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Mumbai the day after the attack
Entry 59 of 154 | show all | print this entry |
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28 th November 2008
Bentleys Hotel, Colaba, Mumbai
Cloudy, hot and humid
Today we woke up a reasonable hour (0930) given that we were in bed asleep at 1030 last night unable to keep our eyes open AGAIN. The room rate (1360 rps) includes breakfast so today we had coffee and toast delivered to our room. When I asked the guy on reception what the situation was now he said 'OK, normal again'. I said 'what about The Taj?', he turned to his buddy and asked him the question in Hindi and the response was 'ah, The Taj, not OK'. And so it continues. As well as The Taj and Oberoi a Jewish Centre (Nariman House) was also attacked and 2 hostages are being held by one gunman.
We bought The Times of India and Hindustan Times today to try and learn more, but sadly there is very little of substance. They have released numbers for those killed and wounded but it seems nobody knows how many are being held hostage apart from the 2 at Nariman House.
We have been out walking today, and it seems that some businesses away from Colaba are opening up. We found a cafe at the end of the Causeway and had some drinks earlier. Neither of us are hungry at the moment, probably because of the change in temperature and the fact that we are drinking lots of fluids. However we know we have to eat, and there is a possibility that nothing will be open again this evening, so we will go out and eat in an hour or so.
As we were walking back towards The Causeway a crowd of people began running towards us, looking back over their shoulders towards the major roundabout which takes us into Colaba. Not wishing to take any chances we turned around and walked back the other way and waited at what we thought was a safe distance. Nothing came of it thankfully, so were able to wander back down to our hotel. There are definitely more people out and about, and the streets have more vehicles on them now but nowhere near what they might have on a 'normal' day.
As we walked back down The Causeway, past the road to The Taj we noticed a roadblock had been created using bicycles. Only in India.
1740 hrs
Just got back from having something to eat and walked down past the Taj. Everyone was pointing to a balcony on the first floor of the hotel where we could see a man in a uniform, either police or army. We were all driven back down the road onto The Causeway. As we came to the second road that runs down to the Taj we heard an explosion, at which point we decided to leave quickly. As we've been sitting here trying to catch up on the news on the BBC World Service we heard another, louder explosion.
The BBC are reporting police and army 'activity' at both Nariman House (although we have no idea where that is) and The Taj. One of the problems with ascertaining numbers of hostages left, particularly at The Taj, is that guests have barricaded themselves into their rooms and won't come out even when the army or police shout 'all clear'. Frankly, I don't blame them. If it were me in there I would be waiting for the British Consulate or similar to give me the all clear. There has been some friendly fire that has resulted in at least 1 death, plus, the terrorists, it has been reported, have tricked people into coming out of hiding and then shot them.
The guy who works at the hotel keeps telling us not to go to the market because there are militants there, I'm wondering if Nariman House is near the market and that's what he's referring to. In any case, whichever way we walk, left or right, there is something going on.
We were supposed to be leaving on the ferry tomorrow, The Gate of India to Mandwa, but that's not going to happen. The road to The Gateway is completely blocked by the army but I think it's highly unlikely ferries are going to be running tomorrow.
We both commented on how yesterday we were able to get much closer to The Taj and the attack areas generally. Today they've definitely widened the security cordon. Leopolds is simply closed up but you can see where the bullets hit and shattered the windows and the metal work.
If being in Mumbai generally and choosing to stay in the Colaba district particularly seems like bad luck it's nothing compared to the luck we might have had had we not changed our plans. Had we stuck with our original plans to take the train to Goa, we would have been at the railway station when the terrorists attacked. Today a gentleman stopped us in the restaurant we were eating in to ask us where we were from. He shook our hands and told us to be very careful that US and UK citizens were being targeted, he seemed very concerned, yikes!
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