India - Help and Advice

hydro-tigger

Hello
We are travelling to India at the end of July and will be there for 5 weeks .:)
This will be our first visit there.

The first 3 will be spend at a yoga center in Rishikesh
We will then be travelling for the other 2 weeks,

I would love to hear from anyone who has been in India recently

I know we cannot take Indian currency in or out of the country - so any advice re currency, cards, ATMs etc would be great.
What cards are best to use in ATMs .
Am I correct in thinking that Credit Cards aren't used much outside western tourist areas and that generally everyone deals in cash.
.
Any information, advice or help would be appreciated

Thanks for your time

Voyager2002

Most of our cards will work in ATMs there, so choose the travel cards recommended elsewhere on this site. Be aware that there is a great cash shortage and so many ATMs will be out of money at any point. There are various mobile "apps" that enable you to locate a working ATM: see this article
http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/demonetisation-4-apps-and-services-to-find-atms-banks-with-cash-near-you-347662.html

Uber works well in most Indian cities so install it on your smart-phone (and link it to a good travel card since the fee will be charged in rupees). Once you have identified an ATM with money you need to get there within about half an hour, so use uber to do so without delay.

Roaming charges for India are incredibly high, so you will want to get a local SIM card. The process for this is extremely bureaucratic and took me about three weeks, so get started on it as soon as you arrive.

Pollycat

I'd head over to the relevant boards on Tripadvisor.

I know the rupee used to be a closed currency but IIRC you can now bring currency out & take it back in.
Not sure of the maximum amount though.

When are you thinking of doing your visa application?
There's a great guide on the Goa board of Tripadvisor that takes you through the application step-by-step.

Ballard

I was in West Bengal last November/December and at that point Sterling was absolutely useless as no one had any rupees to exchange for us. ATMs were mostly empty and when you found one with cash there would be a 40-60 minute queue whereupon you could withdraw one note of R2,000 per day.

I wasn't in particularly touristy places but credit cards were accepted in quite a few places (thankfully). We just had to remember to ask before ordering in restaurants.

Hopefully things have eased now but even if they haven't don't let me put you off. India is a wonderful country and you'll never forget your visit.

Pollycat

Ballard wrote: »

I was in West Bengal last November/December and at that point Sterling was absolutely useless as no one had any rupees to exchange for us. ATMs were mostly empty and when you found one with cash there would be a 40-60 minute queue whereupon you could withdraw one note of R2,000 per day.

I wasn't in particularly touristy places but credit cards were accepted in quite a few places (thankfully). We just had to remember to ask before ordering in restaurants.

Hopefully things have eased now but even if they haven't don't let me put you off. India is a wonderful country and you'll never forget your visit.

That was because the government withdrew certain denomination old notes with no notice and had very little new currency available to replace it.

Back to normal now.

Ballard

Pollycat wrote: »

That was because the government withdrew certain denomination old notes with no notice and had very little new currency available to replace it.

Back to normal now.

I was aware of the reasoning behind it and I'm pleased to hear that things have improved. I suspect that it's still a pain, though, as changing a R2,000 note isn't ever going to be a straightforward proposal when the next biggest is R100. Hopefully they'll introduce new R500 & R1,000 notes at some point.