Will you be cancelling your coming holidays to India?

djkittycat

Ugh, my mom started in on me again today.

A childhood friend of mine works for the company that owns either the Taj Mahal hotel or the Oberoi, I don't know which. My mom ran into his dad at the grocery store, and his dad said that Indian people have been telling him to stay away from North India.

My trip is to North India. I said to my mom, that I know things can happen anywhere, but Mumbai is not in North India. She was like "But Indian people said so!!!!"

It's not that I'm free of apprehension, and I do understand why my mom is overreacting as she doesn't want her daughter to be in danger, but it's kinda stressing me out.

what is everyone's opinion?

Bonitag

Hi djkittycat,

I am in the same boat as you, scared, worried and stressed out about our trip, which is in three weeks to Northern India. One minute I am all confident and the next I want to call the airline and cancel my trip. Everyone here in Indiamike.com is very optimistic, not sure how many of them will be traveling in the next few weeks.

Either way, my husband seems calmed and so far he hasn't said a word about changing plans, I, on the other hand, am terrified...

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Bonitag

djkittycat

Yeah you know, I'm about the same in my cycles of confidence. When I look at the lists of incidents in the past few years all listed together in one big list, I really get to get a big picture. I mean, they are all over the place and unpredictable. I know I could be shot in a store or at a school here in the states, but the incidents aren't as frequent as these terrorist attacks seem to be. And, there is no one way that an American looks. Whereas, I will definitely stick out in India.

I know that if I go and am stressed out, even if nothing happens, I will spend my vacation stressed out. But if I don't go I'll be sad.

And on top of that, there's the fact that moms just kinda know things. It's freaking me out that's she's so adamant about me not going. So I continue to reload bbc news obsessively. I just got my vaccinations today too, alas.

Bonitag

I am too glue to my PC reading everything that BBC and BBCMundo have about India (new and past).

I have been dreaming about visiting India all of my life and like you, I am now scared to go but still want to go and in the back of my mind I am thinking that it would be woeful if we go and something happen to us.

I am Dominican so I am a bit dark, but my husband is British (paper white), no way to disguise him...I don't know what to think, I may start taking my on-flight-Xanax now!

djkittycat

Yeah I've been dreaming as well. I am/was especially excited about seeing the Golden Temple. So, I guess I'll just keep waiting and seeing what happens all the while stocking up for the trip, because well, if it ends up not being used it can be used for something.

(Voy a mandarte pm para el resto.)

yourasian

Hey the worst that can happen is they think your indian and that would be a good thing really just you might get some curious looks but really i wouldnt worry, when i was in ethiopia i met a few who were disaproving of mixed partneships but that is africa and that is another story. You have nothing to worry about in india trust me i am an indian though i reside in the uk i consider india to be a very holy and hospitable place after all, i am an anglo indian my home is your home princess, do not fear to come here, it is truly a joy to behold, so many stories can be told. Just remember to take a good camera! om shanti

charlotte

We are in Goa at the moment and one place we will not be is on the beach on New Years Eve. There have been warnings in place for quite a while now about the threats on this date and on NDTV they said that Goa had also been watched by terrorist organisations for 2 months so we are taking this seriously.

The heading in today's Herald was "Security in Goa an Eyewash" and the accompanying article did not make for good reading.

Having said that we are still making our annual trip to Mumbai in January - all booked and paid for and will not change it.

Just trying not to put ourselves in a situation we have no control over.

Paleface

I had a lot of worries on my mind, troubles for my life, none of them ever happened.

livinhimalayas

Sorry DW probably wasn;t paying attention.
Ahh so she didnt convert

Paleface

Hum Catholic loge, BTW. Well became Hinduised isn't it! Like an Arya Samaj puja. I also got a certificate there, and the only Temple it proved useless for entry was Jagannath Puri... following in Indira's footsteps.

KKHH

I am traveling in North India right now (Jodhpur now, after being in Delhi, Agra, Varanasi and Jaisalmer the last couple of weeks). We are heading to Mumbai next.

We could have changed plans and rerouted back to Delhi before home, but I love Mumbai. I've watched the news, it seems like things are returning to "normal." Obviously, it's a shocked, post-trauma normal, but it is life and life goes on.

This is my third trip to India and I am traveling with my mother right now (her first time). We are not frightened of further attacks. I honestly believe a traffic accident would more likely claim my life than anything else.

I love India. And I love travel. If I change my plans, I feel like terrorism scores another point and I refuse to do that. I obviously wouldn't walk into a warzone, but that is far from the case here.

You do yourself no favour coming if you are scared. But you needn't fear terrorism. There is far more beauty and joy here than anything else.

Redmarsy

I am not sure if we should relativise the fact that foreigners were targeted too much...this is the only attack in which there was direct contact with the terrorists (except for hijaking planes, of course, but it is distinguished from all the bombings before) and inside the hotels there has been a clear intent by the terrorists to collect as much people with british and us passports as possible. As the death toll tells us, they did not succeed in getting as big a number as they planned to, but still this was very much a selection.

Yes, many more Indians than foreigners got killed, but in Mumbai at any moment there will be more Indians than foreigners, and as the terrorists were, next to trying to assemble brits and americans, also just firing around to make people scared and make people obey them, anybody who was in their way ot injured or killed.

Still, he odds of getting involved in such an attack are ofcourse very mall, if you look at it percentage wise (: how many foreigners were in Mumbai at the time for example). I, however, want to point out that there WAS a plan to select Brits and Americans and that we should all be aware of that.

As I said before, pale as I am, as well as coming from a country that has forces in Afghanistan, so probably not much loved by the terrorists, I'll still come to India. I am willing to take the risk, because like one of the partners of someone on this forum said "the terrorists are not going to decide for me when and where I can go". I love India and I know that there is a huge solidarity at the moment, between muslims, Hindus, christians, tourists: sane people that are not going to let this small group of insane people win.

Redmarsy

I just read some threads (sorry, missed them before) that were saying that they don't believe that Brits and Americans were really targeted. Well, of course, it might not be true: as a matter of fact, one should doubt everything one sees in the media, because there's always a twist. And I am fully aware of that.
However, I have seen the man who made the comment, and to be honoust, I do not see his motivation for saying something that is not true.

It also makes a lot of sense why the terrorists wanted to target Brits and Americans, as well as tourists in general, whether Westerners or not:

- UK, US and India are their biggest enemies
- Tourism is a very important part of the Indian economy.

In the way the terrorists organized this, they managed to target the UK and US, by targeting their citizens, and India by attacking their soil and attacking their tourism sector. They have created fear in all those countries, maybe even the whole world. Let's say they planned to create a maximum amount of fear/impact "efficiently".

But, if you choose to believe that they did target brits and americans, it could even be a greater motivation to continue your trip as a westerner.

As said before, and I think that is very important: if you choose not to fear and not to have those terrorists affect us, than we are all "soldiers in the war on terrorism" and if we all stand up against them, simply by ignoring what they are trying to accomplish, they will NEVER win! As a soldier in any war, there is a risk of getting hurt in the process, but again I am willing to take that risk.

Bonitag

True KKHH, I am working on not letting this event ruin this great opportunity of visiting one of the most fascinating countries in the world.

TheFoolOnTheHill

here are 358,937,937,946 theories doing the rounds about the whys and wherefores of last weeks events.

But I still haven't:

-seen that guy who made that statement on any other TV/media channel which is suspicious - you'd expect the media to be all over him. You have no idea how aggressive the Indian TV channels can be at rooting them out. They would have at least named him, even if he wasn't willing to speak to camera again - as has been done with many other businessmen who were held hostage.

-heard even ONE other hostage make that claim

-seen soot/smut on any other hostages face

Point of interest - of the names of Indians killed, I notice many are "Muslim" names - even more reason I cast aspersions on that one single hostages statement

As they say, one believes what one wants to believe.

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