Cashless? Learn Some Tricks To Facilitate Your Travel

Even as demonetisation has hit the tourism sector, agents as well as travellers are finding ways to tide over the situation.

- Harini Sriram

When Shashank Shekhar, who works in the jewellery business, visited Bhutan towards the end of November last year, he was in for a rude shock. “A lot of people in Bhutan refused to accept our ₹2,000 notes, and worse still, by the end of our fifth day in the country, we’d completely run out of money,” he recalls. What could have been a blissful holiday in the hills turned out to be a nightmare, and he was left stranded in a new country with no money in his pocket. Bhutan doesn’t accept debit/credit cards, and with the Indian government’s demonetisation policy, travellers like Shashank continue to have a tough time on the road. In fact, the problem starts right from the time you plan your trip. “We managed to set apart money for our trip with great difficulty after multiple trips to the bank and ATMs, where one had to tackle insanely long queues, thanks to the limit imposed on withdrawal.”