In Pictures: MONEY in ASIA

Several minutes after crossing the border into Uzbekistan I exchanged $20; in return, I got a wad of bills wrapped in a rubber band.

From Uzbekistan I crossed into Turkmenistan, where I met a money changer on the street and peered into his bag of cash.  The exchange rate on the street was five times better than at the state bank.

From these Central Asian nations I worked my way to Turkey and, after a visit to the ATM at a bank in the Black Sea port of Trabzon, came away a millionaire.  A few weeks after my visit, Turkey would be reissuing its currency, knocking off several of the zeros to give it a new look.

In some countries, such as in Vietnam, the same person appears on every bill (in this case Ho Chi Minh).

 This is a woman at a rice depot in Cholon, a district of Saigon, counting her cash.

Money in Laos

Gandhi in India

 Waitresses sorting through bills in Kyrgyzstan

My first bills in Pakistan

An assortment of several Southeast Asian countries' currencies (plus some US bills in the middle)