For foreigners on holiday, currency ban comes as a nightmare

NEW DELHI: Before setting on their India trip from Seattle, Jason Smith had promised his companion Sandra that they will get a picture on the famous lovers' bench at the Taj Mahal. The two made it half way across the earth to be in Agra on Wednesday morning but still could not fulfil their dream. The reason: They gave two notes of Rs 500 and one Rs 1,000 to buy two foreigners' entry ticket (that comes at Rs 1,000 apiece) but the Archaeological Survey of India did not accept them.
Late on Wednesday night, the ASI said high denomination notes will be accepted till Friday but by then the American couple was back in Delhi and scores of others too had returned disappointed. "We either had notes of Rs 500 and 1,000 or small cotes that did not add up to Rs 1,000. It is a big let-down and Agra is not a city we may come to again," Jason said in Delhi's Connaught Place.
The government's sudden decision to make Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 left a number of foreign tourists high and dry.
Even Indian tourists were not left unaffected. The problem was the same: looking for Rs 100 and lower denomination notes but not getting them to meet expenses like eating, travelling and sightseeing!
Anil Kalsi, a leading Delhi-based travel agent, said he heard many tales like the Smiths' on Wednesday and of foreign travellers trying to change their high denomination notes -to no avail -to Rs 100 and smaller ones to meet their expenses in Delhi. Kalsi himself experienced the problem. "I took a chopper from Mata Vaishno Devi's Bhavan to Katra on Wednesday morning and went to a restaurant for breakfast. This place did not accept cards and we had Rs 500 notes. We then drove to Jammu. On the way, we had to pay Rs 45 as toll tax and that person did not accept Rs 500 notes," Kalsi said. Then everyone in the car pooled in small notes and coins to pay Rs 45 toll.