So you want to be a millionaire

It's almost automatic in Iran. After years of 25%-plus inflation, one hundred dollars gets you 3.4 million rials. That's a lot of zeroes.

To make it even more confusing, no one actually gives prices in rials; instead they use the toman, which is the equivalent of 10 rials, and when speaking they automatically knock off the extra zeroes. So if someone tells you the cost is twenty, what they mean is twenty thousand tomans. Then you have to translate into the actual currency, and hand over 200,000 rials.

This is the board displaying current rates at the exchange office.