The following is an entry by Michelle and myself taken pretty much straight from Michelle's travel diary.
"16/11/2006
Trapped for 4 1/2 hours (10.30 -> 3pm) in a town on the way to Orchha from Khajuraho(Ma who ra ne pur??) [sic]. Tried to leave 3 times -> didn't work, got our tyres slashed and a brick in the windscreen. Eventually left when they started letting buses through -> don't know why. Our guide Naresh said the mob was due to a religious statue being beheaded and no one had been caught. He then said it was an area with lots of crime and the fact that we were tourists made us look like easy targets for robbery, so we spent the 4 1/2 hours in the stuffy bus with windows closed and curtains drawn (except for toilet breaks).
Our first attempt at freedom involved convincing the mob that Sandra was ill and needed medical attention. A few young boys from the town were riding shotgun, screaming "Patient! Patient!" to the mob. They had barricaded the road with a bus and a truck and when we slowed to get around, they set upon us and started banging on windows and shouting at the bus forcing us to turn back.
We stopped and waited, curious youths crowding around our bus. Naresh informed us that he had called the embassy and they had spoken to the town leaders. We tried escaping again, this time with an older man who i assumed was some authoritative figure (we later found out he was the town's mayor that the embassy had spoken to). We had gotten our tyres slashed in our first attempt and had to change two tyres. Our second effort was no different. Naresh went outside and dissapeared into the crowd. We later learned that he was assaulted by someone who ripped his jacket, hit him in the back of the head and told him to stop trying to be smart! Our tyres were slashed again so we sought refuge in the guarded petrol station to change them and to make toilet runs.
After more waiting around, Naresh gathered an auto-rickshaw full of armed police and a policeman rode shotgun in our bus (actually I think it was probably a semi-automatic rifle!) for our third attempt. We tried leaving the same way we came in, but the mob seemed incensed by the police presence. One guy shaped to throw a brick and when I looked back up he was hurling it at our windscreen, right towards the armed cop! Luckily it hit at the base and only partially shattered it. We were freaked out completely by this stage. We limped back to the petrol station and waited again. The hour or two that passed was very tense indeed! Gina started arranging her immediate flights out of India, Susan sent a cheerio sms to her family, and I sat there wondering how much of a fight I would put up if it came down to that...with countless scenes from Bruce Lee movies drifting through my mind!
When the flood gates eventually opened, on our way out of town we saw others that had fared even worse than us, a government bus parked across the road with every window smashed was probably the worst. No idea what happened to it's occupants, we were just relieved to be out of there and on our way to the Orchha, with hearts in our mouths every time we passed through another small town and saw a crowd in the street!
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