As some of you may have heard, we were in Jaipur when PM Modi banned all rs500 (approx RM30) & rs1,000 (approx RM60) notes overnight, leaving us tourists with no cash. Plus, the government closed down the banks for 2 days during this period (eventually, the governement allowed the banks to open the next day, phew). Story time!

Learning of the news

So, we fell in love with so many pretty things sold along the Hawa Mahal Rd on Day 1(I kid not, if you love patterns, this place is so awesome!), but vowed to only buy them on Day 2 so we do not need to carry them around during our 1st day touristy sightseeing. On Day 2, we woke up with the will to spend our money on those beautiful things, flagged a tuk tuk driver, gave him rs500 and expected our change back, but he rejected and was not willing to fetch us. We were shocked! He told us the news, raised my voice at him, saying that he was lying and told him that I am going to check news on the spot. I googled, and yes, he was right! He then called another tuk tuk driver (Khan) to fetch us. 

While waiting for Khan, we were chatting worriedly with all other tourists at our hostel and I started calling the Malaysia embassy. No one picked up and was desperate enough to call the Singapore embassy, so long as I can speak to someone! Of course, they do not have a solution either as they have just gotten the news that morning too. They also do not have sufficient spare change to change with our RS500 & RS1000.

Khan came. Thinking we had hope, Khan offered us a cut throat price. Gave us 2 options - to stay back at the hostel, or to pay him that amount for the whole day. Of course, learning of the news freaked us out (#firstworldprorblem), but when Khan told us the price, we were mad. Ryn raised her voice at him, and he walked off angrily to our hostel's kitchen. We both discussed between Khan's option 1 & 2, but already came all the way here, option 2 lorr. We calmed ourselves down, and Ryn had to humbly walk to Khan & apologise to him (super padan muka to us la, LOL).

We tried negotiating with Khan, saying that he can give us his change since he gets to change it at the bank 2 days later. But for Ryn & I, we were leaving India 2 days later, so there's no chance at all to change. He explained that he also has insufficient change to survive for the next 2 days and is unable to help us. Plus, the government only allows each person to change Rs2,000 per day. So ok, both parties say sorry here and there, and off we go, doing our touristy thing again. But super sad, because we cannot buy those pretty stuff from Hawa Mahal Rd anymore. 

So, Ryn and I were so proud of ourselves for buying the Rs1,000 composite tickets the day before that allows us to visit Amber Fort, Albert Hall, Hawa Mahal, Jantar Mantar (Observatory), Nahargarh Fort, vidyadhar garden, Sisodia Rani garden & Isarlat (Sargasooli) within 2 days, because with the money ban, we definitely won't have spare change to pay for each entrance fees. But, we then found out that the government declared free entrance fee to all tourist sites due to the money ban -_- Oh well.

We still couldn't believe that all of our money just became "toilet paper" overnight. Gosh! We both had to calculate every single cent to plan for lunch and dinner. We somehow had faith that we will have cash the next day, so bold! Lolol!

How locals treated us

After all those argument, we slowly learned that Khan is a super amazing 18 years old tuk tuk driver, with a big heart! Not possible to detail out all those moments we had, but one thing we were grateful for - Khan brought us to those non-touristy place where the chances of getting smaller change is higher, i.e. those family owned business where they keep way more cash. Quite brave of both of us to trust him though, driving us through those alley to get us to these family owned business. In these shops, workers crowded around their boss's tablet / phones to watch news of the money ban. Each time we pay, these bosses have no hestitation giving us the change that we need and chatted with us about the terrible situation PM Modi has put everybody in. Anyway, thanks to Khan, by the end of the day, we have gathered enough spare change to survive till the end of our trip <3

Bank experience

A hillarious advice we had from the New Delhi's hostel manager, who so happen looks like Mahatma Gandhi. We asked if there's any other place to change money because the queue at the bank is ridiculously long, and we do not have much time left in India. His advice (with the very funny indian slang) "Just cut queue and ignore whatever people talk about you. You are a tourist, you can act like you do not know the rules".

We took his advice.. and so, here's Ryn, right infront of the bank's gate. Ok kidding! We didn't cut queue. This was the only bank with no queue, not sure why. Anyway, the man was trying to explain that tourist should go to the other bank instead. We gave up. But on our way out for sightseeing, we saw a bank with a very short queue and we both managed to change Rs2,000 that day, while our plan was to change the remaining cash at the airport.

The angelic man we met

Dinner that night, we bought stuff from Chumbak (omg, almost wanted to buy the whole shop down. Too pretty!). Thank God that Malaysia credit cards were in the midst of a pin number transition, hence the card terminal detected that my credit card needed a pin, when in fact, I do not have one yet. After all the fuss of trying to call the bank, the cashier dude just asked me if I have Rs500. I nodded my head and he said "ok, i'll swipe my credit card, you pay me the Rs500". Omg, i literally passed him about 15 pieces of Rs500 and that was how I got rid of almost all of my Rs500 worth of "toilet paper". But Ryn still had some Rs500, which I will share in another post of her experience at the airport. It was madness because we were down with serious food poisoning!

Anyway, after all the fuss, we still managed to complete some sightseeing at Jaipur. Here you go, pictures of our favourite places.

Hawa Mahal

So pretty! The windows were built so small so that woman of the royal household could look out while unseen from the outside

So pretty! The windows were built so small so that woman of the royal household could look out while unseen from the outside

City Palace

Those colours, so much vibe!

Albert Hall

The name so guai lou. Haha. It's the art museum of Jaipur. Since we fell in love with so many things in Jaipur, we couldn't miss this art museum.

Amer Fort

Thinking that it would just be another typical fort, I was totally wrong. It has so many beautiful patterns in there, it was love at first sight!

Some scenes in Kung Fu Yoga (a Jackie Chan) movie were shot here.

Even the shawl that we bought speaks so much of colours in Jaipur

This picture does no justice to such beautiful details.

Indian Coffee House

A coffee house which has a long history since 1936. It's naturally hipster by itself. Haha.

So yummers! These are called "Dosa" (we call them Thosai) and mine has mutton in it.

Nahargarh Fort 

We intended to go there for sunset, but it got a lil too dodgy on the way up. At some point, we felt like we were being followed by men and had to U Turn. You may read more about how our six sense told us to U Turn here. I'm not too sure if we were going up through the wrong entrance as I read that there are restaurants up there. But, just by looking at instagram, the sunset from above is breathtaking.

But, here's the totally opposite side of Jaipur (throughout India in fact), there were slumps everywhere.

So if you are ever interested with exploring Jaipur, get Khan's contact from me! Adios!