Day 18: Dubai, UAE to Amritsar, India
by Oliver Smith
When I was 11 years old I found an old tape of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at the back of a cupboard at home. I listened to it over and over until the tape turned to mush.
It was the sounds of India I remembered most – the wiry purr of George Harrison’s sitar; the pulsing ‘doink’ noise of tabla drums. It made me want to go to India more than anywhere else; to ride on the roof of a train and get a face full of steam; to live the life of a latter-day Mowgli and make friends with tigers, bears, and gurus with brains full of wisdom and beards full of crumbs.
In Britain, India is always in the corner of your eye – in the Bollywood movies shown on BBC Two in the small hours when you can’t sleep; in the exhaust fumes of your local tandoori restaurant; in wonderful Indian words that trip along the tongue like ‘pyjamas’ and ‘pukka’ and ‘bungalow’.
Now I’m finally getting my first chance to visit India, and I’ve never been more excited. This morning we left Dubai on an afternoon flight to the city of Amritsar, where we’ll rejoin the trail of Tony and Maureen Wheeler on their journey from London to Sydney 40 years ago. Our plane climbed high above the mountains of Arabia, and the skyscrapers of Dubai dissolved into the dust behind us – as swiftly as if they had been a mirage.
A few hours passed, and darkness descended. Our plane dipped below the clouds and, face squidged excitedly against the plane window, I caught my first sight of India: blinking lights spinning giddily in the darkness as we circled – drawing nearer, revealing a tangled cobweb of streets.
We arrived at our hotel in Amritsar and I could hardly sleep with excitement. It was like the night before Christmas.
The day in statistics:
- Flights caught: 1
- Curries consumed: 3
- Nighttime temperature in Amritsar: 27C
