Never could you imagine how eventful life can get in just a couple of days. 

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There was nothing eventful about the backtracking flight from Bristol back to Madrid after the wedding.  The Crowne Plaza Hotel at Madrid airport was just as expected.  The flight from Madrid and our connection at Heathrow was slick.  In fact, our splurge was mighty comfortable as we had our own little pod in the centre of the plane.  The food was excellent and the drinks plentiful and the staff even gave us some miniatures and snacks to take off the plane for our wait in Mumbai for the uneventful flight with Jet Airways to Goa.

But, and here’s the but……..just before the BA flight landed at Mumbai one of the flight crew told Neil that his rucksack didn’t make it onto the plane.  He was chilled about it having had plenty of fine wines and port with his cheese.  When we arrived the ground crew were very helpful saying that the bag would arrive on the same flight next day, flown to Goa and would be delivered to our door within 72hrs.  Neil was still chilled at this point as there wasn’t any point in getting angry….it wouldn’t make it arrive any faster, it wasn’t the ground crew’s fault in Mumbai and, anyway, all he needed to do was to buy a couple of T-shirts for the beach……..72hrs would fly by!  As savvy travellers we normally split our clothes so that if a bag does go missing we are covered.  We didn’t this time and Neil knew that he was going to regret it…….Cheryl’s pants were going to chafe a bit!

We got money from the ATM at Mumbai, headed for our connection to Goa, hassled for a taxi to Benaulim and our swanky 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom town house that overlooks the pool at the front and the paddies at the back.  The house was very clean by Indian standards so we headed off to get breakfast and some wifi to let family know we were OK. We started to meet old friends, had a delicious dinner at our favourite curry house, C5, and slept soundly that night.

We woke up to find that Trump had trumped Clinton – how did that happen? We then discovered that India had trumped Trump in terms of shock breaking news.  Whilst we were asleep, at midnight, the Indian Prime Minister announced that all 500 and 1000 rupee notes (the equivalent of £5 and £10 notes) were ‘history’!  This was aimed at reducing the amount of ‘black money’ in the economy which was earned by corruption, terrorism, counterfeiting and money laundering.  It was also intended to make a cash driven economy, where hardly any taxes are paid and incomes are hidden (less than 1% of the population pay tax), into a modern accountable society where salaries are paid into bank accounts and transactions are auditable via electronic payments.  The 500 and 1000 notes are about 86% of the currency in circulation so we knew that this was going to be mayhem!

So, it was a S**t moment with a capital S.  We had a wallet full of useless Ghandi emblazoned toilet paper taken from the ATM in Mumbai.  No problem, the Times of India and the BBC news said that we could get them changed into the new 2000 and 500 notes at any bank at the rate of 4000R/day….but only in 2 days time as the banks were closed so that they could prepare for the onslaught……… and onslaught it was.  The official announcement also assured that you could get 2000 each day at the ATMs, about £25, so all we could do was wait until the banks and ATMs re opened. 

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Fortunately, many restaurant owners who knew us kindly offered us credit and most were still taking old money even though it was technically illegal.  We heard that the new 2000 rupee notes that had been promised had arrived on day 3 and we managed to change 4000R each at the local bank after queuing for about 30 minutes, not so bad we thought.  Next day we headed off to the nearest large town, Margao, thinking it would be easy if we went to the ICICI Bank where Cheryl had an account.  Although it was as crowded as Wembley on Cup Final day we were ushered through and told to go upstairs.  The ATM had no money so we asked for some money from the account using the debit card and we were told that we needed to write a cheque!  Who has a cheque book these days?…..we certainly don’t.  ‘No cheque book, no money’!  All the other banks and ATMs either had massive queues or none at all which meant that they had no money.  By now we were losing our sense of humour and decided to get the bus back to Benaulim for a beer and some lunch to catch up with other people’s stories. 

Then we hit on the ruse that if we exchanged sterling and dollars for old notes at the money changer we could get lots of new money just by getting to the bank early each day and queuing. It was important we got new money as Neil’s sister June and her friend Barbara were arriving very soon and would need currency to go on their 5 day trip to Kerala and their 7 day trip to Rajasthan.  Next day we went back and we queued again only to be told that as we had changed money the day before we would have to wait another 15 days.  ‘What the ****’!  ‘The Government said we could change money every day’.  We were again told ‘no’.  Knowing that bank systems here don’t talk to each other we went around the corner to another bank and queued yet again for 40 minutes.  We were then asked if we had a receipt.  ‘No, we got it from an ATM’ we lied.  He replied, ‘I’ve just had a phone call from H.O. and no receipt means no new money’.  Damn, we had just exchanged $100 and suddenly we were lumbered with old money we couldn’t change.  So, we headed back to the money changer to get a receipt.  At this point we were getting hot and bothered and didn’t fancy queuing yet again so we headed off for a beer and some lunch.  Hey, what the heck, all our favourite restaurants were giving us tick and/or taking old money and we came here to relax not stand in queues. Can you see a pattern forming here? – queues, frustration, empty banks & ATMs followed by a beer and some lunch!

Next day we headed off to Colva which is bigger than Benaulim but is smaller than Margao.   All the banks and ATMs were empty so we decided to get the bus back.  As the bus went past one of the banks we had tried earlier, Neil spotted a queue at an ATM.  We were learning fast, a queue at the ATM means money in the machine.  We stopped the bus and leapt off to join it.  Then Neil had the idea that if the ATM had money then the bank probably had money. 

Cheryl queued in the sun for the ATM and Neil headed into the bank.  There was no queue inside so he wasn’t hopeful but, bingo, ‘yes you can change money’.  The night before the Government announced that the withdrawal limit at ATMs had gone up to 2500R but not at this bank….the stern bank official (she looked like Hattie Jacques in a sari) overlooking the withdrawals said 2000R only so Cheryl didn’t dare argue.  Anyway, 2000 was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick and inside the bank we were getting 5000Rs of old notes changed not 4000Rs……we didn’t know why but by now we had come to the conclusion that despite the Government announcements all the banks were operating by different rules – hey, welcome to India!  Then the nice but incompetent lady announced that Cheryl could only have 4500Rs.  ‘Why’? We asked.  ‘It’s because she has an OCI visa’ – that’s an Overseas Citizen of India.  ‘But she’s NOT a Citizen of India, she was born in the UK and has a UK passport’. She was having none of it so we didn’t argue.  About 1.5hrs later she told us to go upstairs to collect our money.  For this 1.5hrs all she had to do was get us to fill in the exchange form and for her to check and copy our passports, money change receipt, visa and entry stamp, get us to sign each copy and then she had to stamp them and sign them herself.  Hence, the ‘incompetent’ label……1.5hrs for something that should have taken 10 minutes!  Upstairs we were told that despite what we had been told downstairs the system would not allow Neil to have 5000Rs only 4500….the same as Cheryl but we didn’t argue.  The whole process took us more than 2hrs!  We also had a serious sense of humour bypass by the end of it but couldn’t show any signs of frustration in case they said no money. Hey ho, we’d missed lunch but we headed back to Benaulim for a beer and a chat and to tell people we had won the lottery!

You had all forgotten about Neil’s bag, hadn’t you?  Ha, well to cut a long story short it didn’t arrive in 72hrs, it arrived in Goa in 4 days.  Despite being told by the ground crew in Mumbai, the customer service staff on the telephone and the many emails telling him of the status he was finally told that he would have to go to Goa airport to collect it.  ‘How can I collect it, I have no money, the ATMs are all empty, how can I pay for a taxi’?  After several phone calls, buckets of frustration and pointless blood boiling he gave up and we were lucky to get the lovely neighbours that we met last year to take him to the airport to collect his bag…….finally a result for everyone as frankly he was beginning to pong a bit!

We’re now 2 weeks into our trip and whilst Neil has his rucksack the complaint to BA remains open and we’ve heard nothing about his claim for out of pocket expenses.  The money crisis continues unabated with ATMs and banks, in the main, empty.  Whilst the withdrawal of the large notes was a bold move the logistics behind getting the new money into the system has been, well, typically Indian………pretty incompetent and needlessly bureaucratic.  The first note to be issued was the 2000 (and we have yet to see a new 500) so no one wanted to take one as pretty soon there was a shortage of 100R notes for change.  The ATMs need recalibration so for now can only take 100R notes so are quickly emptied once they are re-stocked and restocking is very hit and miss as they haven’t organised enough security staff to deliver the cash.  The Finance Minister has made a comment that recalibrating the ATMs will take several weeks so things aren’t going to improve until after Christmas at best.

Tourists have been left high and dry with many unable to spend or change the amounts they exchanged at the start of their holidays. Some new arrivals haven’t been able to get any rupees at all.  The only option for tourists who didn’t bring a debit card, or when the ATMs are dry, is to change $, £ etc into old notes at a money changer and queue up at the bank to change 4000R into new notes.  The money changers occasionally have new notes so we are changing sterling and dollars but only in dribs and drabs of £10 on a normal day or £50 on a good day.  They still have old notes which we still take but we are being cautious with this as, for sure, very soon businesses will not be able to bank the old money so we only get enough for one or two days at a time.  Despite it being illegal to use old money, if it hadn’t continued we’re pretty sure that India would, by now, be in a state of anarchy with pitched battles at all banks and ATMs. 

All in all it has been an interesting experience despite the frustrations.  It’s a strange feeling to have money but not be able to get your hands on it.  It’s a really strange feeling to be given credit from people who can only dream about having even half as much money as we do….it’s extremely humbling.  We get excited when the ATM makes that satisfying whirring noise which means money is on its way.  It’s just like seeing 3 cherries on a slot machine and you jump for joy at getting your daily allowance of £25!  We even got a couple of bread parcels from our lovely Indian neighbours.

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We’ve been coming to India for a long time now…….so long that nothing really surprises us, it’s just Incredible India.  However, this time it’s very, very different.  The Government changes the rules almost daily as the owners of the ‘black money’ discover loopholes in the Governments ill thought out master plan.  Then the banks respond to the rule changes by operating different rules to each other so nobody has a clue what’s going on………this is India on Acid!