Still, many people prefer to keep dollars, wary of the volatility of local currency from years of war and political instability.

And the biggest holdout may be the spirit world, where the dollar is king.

“It’s an indication that no one, even the dead, apparently, thinks the riel is regarded in high esteem,” said Sophal Ear, an associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College, in Los Angeles, who has studied dollarization in Cambodia.

He said he had vivid memories of burning spirit money with his family as a child. “It’s a kind of wire transfer to the afterworld,” he said.

At the Kambol graveyard on the outskirts of Phnom Penh last weekend, the air smelled of smoke and roasted pigs, and charred bits of dollars and the occasional euro littered the grass.

“The dollar is valuable, so that’s why we pay in U.S. currency,” said Heng Panhawat, a clerk for a law firm, as he and his children tossed stacks of American currency, a fake jade bracelet and a paper iPhone 5 into the flames.

“When I was young, we just paid respect to ancestors with gold paper and did not burn paper money, but now society has changed,” he said. “When something is valuable on the market, we buy it and burn it for the ancestors.”