Broke in India on a Wednesday

(Varkala, India, 9th of Nov 2016)

India never stop challenging or surprising us (in a fascinating way).

This morning we, together with the rest of India, woke up to the news that all Indian 500- and 1000-rupee notes have been declared invalid over night and will be taken out of circulation right away. All ATMs are closed for at least one day, maybe two, this so new notes can be distributed to the banks and the ATM-system. The invalid notes will be replaced by new ones that are harder to falsify as part of the Indian governments fight against corruption. This move was first announced last night and all of India was, as we, taken by surprise.

For us, as tourists, this means that we all of a sudden are somewhat limited in what we can do as most of the business we get in touch with, tourist shops, taxis/rickshaws, restaurants etc rely on cash payments and to pay by card is not as common and easy as we are used to at home in Sweden. Of the 9500 rupees we have in cash, 9000 Rs is in the now invalid 500 notes, leaving us with 500 rupees (70 SEK or 7.5 $) in 100 notes that we can use for cash payments for the coming two days until we can get new valid notes from the ATMs. Luckily for us our hotel has a very good restaurant so we have now made it into an “all-inclusive hotel” meaning that we have all meals here and put them on the bill for our room which we then can pay by card when we check out.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/rupees-500-1000-currency-note-faq-narendra-modi/1/805954.html