I have a friend who is Jewish and his wife is Chinese.

They visited Delhi recently.

It was their last day in India. The lady had $200 in a purse. She had the purse in her handbag.

My friend had just a $10 bill with him.

They were at Red fort. They were about to buy their tickets. It started raining. So they took shelter until it slowed down.

A nice looking kid came over and started talking. He had a camera. He asked them questions about America.

"Why don't you take my picture?" he handed my friend the camera.

My friend obliged. His wife stood at a distance watching the kid posing in variety of ways doing "monkey faces" etc which made them laugh. It was quite a lot of shots.

The kid thanked the couple and left.

Then my friend's wife put her hand inside her handbag to take the money out to buy the entrance tickets.

The purse was not there. They realized that they were tricked.

She started screaming. The cops came. They took the information.

And there was the crowd. Some of them started searching, found the abandoned purse. There was no money in it.

One guy in the crowd volunteered to buy the tickets for the couple to see the Red Fort.

They were in no mood to see the place though.

There was another one who got them an auto-rickshaw, gave the driver one hundred rupees and asked him to drop the couple at the 'boutique' inn they were staying in the defence colony.

The owner of the so called boutique inn was a Punjabi guy in his 30's. He had converted a couple of houses he owned in the defence colony into some sort of inn with guest rooms etc. He was charging $60 per day per room.

Now the only money my friend and his wife had was the $10 he had in one of his pant pockets.

They had to catch the flight to London the next day morning. The $10 was not enough to cover the Taxi fare to the Airport. Also they could not afford to spend that $10 on food that evening.

The Punjabi guy heard their story. He told them not to worry. He asked his wife to prepare dinner for them.

The next morning, the Punjabi man took the $10 and gave them 600 rupees. He told the couple that he will get them a cab to get to the airport. He told them to give only 500 rupees to the driver, so they will have at least Rs. 100 to spend at the airport.

Then he changed his mind. He said "keep the 600 rupees with you. I will drop you in my car." And he did.

My friend and his wife were overwhelmed by the acts of kindness from the people of Delhi. The experience of being pickpocketed is now only a fading memoey.

have your friends not heard of credit cards which charge little or no transaction fee so they carry only minimal hard currency?

[quote="MaxEntropy_Man"]have your friends not heard of credit cards which charge little or no transaction fee so they carry only minimal hard currency?[/quote]
Not everyone accepts credit cards.

Btw you had no comments on the decency of the Delhi people who helped them.

i can't imagine an establishment at the delhi airport that wouldn't accept a credit card.

the punjabi guy was nice but was doing the business savvy thing.

jewish. man. tricked.
does. not. compute. sorry.

in all likelihood, it is the couple who tricked delhites and how!