Outside of Dushanbe and Khojand, services are scarce and costs highly unpredictable. As a rough guide, if you twin share in modest hotels, get your food from cheap restaurants and street stalls and travel by bus and train, you should be able to keep daily costs to around US$25.00 - US$40.00 a day. Budgeteers relying on buses or hitching, streetside cafes or bazaars and truckers' hostels may need little more than US$10.00 a day. Foreigners often pay substantially more than locals for services, and there's not much you can do to avoid this. Watch for budget blowers like imported beer and chocolate bars.

Banks may not even have a currency exchange counter, but tourist hotels will often change money. It's often hard to get small bills, but you should try to avoid ending up with wads of large notes in local currency since few people can spare much change. In fact, in much of Tajikistan there is a physical scarcity of money so if you do find a supply of rubls and the rate is fair, consider changing enough for your whole stay. In the Pamirs, the local 'economy' operates largely on a bartering system, but you can change dollars in Khorog. Credit cards are most useful for picking your teeth, though you should be able get cash advances in Dushanbe.

Tipping runs counter to many people's Islamic sense of hospitality, and may even offend them. Shops have fixed prices but bargaining in bazaars is expected.

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