Does anybody know if, in the following countries, is better to have dollars or euros?
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Iran
Armenia
Georgia

Hi Pietro,

for Iran : no problem with euro's ! How's that
We passed twice last year, the first time middle of April 2002 and even at the tiny Sero border (southern border between Turkey and Iran), they were fighting to change our 100 euro bill !
Black market still exists but gives the same rate as in banks - plus the extra risk for being tricked. Don't believe the LP saying it takes forever in a bank with lots of paperwork - in a bank it never took more then 20 minutes to change, and it was easy. Sometimes the money changers didn't take euro's (yet) like in Yazd, but there was always at least one bank in town where they did. The Iranians were happy "to get rid of the dollar" and I presume even more so now.

For more info on Central Asia and the Kaukasus, contact Simon McCarthy en Georgie Simmonds. For reasons of "webscanning spammers" I will not write their address here, but their website is http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/mccarthy/ and surely their e-mailaddress is somewhere on the HorUnl. Else contact me directly, and I'll mail it to you. They are still travelling (in India) but have frequent access to internetcafés.
I doubt they were travelling with euro's (as they are Britts), but Georgie works in Brussels so you never know. They can surely help you out with all kinds of other info too.

Then there is a friend of ours who travelled extensively through Central Asia and the Kaukasus (and Mongolia an China and and...) by public transport. He's Belgian and will know about the euro-issue. His excellent website is http://www.hansrossel.com/ however... it's in Dutch only. He speaks perfect English so you can contact him directly via the site (homepage, down right side).

Wish you a great trip in Iran (and further),
Trui

P.S.: don't know when you're leaving. We'll be in Italy last two weeks of August visiting my sister who lives in Genova. I'd be interested to hear some of your travel stories.

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Iris and Trui
2 belgian women, often travelling on motorbikes (now on DR650SE's)
2nd overland from home to Northern India and back, April-October 2002

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Iris and Trui
2 belgian women, often travelling on motorbikes (now on DR650SE\'s)
2nd overland from home to Northern India and back, April-October 2002