India - crazy. I'd forgotten how crazy that country can be - crazy good and crazy bad.
While I was there, Modi's demonitisation program was under way. (Modi is Indian PM.) In November, they withdrew old R2000 and old R500 notes as official currency - without notice and imposed strict liquidity controls. New R2000 notes were issued - but nobody wanted to know about them. Getting a R2000 note used for purchases of smaller amounts was almost impossible.
Foreign tourists were allowed to withdraw cash of R5000 per week. That's about $100. Even in low cost India - that's virtually impossible for a tourist to survive on unless they take refuge in the most dire of back-packer lodges. Something we weren't willing to do. (And dire back-packer lodges in India are something to be avoided unless you are almost destitute and don't want to sleep on the street.)
Credit/debit cards could still be used as payment, but so much of India is cash only, and often at establishments withPOS equipment we got "Not Working" answers when we tried to use the Card. Oh yeah - "Not Working" means it is working but we only take cash cause we don't want to pay income Tax. And, that, of course, is exactly what Modi is trying to achieve.
Remember when we were all aghast back in the GFC days to learn to only about 1/3 of working Greeks paid income tax? Well, in India it is less than 10%.
Modi is trying to bring about the first cash-less society in the world. All payments would be completely digitised. Yeah - good luck with that.
On to other things.
On the Presidential Palace in Bangalore is emblazoned in big, big letters: GOVERNMENT WORK IS GOD'S WORK.
I can't see that slogan doing big time in OZ.
After India we flew to Abu Dhabi.
What a contrast. More modern that the Cartoon City of the Jetsons. And totally clean. I've never seen such wealth. Makes Australia look like a poor cousin. (But a very wealthy cousin compared to India.)
(20min delay)