Back In India, round two

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I am now back in India, having flown into Madurai in the south (the Western Ghats area) and hopefully then moving northwards up towards Gujarat and the Delhi area again. I'm not sure what's going to happen during this part of the trip to be honest. I left India because of their financial "issues" and had hoped that things would be manageable in a month's time when I came back, but that may have been a bit optimistic.

My original plan for India was to start in the north (Delhi) and leave from the south (Kochi) after about two and a half months. So I already have a Thai Air Asia flight from Kochi to Bangkok for the 11th of January. But then I had to skip to Sri Lanka which messed that up. I figured that when I came back the worst case scenario would be that the ATMs still wouldn't be working and I'd have to just stretch out the Indian rupees I'll have on me (obtained by changing foreign currency) until my 11th January flight, but that means I'll basically be restricted to the south and probably not able to do very much. Middling case would be that the ATMs work but only for limited-amount withdrawals - they were talking about daily limits of 2000 rupees (about NZ$40) - which could mean either the same as the worst case situation or perhaps it would be workable. (The problem with limited-amount withdrawals is that my bank charges NZ$6 per transaction from a foreign ATM so I usually try to get out about two or three weeks worth of cash at a time - if I have to make withdrawals every one or two days the fees will add up too fast). Best case scenario is that the ATMs can give out enough money at a time for me to continue as planned and see all the places I intended to, and then I'll probably fly out of the country from Delhi or somewhere. I couldn't book any flights in advance because I didn't know what would be happening. However my fingers and toes and eyes and heart were all crossed.

To ensure that I actually had money for the worst-case scenario, I got out a bunch of Sri Lankan rupees (LKR) from ATMs in Colombo and when I got to the airport I changed 71,000 LKR into US$466, so that when I got to India I could change that into Indian rupees (INR). The reason for that is because foreigners can't take INR into India - you can only get it in-country. There's a bit of confusion around this because India made a recent law-change which allows foreigners to carry 26,000 INR on their person and some internet sites interpreted this to mean import 26,000 INR which it does not. I had also been told that you couldn't change LKR outside of Sri Lanka (because, like India, legally you aren't allowed to bring it into Sri Lanka from outside so why would anyone outside the country be willing to accept it). So the best idea seemed to be LKR to US$ to INR, even though I'd be losing some money during each transaction. I think going from 71,000 LKR to US$466 to 27,200 INR I lost over NZ$100 along the way. And as it turned out the money changer at the Madurai airport does take LKR so I could have saved a step, but better safe than sorry.

Speaking of currency issues, a weird thing is that all the shops in the Colombo airport departure terminal have everything priced in US dollars. I didn't understand this - some Asian countries such as Cambodia and Burma have US dollars as their currency (alongside their own useless currency) but this is Sri Lanka. There were only three places to eat - two coffee shops and Burger King. The cheapest thing I could find was a burger and fries for US$10. Ten US dollars!!

I had 300 LKR left in my wallet, and I thought I'd just buy a juice or something on the plane. SpiceJet wouldn't take Sri Lankan rupees, only Indian rupees. Two points here. One, I don't normally buy things on planes because I'm cheap, but every other international flight I've been on accepts the currency from the country they are coming from and going to, given that the passengers may have one or the other but not necessarily both. And point two, it is illegal for foreigners to bring Indian rupees into India, so why are they expecting foreigners to be able to pay with Indian rupees on a flight going into India?

Still on the subject of oddities, I never did find out why there are posters of Fidel Castro all over Sri Lanka. Whenever I saw one I would think "okay, I'm going to ask someone what that's about" but then I would forget. I just googled it and (unknown to me because I'm travelling and aren't following world news) Castro died in November and Sri Lanka was a big supporter of his government. As I just saw on one Sri Lankan site, "The world mourns the passing away of Fidel Castro. The world has lost one of the most illustrious leaders of our time." The things you don't know.

It's only an hour-ish between Colombo and Madurai. We touched down at 3.40pm to 31 degrees Celsius. Immigration was quick and painless (unlike trying to leave Sri Lanka, where the person at the SpiceJet check-in desk gave me the third degree, apparently thinking it suspicious that I would be going back to India). The money exchange counter at Madurai does a weird thing as well, probably because it is such a small airport - when you change money they can only give you 5000 INR in cash, and the rest is put onto a Visa card which you can then use at ATMs to withdraw as needed with no extra charges. It wasn't until this was all sorted that I clicked onto the very obvious problem that if the ATMs still weren't working then I'd just uselessly locked all my safety money away where I couldn't get it! Fortunately the lady at the counter said that the country's ATMs were all working fine now, so no problem. Outside while waiting on the bus into town I asked a couple of other people and they also said the ATMs were working as normal. As I found out that evening though, they are currently restricted to a daily withdrawal-limit of 2000 INR. This isn't a problem right now, because I can use the Visa card from the airport for withdrawing money, rather than being charged fees on my own card, but it might become an issue later.

I had booked a not-very-cheap hotel in Madurai for the night, because the buses to Munnar only seem to run in the morning and it was the cheapest one on booking. com. The hotel's called the Kathir Palace and cost 900 INR for the night (about NZ$18). Outside the airport the taxi drivers wanted to take me there for 250 rupees, but I knew the bus to town would only cost 11 rupees and the hotel was then only a kilometre from the bus stand. 11 rupees is about NZ$0.20 and 250 rupees is about NZ$5, so although it makes me sound like an utter skinflint I wasn't paying that much of a difference for a ride. I had to wait for an hour for the bus, but I can be patient when it comes to saving money. I got let off the bus in the city and told to just walk straight down the road until I came to the Meenakshi Temple and the road my hotel is on was behind it. The directions weren't exactly precise, because there were a fair few turns along the way and I had to ask several times for directions, but I got there in the end. Airport to hotel, thirteen kilometres, 11 rupees.

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