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After a quick explore around the Jaipur Fort, we headed back to the textile store to try on our new garments. Matt was over the moon with his Kutar but my trousers were too baggy, so much so they looked a tad masculine so the tailor said he would alter them again for me. Khan then dropped us off in the Pink city of Jaipur and we had a wonder round for a few hours. The majority of the shops were closed due to them not having new currency. We did have a look in one very nice shop called 'Pachouli' which actually designs clothes and bags for Marks and Spencer's. I really liked one of the wash bags which I tried to buy for something stupid like £3, but both mine and Matts cards were declined even though they both had money on. I hoped this wasn't a new problem we were going to have to deal with!
The banks had even bigger crowds of people queuing outside, the problem just seems to be getting worse, not better. We decided to join a queue for one of the Government banks as we were getting low on cash again and needed to change some old 1000 notes. On arriving into the bank, everyone was just shouting in Hindi and it was confusing with what we had to do so I asked to speak to the bank manager. I thought he might help us as we're tourists. The general attitude here so far had been that tourists should take priority as without access to money, we would have to leave the country which they don't want, but also because their political issues have nothing to do with us. However, on speaking to the bank manager he told us we he was not going to change any of our money for us BECAUSE we were tourists! I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So everyone else in that bank could queue up and change their money but because we are tourists we couldn't? Well what were we suppose to do? The ATMs were still not working and not many places accept card?! It just made my blood boil! It's not right that they let us into their country, let us pay a lot of money for visas to then not allow us to access our money while we are here! At this rate, we were going to struggle to buy food and water. We were also told by the bank manager that all tourists needed to go to the airport to exchange their old notes. Luckily we were heading there in the morning tomorrow.
After walking along the busy streets of Jaipur for quite some time, we managed to find a nice restaurant that accepted card called 'Midtown'. We ordered a large pizza each to keep us going. The food was actually really good. Khan picked us up and took us back to the textile store for my trousers. They fit perfect and the fabric looked gorgeous. For the two pieces we paid 3000 Rupee (on card thank god) which is about £36, so they were pricey but the quality was very good.
We headed back to the hotel late afternoon for a nap and a freshen up before dinner. Khan took us to another recommended restaurant called 'M.M. Khan' which made good quality chicken curries. As soon as we arrived, the owner came to greet us at the door. He then insisted we dine in his 'special room' for 'special guests', we'd happily take that! Whilst demolishing our chicken curry and rice, we got talking to another couple who were born in India but we're now living in the UK. They had also booked their trip via a tour company so all their travel and accommodation had been paid for. I really think we would have had to of leave the country by now if we hadn't booked it through our company, even though they are useless. We just wouldn't have the access to enough money to pay hotel bills or be able to travel from one area of india to another as most of this involves payment with cash.
We walked back to the hotel and I'm not going to lie, generally I'm not one to panic, but I was getting seriously worried about what we are going to do without access to our money!
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