Day Tripping to WonderLa

I spent the afternoon today with friends at an impromptu visit to WonderLa, a theme-park on the way from Bangalore to Mysore. And boy, it was a brain-shaker, in true sense of the word - it raced the pulse, rattled the bones and churned the stomach - all at once. We set foot inside the place around 1pm, so got to enjoy the rides without much waiting. Most of the rides were based on the priniciple of 360 swirls along with cylcical motion to add some twisted surprise elements. My favouritest ride was Insanity and Zero Gravity. Insanity, as the name suggests treats you like a crazy ball, throwing you in every possible direction, all in one series. So you have no idea where you are going to be hurled at next. And if that wasn't enough, these acrobatics are happening while you are suspended upside down. Yep, totally insane! Zero Gravity was cool although not a brain-shaker. There is a single column around which you are sitting. The seats go up and then it drops you straight down. You float in your seat for these few seconds, defying gravity, and then fall into place - plop! They build up the tempo of surprise slowly, with the one
but last being the longest fall. Though a great adrenalin rush, the second time is not all that much fun, since you know what to expect. Of all the rides, I think one called Mixer was the most lame. All I got from it was a good knock on my thighs as they kept bumping into the rod holding
us into place. Another activity which I immensely enjoyed was climbing up the rope ladder; wasn't really physically challenging, but felt like an achievement neverthless, over climbing the regular stone stairways. With all of this, and lots of refreshment breaks, we were through by 4.30pm. Of course, we did not do the water rides, since I am not too comfortable getting into a semi-cess pool even under scorching temperatures.

In comparison to Essel World, which used to be on my yearly summer calendar, WonderLa is a rather watered-down version. The rides are few and not very different from each other. No indoor games, like the drum at Essel World which throws you to the brim as it begins rotating or
even the hamster wheel. What about the Haunted House, Crazy Mirrors, Hedge Maze...the MISSING list is really long.