Around the World in 80 Days

Day 27: 21 October

Extraordinary night of dreams. A series of benevolent nightmares on the theme of travelling but never arriving. Recurring images of friends and home veering wildly from the modern (new information systems being installed at Swiss Cottage underground) to a Hardyesque world of country pubs and masques and morris dances. An Indian postal official dumps his sports bag in my car, I try desperately to ring my wife and tell her why I'm in Washington D.C. with George Harrison and the next moment I'm driving a Mini over a ploughed field. The reality is that I'm in India, which is more bizarre than any of my dreams. I read in my Times of India at breakfast that fourteen people were killed yesterday in a stampede at Jamshedpur during the immersion of their goddess in the local river.

Taxi to Victoria Terminal to collect my rail tickets for tomorrow. On the way we pass a shop called Dogy Items and another mellifluously named The Lovely Steel Centre. Traffic conditions in Bombay are anarchic. Pedestrians and cows have as much right to be in the road as cars and this makes for a constant disorderly fight for space. My cab has a sticker on the dashboard which reads 'Trust in God'.

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PALIN'S GUIDES

Series: Around the World in 80 Days
Day: 27
Date: 21 October
Country/sea: India
Place: Bombay
Book page no: 93

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Around the World in 80 Days

Day 27: 21 October

PALIN'S GUIDES

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