War in the streets of Scrinagar.

Nagin Lake, Scrinagar, 10-05-1994. Life on a house boat relaxing and all that is starting to pall i will move into a hotel in Scrinagar town and prepare the trip back to "India". The only thing on this great house boat is the english chandelier, i keep banging my head against it because the bloody thing is hanging so goddamned low. Renting a bike at 20 Rp. a day, i cycled a the way around Dal Lake and along Nagin lake to the old town. The Jami Mashid mosque had a colorful market around its sqaure perimeter and lots of people running away because of a shoot-out, naturally i ran with them!!! !5 min. later and back on my bike but not too far from the Jami Mashid mosque, i first saw a cop making some sort of movement with his lathi presumably warning me to go back, a little bit father out a Kasmiri woman shouted at me to go back immidiately. Only 50 m. further on i saw a big armoured personel carrier with a very big and mean looking gun on top of it pointing straight at me, strategically placed in the middle of the road. I definitely did not need any more warnings and left the area in a rael hurry pedalling faster as ever before in my life!!! Only a few blocks away from the war scene life was normal like nothing was happening so short a distance away.