Currency Crisis

Monday Night

Taylor and I arrived in Delhi late on Monday night.  First stop at the airport after passing Immigration was an ATM. Taylor likes to pay cash when possible, so he withdrew 10,000 rupees ($150).  Indian ATM's give out cash in 500 rupee notes so we had a thick wad. 

Tuesday

 We had about five hours sleep in Delhi and then caught an early train to Shimla, arriving late on Tuesday night. 

While we had a good night's sleep after our arduous adventures on the toy train,  Indian Prime Minister Modi announced currency reform. He declared 500 and 1,000 rupee notes were "worthless paper."

Wednesday  

Banks and ATMs were closed Wednesday.  People will be able to exchange up to 4,000 rupees at a time of 500 rupee notes on Thursday and Friday.   After that, our cash will be truly worthless.  

Thursday and Friday

Several times on Thursday and Friday, we tried with the help of our guide to  find a bank to do the exchange, but of course the lines were horrendous! In addition to going to banks in Shimla, we tried a bank in the small town of Mashobra.

Should Taylor jump into line at the bank in Mashobra?

 Do we give up sightseeing to spend a day in line or take our chances that we'll make the exchange later?  We decided to take our chances and continued sightseeing.  On Friday we still were looking at long lines, or banks that were out of their stock of the new reform notes. Only 40% of ATM machines had cash.  When we returned to our hotel Friday night we thought we would just have to bite the bullet and lose our remaining 4000 rupees (this is about $60.00).  $60 isn't that big a deal, but we had no other local currency to pay guides, drivers, etc. Our guide and drivers had nicely but reluctantly agreed to accept US $20 bills from us, given the situation (Taylor never travels without a stock of $20 bills for emergencies when we travel). 

At 5:00 on Friday, knowing we were flying to Delhi on Saturday,  we decided to walk up the road that goes past our hotel to see if we could find a bank still that still had legal currency.  By great luck, our guide was still outside our hotel chatting it up with another guide.  He very nicely insisted on going with us on our search.  Shortly before bank closing at six, he led us to a State Bank of India branch.  Despite the lines, some kind soul led us to the special desk for tourists set up in a corner of the busy bank.  No line, and we were out of the bank with legal cash before six!  Keep in mind, we now had about $60 worth of legal cash.  We figured this was enough to pay the guide and driver on Saturday, and the driver to take us to the hotel in Delhi.  We still weren't out of the woods because we had no other local cash.

 The newspapers are full of horror stories:  patients refused admission to hospitals because they were trying to pay with 500 rupee notes, workers from Nepal stranded in rural areas unable to get home because they had been paid in 500 rupee notes, and many more.  It is a mess! Our problems are nothing compared to the general population.

Saturday

We drove from Shimla to Chandigarh.  It was the car version of the tortuous toy train ride but it only took 4 hours.  At the airport in Chandigarh we tried to get cash but the ATM queues were way too long.

Back at the Delhi airport we checked out each ATM.  The queues were much more orderly than in the smaller towns, but long nonetheless.

We skipped this line

Good news, bad news.  Our guide didn't show up to collect us when we came out into the airport waiting area.  So...............Taylor joined an ATM queue and I scrambled through my belongings looking for an emergency number to call.  While I was undergoing a little panic, Taylor got to the head of the line and withdrew the maximum 2000 rupees ($30). It's hard to believe we're excited about such a small amount of cash.  In the meantime the guide showed up.

Here we are:  safely in our room at the Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi with $30 in our pockets.  Life is good.

Arrival hall at Delhi Airport.