Just a little before Nathu-La (India-China border in Sikkim), at a small place called Thegu, I saw a sign saying “High Altitude ATM.” It belongs to UTI Bank(Unit Trust of India) and my hunch is that the people from the Indian army are its only users. The sign gave the height of the spot as 13200 feet (4023 meter). It crossed my mind that it could be the highest ATM in India. Because even though Leh (J&K, India) has a SBI ATM (State Bank of India) the altitude of Leh is less than Thegu at 11500 feet (3500 m).
Unfortunately, our jeep did not stop there, anyway the movement on that road is regulated so I did not even think of requesting the driver to make a stop so that I could take a picture of the ATM. But here is a good one that I found on the internet.
PS. I also remember they used to close the ATM at 5.00pm in Leh in 2005! Now that is a little strange for an ATM but maybe opening it beyond 5.00pm is a ‘security concern’ in J&K?
Good info Mridula. No, I have not heard of any ATMs higher than this.This also reminds me of my visit to highest post office in Europe. I’ll dig out the photos and you know now where the post will appear. 🙂
Cuckoo, with help of Vistet of Indiamike, I found out that Naqu in Tibet (4500 m) has two ATMs. I was hoping for an ATM at Everest Base Camp 🙂
Good to know this.I hope Uncle Sam is ignorant about this fact … otherwise they will build one on the terrace of their skyscraper or may be on one of the space stations… who knows.. ;)after all “they can do it” and “they will”.PS. Sorry if you have some liking for the US, but cant help esp after hearing fresh that now they have also started bombing Somalia.
Well I’m not going to find the highest anything here in the low countries, we even have a hill in Brussels proudly labelled “Altitude 100” (meters!). So it is interesting to read about the highest ATMs. However I don’t think we need to worry about the Americans putting one on top of a skyscraper as even Taipei 101 is only 512m tall. Perhaps in the Space Shuttle, though?!
Ketan, though I do not have anything against the people of America, I am no fan of their president and the strikes in Somalia are unfortunate. You have some interesting suggestions about where to put an ATM.Qaminante, thanks for putting things in perspective. The thought of a label “Altitude 100” meters brings a smile :)Space shuttle is as high as we can get. Even at Indiamike we got as high as Mount Everest!
Thanks for sharing such a lovely information. We had a very bad luck in leh concerning ATM. Both J&Ks and SBIs were not working consecutively for 15 days owing to power cuts this season and had to get money from some shop keeper who charged us 1000 per 10,000 i.e. 10% .. 🙁 .. but atleast we got cash to pay our hotel, bike and other stuff bills…
I know the situation Madhur and we almost faced it. I wonder why it happens in Leh that we start running out of money. But we managed it through the ATM finally. Also, in 2005 I do not remember seeing the J&K Bank ATM. Where is it located?