Lewis the Lion can’t believe the number of zeroes on these notes!
Lewis the Lion had thought that the Chilean peso had a lot of zeroes but that was before he encountered the Indonesian Rupiah which was almost double again!
So one British pound was equal to:
$717.68 Chilean pesos
but was also equal to 14,748.53 Indonesian Rupiahs (Rp)!
To help with the conversion, Lewis the Lion rounded the Indonesian Rupiah up to 15,000.
To simplify things further, he found himself saying 15 (even if he knew it was really 15 thousand!). For all its many zeroes, the Indonesian Rupiah didn’t seem to be worth that much which was a good thing for Lewis the Lion as a tourist. Unbelievably, he even discovered that there were some coins here in this currency, the smallest of which at 50 Rp which equals approximately a third of a pence! (There were also 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1,000 coins). Even though it sounds a lot a 1,000 Rp coin was only worth approximately 6 and a half pence!
Alternatively, he knew that Rp 10,000 was worth approximately 70 pence.
So, if his four and a half hour taxi drive from Makassar to Pantai Bira cost Rp 50,000, how much did he pay approximately in pound sterling?
What do you think a similar journey in a taxi or bus might have cost in the UK if the distance travelled was approximately 200 kilometres or 125 miles?
(Perhaps a similar distance between Sheffield to Newcastle upon Tyne?).
Do you think that was good value for money? Why or why not?
As Lewis the Lion studied these apparently huge notes of this currency, he was really happy to see a face he recognised on one of them… or so he thought! On the front of the 10,000 rupiah note it looked very much like the Governor of South Sulawesi who he had been intoduced to not a few days before: that would be cool if that were the case! Wouldn’t you agree? Although he suspected that it probably wasn’t but maybe it was a distant relative instead?!
Lewis the Lion thinks it looks like the Governor of South Sulawesi on the 100,000 rupiah note
As always, he also liked to see what was on the backs of the bank notes of this new currency.
Lewis looks to see what’s on the back of some of Indonesia’s smallest notes
Lewis the Lion sees that the backs of the Rupiahs reflect Indonesian life
He saw that the pictures on the back of the Indonesian Rupiah reflected the life here in Indonesia, such as the the tea plantation on the back of the Rp 20,000 note.
Lewis the Lion wonders if you were to create a design for the back of the notes of some of your national currency, what pictures would you choose to best represent life in your own country?
