Bangalore, India... Week 3

As I continue chronicling my stay in India, I realized that 3 weeks had passed just like that. Time sure flies and I'm beginning to warm up to this place. I was initially unsure on how the experience would be but was looking forward to it since it would be the first time I left the comfort of Malaysia/Singapore to be in a totally new place for a long period. Another factor of note is, there are many colleagues who are Indian nationals in my office who were recommending places that I could go to once I was here.

At the beginning of the 3rd week, the guys in my team planned a trip to a theme park that was 30km outside the city. The park was called Wonder la Theme Park. On the day, the plan was to meet in the office for breakfast and then leave. The park opens only at 1100 IST. So that morning I left my hotel at 0815 IST and picked up Satish who lived on the way to office. Rajesh was already in the office as he stayed nearby. Rajesh, Satish and I had breakfast and hung around the lounge until 0930 IST before we left. The reason being to avoid getting stuck in the notorious Bangalore morning rush hour. At 0930 we left in Rajesh's white Maruti 800 which closely resembles the Perodua Kancils found on Malaysian roads. On the way, we fetched Abhilash first and then Mallikarjun. As I had mentioned earlier, this park was outside the city and the journey took almost an hour.

We followed the road signs to the park and when we thought we had reached, we realized that we had to drive further 5 km inland through some uneven, forested road to get to the park.

At last, the park entrance came into view.

                                    

The guys who planned the trip (l-r) - Satish, Mallikarjun, Abhilash and Rajesh

The park consisted of dry rides and water attractions. We reached around 1045 IST and after finding a parking space, we proceeded to the ticketing counter to purchase tickets. Currently the summer school holidays are going on and as expected, the park was teeming with school going children and their families. The was a snaking queue waiting to  tickets at the cash counters and sensing that we'll have to wait long, Rajesh bought tickets using his credit card. While waiting for the 1100 IST opening time, we took more pics.

 

Abhi and I

                                      

The un-official Coke model

                                    

Crowd waiting at the entrance to enter

At 1100 IST the doors opened and we entered one by one. I had mentioned before that you go through security checks when accessing public places in India. Once in we wanted to hit the water attractions but it didn't open until 1230 IST. We proceeded to the locker rooms to keep our bags and get changed before hitting the dry rides. I need to mention that I have acrophobia. Some of these rides actually brought you up to mid-air and within seconds, you would find yourself flipped and hanging upside down precariously. The first ride we tried was the bumper car. It certainly brought out the kid in all. It was fun and a throw back to the days when we were young and care free.

                                  

                                  

After having fun bumping into each other, we moved on to try the other attractions.

                                    

Reached the top of the Net Walk ;-)

                                    

We proceeded to try the somewhat more extreme rides and I'm posting the videos of those rides below. I tried almost all of it except for The Maverick as I felt like puking after being flipped and moved around like a rag doll.

After having our fill of thrills, we moved on to the water park. It was awesome fun with crazy slides and wave pools. Sadly no pictures were taken as it would have damaged my camera but we had fun indeed. Around 1700 IST, we left to return home. All of us were feeling dead tired but we really had a great time and it was worth it.