Amazing Queensland Amusement Park

After a “Terrific Trip To Tada” in January, it was time for some action again. It was not that we were totally idle during the break. Some of us had been to Tirupati and almost all of us to the Golden Sun Resort in Mahabalipuram. But it was time for “our group” to pack bags and set out again for a picnic. This time we chose an amusement park – Queensland Amusement Park – in Chennai.

As usual the unity in diversity could be seen. The ten people who were part of this amazing amusement park trip were:

Arun (Haryana)
Luma (Rajasthan)
Gaurav Sunkar (Maharashtra)
Nitesh urf Naughty (Delhi)
Raghavendra (Karnataka)
Rahul (that’s me) and my friend Apoorv (representing Uttar Pradesh – two in number as we had to portray the high population density in our state!!!)
Shyam (Kerala)
Suresh (Andhra Pradesh)
Sougato (West Bengal)

We got up at 6 A.M. in the morning. Plans were to have our breakfast at 7 and reach IIT main gate at 8. After futile attempts to draw any other class member for the park, we dropped the idea of hiring a bus. We reached the park by public transport – government buses (From IIT to Guindy, Guindy to Poonamalle, Poonamalle to the Park) - which were no less comfortable than our own vehicle would have been.

We reached the park by 10 A.M. and purchased the entry ticket. Being a group of IIT students we were able to get Rs. 50 off on the entry ticket (Rs. 300 instead of 350). The day was hot and being a Sunday, there was a lot of rush in the park, which unfortunately made us, wait longer for some rides.

The first ride we went on was as shown in the pic below!!! (Oops, I forgot the name.) But it was like a giant wheel, though not exactly similar. It was for the first time in my 23 years of life that I was going to try something of this sort. RBI (who was also a first timer) had gone for the ride before most of us. And he came out vomiting!!! I found the ride good – giving a sensation as if you were flying vertically up in a rocket and then down.
There after we went for simulator – I had experienced this one in Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. But here, the effects were more predominant – with fans blowing at times. The best part of this ‘ride’ was that although this was a ‘mild’ one, RBI ended up vomiting again!!!
After having neembu-paani and ganne ka juice, we went for go-karting. These people were offering only one round and I was told that the cars weren’t accelerating :-(. This was the first time that I was go-karting and I found it okay.

After some other rides and lunch, it was time for slides. Yes, the park had some water slides and the wave pool!!! We spent around two hours in water. By this time, the sun’s fury had also reduced. And so, we returned to the dry rides once again.

This second phase of dry rides was very very exciting and one full of anxiety. The only trouble was that some of us – RBI (still thinking of vomiting!), Naughty (who had slept for just 2 hours last night), Shyam & Luma (tired) were reluctant to go for rides. These people kept on sitting at a place where as the others went to explore. The first ride we went for was the Centrox. Centrox machine is available at only three places in the world – one of which was Queensland. It was for the first time that I saw the practical application of Centrifugal force where I was the subject matter concerned. Suresh and Arun had already enjoyed the ride. If one would look at it, one would tremble at the very thought of being vertical (83 degrees from horizontal). After much ado, Gaurav (Sunkar) and I went ahead to try it. It was real fun and we experienced not even a quarter of the fear we were anticipating. I would have loved to do it once more had it been allowed. Sougato went for this ride after the two of us.
After Centrox we headed for the Free Fall Tower. This one was very deceptive – I would say the reverse of Centrox – which seemed more dreadful than it was. This one was terrific. We were seated on the lower bench where our feet were dangling in the air. Imagine yourself at a height of 75/150 feet with absolutely nothing below your feet. For the first round, we were taken to only half the height of the tower. I was reluctant to look above or below. The only thing that was running in my (and hopefully others’) mind was – Abe kitna upar leke ja raha hai? Kab rukega? And finally it stopped. And after 5 seconds or so, we were falling with acceleration due to gravity – ‘g’ – 9.81 metres per second square!!! Then was the grand finale – we were at 150 feet – eyes were having a visual treat but the heart was about to get an attack. And the machine made us feel twice like we were going to fall but kameene maja le rahe they humse. Sab chupp they. And finally it happened. Free fall from 150 feet to the ground – what a relief it was to place the feet on the ground. And all of us who were on this ride (Arun, Apoorv, Gaurav, Suresh and I) were of the same opinion – that each one was thrilled to the core.

After the free fall we went to take on another challenge – Columbus. Though it was a very common ride, I had never experienced it earlier. Sougato also caught up with us on this ride. This too was terrific, man. It was again a thrilling experience. My god. What a feeling in the stomach and the head – too much!!! And RBI missed an opportunity to vomit with this one!!!
After Columbus, we went for the cable car. But since the queue was long we decided to skip it and go for roller coaster. Sunkar and I were in the same ‘car’. This ride was again deceptive. When the car would go up, it felt as if it would leave the rails and would take-off. With so many twists and turns, I was afraid that the car would leave the track. But finally we were on the ground once again – safe and secure.
Queensland Amusement Park is more than an ordinary amusement park. It has some exclusive rides, which thrilled us to the core. Being just a day before our “group’s” people started leaving for their homes, it was our last trip as IIT students and I am sure it would have given lasting memories to all of us.

MBA Class Trip to Kalpetta, Waynad

DoMS, IIT Madras - MBA Batch of 2008
Class Trip…
From Coromondel to Malabar Coast…
From Bay of Bengal to Arabian Sea…
From Eastern Ghats to the Western…
From the Land of Sunrise to that of Sunset…
From Tamil land to that of Malayalam…
To God’s Own Country…In Our Own Country…
To Kalpetta,.. Waynad…

Complete Photos on: http://picasaweb.google.com/rahuldangra/Waynad ...

WHEN? 29th February 2008 – 4th March 2008
WHO? 22 Students of MBA Batch of 2008 – 13 guys & 9 gals
HOW & WHERE?

INTRO
It was afternoon of 29th Feb. At a time when I should have been excited about the trip, I was struggling with my team-mates to somehow complete the Mergers and Acquisitions presentation which was to be delivered on 5th March – the very next day of our return to Chennai. But as always Parkinson’s Law was proven true this time as well – “work expands to fill time” – and we decided to complete the presentation on 4th March itself. (The ppt making continued till 1:15 PM on March 5 and was to be presented at 1:45PM on the same day!!!)

DAY 0 – 29th February 2008
GOING TO CHENNAI CENTRAL RAILWAY STATION
Initially we had planned to go to Chennai Central station individually but then the news spread that IIT authorities (transportation department) had arranged the institute bus (an application in this regard had been submitted earlier) for us to go to the station.

We had booked tickets through bulk booking – Train No. 2685, Mangalore Express. The train was to start at 5:30 pm but it was late by 1.5 hours. We spent time taking snaps, playing cards at the platform…In the train we again spent time playing card games like Bluff, Donkey, Judgement etc. At around 8 pm we had delicious dinner – arranged by “toco” from “Agarwal Bhojanalay”.

DAY I – 1st March 2008
AFTER REACHING CALICUT
We reached Calicut at around 6:30 am. After getting down at the station we had ‘breakfast’ at Calicut station. A bus (Bus no. KL 10 / Y 1010. I remember it!!!) was waiting for us (this was to be with us till our return to Calicut station on 3rd March).

Along the way, the view from the bus was quite good. It is said, “the grass on the other side is always green”. Here I found that grass/plantations on my side were green too!!

REACHING WAYNAD - KALPETTA
Two and a half hours in the bus and we were in Waynad(Kalpetta, to be exact – Waynad is the district name and Kalpetta its headquarters). The hotel rooms had already been booked by “TOCO” in Chandragiri Inn. Three people were to stay in a room. Suresh, Arun and I stayed together. The rooms were decent enough (spacious, well furnished, neat) with very good bathrooms (with all taps in proper places and in working condition!). The service (providing drinking water) and hospitality were also good enough.

We had lunch at Udupi Restaurant which was at walking distance from Chandragiri Inn.
Since our train was late, we could only start visiting places after lunch. We set out for Edakkal Caves at 1.00 PM.

EDAKKAL CAVES
Climbing to the top to reach the caves was not easy. The sultry climate made it tougher. Initially, we had to walk on steep paths till the point where tickets were available after which there was no proper way. We had to find one on our own although at some places “stairs” were provided for easy access to the next level. After reaching the top, we had a photo session. In an attempt to be in a photograph, I hit Meghna on her injured toe (The first-aid box came into use now!!!). After spending about 45 minutes at the top we started to move back down to the ticket counter. Towards the end of it all, I found my feet trembling (due to lack of sleep, I was more tired than I would have been otherwise). Somehow managed to get into the bus after which we started for Soochipara Falls.

SOOCHIPARA FALLS
We had to walk down to get to the falls. Initially there was a way but towards the end it again got lost (seems like they make roads initially to attract tourists and then leave it when they feel that people won’t go back to the starting point!!!) – with only rocks and more rocks to be seen. Some of the guys took a bath in the falls. Raghuram and I being the only LMOs (Lean Men Organization…wanna join???…visit http://www.lmo.com/) started shivering sooner than others.
A few people could be seen slipping and hurting themselves a bit, due to the slippery rocks.

CAMPFIRE
After coming back from the falls, some of us ordered Maggi - the taste was simply superb – thanks to Lavanya. We also had a campfire where most of us performed something (from hip hop dance to singing songs). We had dinner at the same place – it was ‘made-to-order’. The dinner (North Indian) too was grrreat – daal, rotis, aloo subzi, one tomato dish and chicken – it’s difficult to say which was better than the other.

By the time we finished our dinner it was completely dark. We spotted some constellations in the sky – the one I had seen in ‘Swades’ – the Orion – and also the Saptrishi.

ON WAY BACK TO THE HOTEL
This could be one of the perfect examples of customer delight – when you get something good at a time when you don’t expect it. The bus had a good lighting system – colored and blinking. Opposite to the popular concept of having “dance floors”, we had “dance ceiling” in the bus. (No..no..we danced on the floor only!!!). And most of us rocked on dance numbers. It was real fun – so much so that we were upset when we reached our hotel!!!

DAY II – 2nd March 2008
MATHUNGA WILDLIFE SANCTUARY
The challenge that had been put to us the previous night was to get ready by 5 am today, as we had to leave for Mathunga Wildlife Sanctuary. It is said that chances of sighting various animals are higher in early mornings than if you go late. So we had to get up at around 4 am which was like getting up at midnight. Since buses were not allowed in the area (we could spot some SUVs), we hired ‘Mahindra’ Jeeps (run by the authorities there). We spotted elephants, bisons, foxes, monkeys and deers in the forest. The driver also showed us the foot prints of tiger/leopards/lions and told us that they had been on the road before we came.
Near the entrance of the Sanctuary was a water-body with flowing water. We had a photo session there as well.

KURUVA ISLANDS
This was the part of the trip which I enjoyed the most - a group of islands which are surrounded by rivulets. These streams are to be crossed to get to another island. We also enjoyed rafting here and climbed on a house tree only to find that it was locked. Nothing much to describe here – pics would tell the story better.

BANASURA SAGAR DAM
This dam is located 21 km from Kalpetta in the Western Ghats. It is the largest earthen dam in India and the second largest in Asia. We decided not to go for boating here as we were to do that the next day. The view from the top of the dam was good especially the sunset.

DAY III – 3rd March 2008
POOKOT LAKE
We visited this lake on our way back to Calicut. This beautiful lake nestles in the lap of mountains surrounding it. Boating in the Pookot Lake was a memorable experience. Tall trees and dense forests lined the pathway around the lake. Besides the regular pedal boat, we also enjoyed rowing the kayaks – which was a new experience for all of us. There was also a children’s park which made some of us get into the ‘child state’.

MOVING BACK TO CALICUT
After Pookote Lake we got into the bus to move to Calicut. Since we had some time, we decided to visit a beach there. We missed the sunset as we had to catch the train at 5:30 pm – Train No. 2602 –Chennai Mail. The train was on time. Unlike our ‘to’ journey, seats in the ‘fro’ journey were scattered all over the train despite the fact that we had gone for bulk booking. This was due to less number of seats available at the time of reserving the berths. But that did not dampen our spirits. We (where I was located) sung songs, took snaps, played cards, had dinner and finally slept (got very good sleep that night).

DAY IV – 4TH March 2008
BACK TO CHENNAI
We were back to Chennai. In fact, the train was before time (may be Laloo Prasad wanted to compensate for the delay in our first journey). We went back to IIT by MRTS (Mass Rapid Transit System) – which is nothing but Chennai local train. After taking snaps at the main entrance, we waited for IIT bus to go inside.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE / LESSONS LEARNT
All in all it was a nice trip.
My image of Kerala being a safe state for women (like Tamil Nadu) is gone.
Kerala is not just sight seeing. It is adventure as well.
Stay away from people who are injured!!!
Girls need not necessarily take more time to get ready. It is worth mentioning that at none of the places we got delayed because of the girls. They were always ready in time. (Was this an exception??!!) I must Congratulate them for this. Well done gals!!! Keep it up!!! Asutosh…are you reading???
Hand your camera to others before you speak out “Photo Lo”.
Thanks to all those who took snaps and sacrificed being in them.

Terrific Trek Trip To Tada

WHEN? 10th February 2008

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WHERE? Chennai>SriKalahasti>Tada Falls>Chennai

WHO?

From Left to Right:

Raghavendra (aka RBI) where again BI for his middle and surname

Amit (aka AKG) where KG = Kumar Gupta although I prefer calling him A-KFC-G for his fascination for KFC chickens!!!

Arun (aka Jat)

I

Dinesh (aka Kaka)

Shyam (aka Bloomberger – for he did his summers in Bloomberg USA)
Nitesh (aka Naughty)
Luma (aka Lums)
Suresh (aka Stalin) took this photograph...

(From back to front - Arun, Dinesh(right), AKG, Naughty, Luma, Shyam, Suresh, I)

The coincidence was that our group was almost a representative sample of India – Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi, Bihar, UP, Haryana and (should i say it Luma?) Rajasthan.

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HOW? A hired SUV – Tavera

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WHAT?
We never knew it could be sooooo interesting, thrilling, wonderful, adventurous and terrific trip. Even these adjectives aren’t doing justice to the experience all of us faced during our trip to Tada Falls. We were a group of 9, 2nd year MBA student at the Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, setting out for a day’s journey to SriKalahasti and Tada. This is how it went:

We were planning for an outing but the problem was where to go. When one thinks of 1 or 2 day tour from Chennai, Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram seem to be the places coming to the mind by default. But we wanted to explore (the word is totally justified) more areas. Thanks to the internet (i think someday it will be called Googlenet and internet users-Goolizens or Googlers (instead of netizens). , Naughty came across a place called Tada Falls.

We could find many things on the net mainly the blogs – what to do, what to take etc. Accordingly, we had imagined what the place would be like. But most of us who went there would agree that it was not the place but the “way” (was there one!!!???) to the place that made the trip so very much interesting.

We had hired a Tavera for the trip. People have rightly mentioned in their blogs that there are no roads and have accordingly advised not to take private vehicles (small and medium sized cars) there. I agree with them. You can take your own SUV or hire one. Sub Urban Trains and Buses from Chennai are other options which we did not explore much.

We got up at mid-night (for us, 5:30 in the morning is akin to midnight!!!). Got ready by 6:45 am. Had breakfast in our mess. And left IIT at around 7:30. The travel agent had suggested that we leave at 6 in the morning. Going by his standards, we were late by 1.5 hours. We planned to go to SriKalahasti first. It took us about two hours to reach there. On the way we strained our vocal cords singing songs. I agreed with Arun when he said that the “generation gap” could be seen by the way different people were singing songs of different ‘eras’. AKG, Luma predominating on one side and RBI, Suresh, Shyam and I on the other. Arun (and unexpectedly for me) Naughty were in the transition era.

(RBI and I)

We reached SriKalahasti at about 10 am. In order to cut the waiting time, we purchased tickets for darshan. Naughty had already gone there the previous week-this helped us to some extent. We had good darshans. After spending about an hour in the temple, we started (back) for Tada Falls.

(SriKalahasti Temple)

We reached the base camp (i donno which is base camp 1 and which is base camp

2). We took our vehicle till where it could goJ. There was another SUV ahead of our vehicle and at some points of time it reminded me of Jurassic Park where one car followed the other (we were also driving at almost the same pace).

We started trekking at 1:20 PM in the afternoon. The first 2.5-3 kms. was normal ‘walking’. The best part of it was that God had his umbrella (clouds) on us!!! Otherwise walking in the sun would have been a tedious task and we would have been drenched with/in sweat. We took lots of snaps on the way to the falls. So much so for the first 3 kms.

And then we came to “Hollywood” (I wonder if those people have seen this place!). Rocky terrain and water stream flowing. There was no road/path/way (whatever you call it). We had to make/search one on our own.

We reached the falls at 3 PM Took bath. Got fresh. Had our lunch. Took lots and lots of snaps. And started back for the base at around 4:30 PM We took some snaps again on our way back. We started for Chennai at 6 PM And reached IIT at 9 PM.

(With Suresh (Above) & With Amit)

As far as my personal story is concerned, it was a bit different from others and because of others (i’ve written “because of others” because had i been alone, i am not sure whether i would have been back!!!). My Woodland shoes were so supportive for the first half of the trekking. They provided an excellent (i mean it) grip on the ground. But on my way to the falls, i slipped into the water (once and then, often) and then it seemed to me as if some one had poured oil on everything that i stepped on. I was able to move just because of these-Luma, Arun, AKG, Suresh, RBI, Dinesh, Naughty. They were there for me at a time even when my Woodland shoes ditched me (no comparison with shoes please, don’t take it that way. I wanna show what friends and friendship means).

("Dagabaaz Joote")

(Under the Falls)

I was not feeling like eating something despite the fact that i was feeling hungry!!! (donno why!) It was Suresh who fed me (“fed me” because usne mujhe apne haathon se khilaya (pata nahi English me kaise likhoon!!!)). That was a wonderful experience for me. And i have thought of this – when i go home now, i’ll ask mummy to ‘feed me’ (i know i am 23+, still i think it would be a experience in itself).

Also for the first time i put on a cut sleeves (t-shirt?). It was a beach wear which ma-pa had brought for me from Goa.

I also broke my specs partly (though they are functioning now but i’ll have to go for a new one). And my hands are feeling the trip much more than my legs. That’s because i had to use them for crawling on the stones because of the wet slippery WOODLAND shoes!!!

I had many new experiences during the trip. But i think there’s nothing new in it. The more you explore the more new experiences you have.

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Thanks to all those who made sacrifices by taking photos and videos on the trip by voluntarily eliminating themselves - especially RBI, Dinesh, Shyam and Suresh.

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