Plenty of money in the bank, but in India you can't use it. Here is what we saw while visiting Jaipur.
I had wanted to share with you the city of Jaipur and the sights we saw but I changed my mind. Bud and I were each working on our writing when we decided to take a break and go see if the ATM had opened. It had not opened and our frustration level is rising. It was then I that I decided to write about our unplanned problem in India. Following is a brief explanation of a bump in the road we are facing and it will be followed by some photos from Jaipur India.
We had arrived in New Delhi 15 days ago. India has been one struggle after another. The chaos and lack of efficiency is everywhere. There are just so many people and so many babies and so many cows it is just unbelievable! We have each been sick now multiple times. If we had chosen to have come to the country through a tour group, I am sure we would have been sheltered from much of this. We made the choice to book things ourselves, ride public transportation, choose our own restaurants and find our own tourist destinations. Much of our chaos we are facing is a choice we made. However, an unexpected incident that has fallen upon us has been the most difficult to deal with. Two days before we arrived the Indian government decided to make huge currency changes within their country. We were naive on how much of an impact this would have on us. The government gave no warning as they wanted the element of surprise on their citizens and they have given little to no information to tourist like us. I will give you a brief description.
India is a population of 1.3 billion. Approximately 45% of this population does not have a bank account. A significant majority of businesses do not take credit or debit cards and operate strictly in cash. Currently we are in a town of 25,000 people and we have found only 1 restaurant that will take a credit card. The train depot does not take a credit card unless you book online with a special Indian identification number that we do not have. Why is all of this so important. Well the huge change that the Indian government made two days before our arrival was to take out of circulation 85% of its currency. What this means is that they have retired 2 key dominations: 500 rupee and 1000 rupee. This was done to eliminate fraud and encourage tax collection. We were told that only 4% of the population pays taxes. The problem is that there is a tremendous shortage of remaining popular bills. Right now, most banks are closed and the ATMs do not have cash to dispense. A significant part of the population do not have bank accounts. They have stashed their tax-free money in their homes. The government has given them a dead line of Dec 30th to deposit their money into an account and then receive 80% of its value. However, once the money is deposited, they may only draw out 2500 rupees ($36.50) per day. When a bank or ATM is open, the lines are around the block with 2-3 hour waits. There is a constant big hunt on finding out which bank or ATM will open. There is no hotline to call or information given out. You simply need to be at the right place at the right time. One day Bud and I navigated the city to at least 30 different ATM’s to get money out. We took out as much as what was allowed but that would only last three days at most. We would then have to return to the search.
So, what does all of this mean for India? Well small businesses are suffering severely. The local people do not have money to buy what they need and tourist do not have money to buy what they want. People are arriving at tourist locations and being turned away because they cannot use their credit cards to get in. We have heard that many businesses are closing because they cannot pay their employees. There are many migrant workers that are illiterate and are working for cash for their families. People are poor here and they don’t have the luxury to wait for the government to figure it out. So far, tensions are not terribly high but you read about the frustration level growing daily in the paper. We have met several fellow travelers who have cut their trip short because they don’t want to deal with the aggravation. So far, we are willing to ride it out. Once we see the Taj Mahal, Bud is ready to leave at any time. He has had enough of an Indian experience. I would like to stick it out. I hate to admit defeat and I really do want to experience the life style of travel, whether it is good or bad.
Following are some photos of the places we saw while we visited Jaipur. Most of the sights are pretty run down and we didn’t have a guide to explain it. Through all of this we are still laughing every day and making the best of it BUT if anyone has a large box of Rupees hidden in their home, if you could Fedex them to us, we would be very grateful. Bet
