Hotels, small change & credit cards

5 January 2010, 0800, Tiruvannamali: It seems that few hotels and fewer restaurants accept credit cards in Southern India.  Even if they accept them, it seems that you have about a 50/50 chance of their credit card reader not working.  And if their credit card reader cannot read your magnetic stripe, then you're out of luck.  Despite the numeric keypad plainly visible on the card reader, either it is not possible to enter the card number manually in India, or they just don't know how to do it.  Oh, and by the way, nobody accepts American Express, so you might as well leave that card at home.

We had to pay cash at this hotel due to their credit card reader problems, thereby depleting our cash stash.  We're almost certainly going to run out of cash and will have to try to get a cash advance against the credit card or have someone wire us some money.

The other problem is the lack of small change in amounts appropriate for tipping and motor rickshaw rides (i.e. 10 or 50 rupee bills).  If you go to the store and buy a bottle of water for 20 rupees and hand them a 100 rupee note, they may not have change.  I changed some dollars into rupees yesterday at Western Union and even they had nothing smaller than 500 rupee notes.  They said that I could come back at 6:30 PM when the man delivered the money, and maybe then I could get something smaller.