Since I don’t travel with US dollars I depend on the ATM for getting local currency. Normally it’s not a problem but here in the Philippines it’s a different story. After trial and error I have learned that there are only certain banks here that will actually accept “western” ATM cards. Once you find one of these banks more than likely the machines will be out of cash, especially the closer you get to Sunday. They normally refill them on Monday. Nothing like going from bank to bank to bank trying to find an ATM that will give you cash.
The ATM’s normally give you 500 Peso (about $10) or 1000 Peso (about$20) bills and trying to change these into smaller bills is no easy feat as no one seems to have change. The people here will actually refuse to sell you something or refuse to take you on a taxi if you don’t have small change. Anything over 100 is pretty much unusable. I learned early on to head to the larger supermarkets and chain restaurants like McDonalds to change big bills. Even they would ask if I had smaller change but I knew that they could change my bills and would pretend that I didn’t even though I had a stack of small bills stashed away.
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