Essendon young gun Dyson Heppell recently returned from a trip to India as a part of the Red Dust Role Model Tour. Over the next week, you can follow his incredible journey via a daily diary from his life changing trip to the sub-continent.  
Dyson's diary:

""The seven day trip to India was an incredible experience. On our travels we saw many weird & wonderful things, amazing places and cultural experiences. We also witnessed first-hand the very real challenges faced by a third world country. 

Until last month I had not travelled outside of Australia, so India has been a great way to start my love of international travel.  This has been a brilliant way to top off an amazing year in my life. This time last year I was living at home with my parents in Leongatha, still completing VCE and never travelled anywhere overseas! 

I keep pinching myself that I was drafted to the Bombers and I have already enjoyed many opportunities since arriving at the club both on and off the field.
Our trip was part of Red Dust Role Model tour where travelled with our GLoBALL program partners from Cricket Victoria.  Other Red Dust ‘Role Models ‘ on the tour included Victorian Bushranger Bryce McGain & former Australian player and cricket Victoria CEO Tony Dodemaide, Will Minson from the Western Bulldogs and Australian of the Year, former Olympic Sailor and keen bomber supporter -Simon McKeon.   
The trip highlighted a number of things for me:
1. India is an amazing place and I want to travel more and experience as much of the world and other cultures as possible.
2. How incredibly hardworking, resilient and happy the average Indian person is.
3. I have a much greater appreciation how lucky I am to live in one of the best countries in the world in Australia and to play sport professionally at the Essendon Football Club

I apologise in advance if I overuse the following words- incredible, amazing, spectacular, mind blowing and use lots of exclamation marks.  India will do that to you!""

Day One - Saturday 7th October

We left Melbourne on the Saturday morning after the Crichton Medal.  I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before but was very much looking forward to the trip. Nick Hannett, the club's Community Manager and I flew out of Melbourne at 11am on a new A380 airbus to Singapore (7hrs). 

The Singapore Airport was incredible. It was spotless and very, very big.  We had a bite to eat and caught the connecting flight ( 5hrs) to New Delhi where we would stay for two nights.
We landed in New Delhi at 10pm and from the minute we stepped foot on Indian soil we knew we were in for an amazing time.  There were Army personal everywhere at the airport carrying AK47 rifles the noise and traffic outside was ‘full on’. 

The trip from the airport to the hotel took about 40 minutes and we got to witness firsthand the chaos of driving in India. 

There appeared to be no road rules, everyone beeps their horn all of the time and driving on the right side of the road is not always compulsory! 

Somehow it works and I learnt very quickly that Indian’s have very good spatial awareness and are very patient drivers.

Click here to learn more about Essendon's Multicultural Programs.