box showed 20.5 (x1000D in small print at the side). Minister of Finance confronted the driver and told him off "You tried to cheat us! Shit u!"