nirakaro wrote:Cyril Haearn wrote:Was/is that legal?
Definitely not, but everyone did it. They liberalised their foreign exchange rules, IIRC, in the mid-nineties, and since then the black market has virtually disappeared.
They didn't go out of their way to make things easier for doing it the legal way back then. In 1991, I tried to change money in a bank at a town where I'd made a brief overnight stay, and I really wanted to be on my way (I can't remember exactly where it was), but they had technical problems with their bank communications network and couldn't get the day's exchange rates. Even though the rates were published in that day's national newspapers, the rules said they had to wait until they got the official rate via the official channel. I was short of rupees and really had no option but to wait... for four hours, and then got exactly the same rate as the previous day.
But in the scheme of things, in slow and relaxed India, it was nothing really... and all part of my (very rewarding) cultural experience. India helped teach me the pointlessness of rushing around and the value of time.
</nostalgia>
Alan