Spare Some Change?

I love these two piggy banks. We got them around the same time we moved into the house we're renting here. I've never seen them for sale again. There were a couple others I'm bummed I didn't get at the time. All in the spirit of traveling light. I pull out all my thai coins and save the shiny ones for Ray. The green one's pretty much full already. I still manage to squeeze a 5 or 10 baht coin in there every now and then. The white one reminds me of the little forrest ghosts in Princess Mononoke.

The other day I noticed a one baht coin that felt different. It looked a little different too. Wait a minute, the king looks older. Is this like the young Elvis vs. old Elvis stamps? And of course, Elvis today. Anyhow, at a closer inspection I noticed it was actually a 2 baht coin. Brand spanking new. That's going right into one of Ray's banks.

These are a few of the thai coins. The one on the lower left is the 2 baht coin I found. It's about the size of a penny. The tiny brass looking one next to it is the 50 satang, which is worth half a baht. There's actually another one that looks similar but even smaller. The 25 satang. This may be the smallest coin ever.

Maybe not, but it's sure treated like it is.

I only ever get these at the supermarket. Nowhere else. One of the few places that actually uses a register and has products that end in .25 or .75. At 40 baht to the dollar. 1 baht is worth 2.5 cents. Which makes this little piece at .625 cents. If you try to spend them anywhere other than the supermarket you'll get a dirty look, like you're trying to by a car with pennies.

At the supermarkets in Bali, if it comes out to a fractioned number they actually give you candy for change. One of the coin trays is full of them. Once I tried to pay for something with the same candy bits. They just stared at me and didn't find it cute or amusing. Go figure, neither had I?

Ok, well, actually I had found it cute.