This post is about a visit to the water theme park in the outskirts of Madurai city. It goes by the name "Athisayam".
My friend sent me a text asking if I would come to Athisayam a few days ago. My parents and their friends had planned a trip to Kodai on the same day. My first choice was Kodai of course to beat the heat of the summer. But then the Kodai trip was canceled and I decided to go to Athisayam with friends. Many had warned me of skin allergies they got after a visit there. But I didn't listen. Nothing happened to me after swimming(trying to) in the corporation pool several times, where thousands of people take a dip in, every week. So, it was Wednesday and my classmates and I were going to Athisayam. I thought there were going to be like at least 10 boys. But there was going to be only six including me.
Goutham, the organizer of the trip sent a text to everyone who were coming, to be at Robin's house by 9 am. Manoj and I went by bike(not bicycle) to Robin's place and was there at around 9:15. Only Robin was there at his place. No sight of Goutham. Christopher came next, followed by Don in his white sport bike. Ironically, Goutham was the last to arrive. It was nearly 10 am when he came.
So the six of us started out in three bikes. We reached the theme park in around 20 minutes. We waited at the ticket counter for a few minutes and during that time we were chatting about the ticket rates for people shorter than 130 cm :D
The ticket rate for us was Rs. 400 each. I thought it was expensive, but it was the holidays and I wanted to have some fun. Food items from outside were not allowed to be taken inside so our bags were checked before we went in.
At the entrance, there was this tunnel and it was called "Space Walk". When I walked inside the tunnel, pushing the curtains aside at the entrance of the tunnel, the whole tunnel was spinning. Not the plank on which we were walking but it gave us the illusion that the base was also moving. We were holding on to the railing. We got out of the tunnel finally. It was only 7.5 meters long.
We then went on to the changing room. where we changed to our swimming attires. I just had to remove my tshirt as i was wearing my shorts from home. There was just one small locker for us and we had to put all our bags and all our footwear in there.
We talked trough this little pool first which had water only upto 1 feet high and water trickling down from above and then there was this bigger pool which had water up to knee deep. There were slides in the middle. This was for the kids, but we played on it too for about 0.5 hours. There were tubes in the pool and we were playing on it for a while.
We then went to the large slides. First the mats ride. I had gone to Black Thunder, another theme park when I was 10. I wasn't allowed to go on it cos i was underweight for the ride then. This was my chance. In the mat ride, we had to lay on a rubber mat, hold on it and slide down a large water slide. There was a flat surface in the middle of the slide to decrease our momentum. We made the tiring walk up to the peak of the slide and then held on to the mat and slid down the slide and landed in the pool. It was fun. We went on to the next ride. This consisted of sitting on a tube and the people pushed us down a slide But this slide was not straight. It was twisting and turning to gives us the thrill. Everytime we wanted to go on a large slide, we had to walk up. If only there was an elevator. We would have done each ride more than twice.
Then we were at the foot of the slides and looking at the next one. There was this very steep, red slide. Nothing to hold on to, no tubes, no mats..It was us against the slide. A few of us were scared but we went anyways, to try it. we had to lay down on our back and fold our arms and slide down on our back. We went down one by one. When it was my turn, i lay down there, ready for the thrill. For the first few meters it was a little slow. But as I gained momentum, due to the sheer force of gravity, it was as if I was traveling at 100 miles an hour or more, I dunno, but it was really really fast. There was nothing in mind buy a rush of excitement and tiny bit of fear. I didn't express my excitement by screaming at the top of the lungs like the others did though. As i was saying, I was going really really fast and then suddenly the ride ended when the slope became horizontal from being almost vertical and I was glad to see the water at the end. It wasn't enough, so we went again :P
The next was one of the most eventful rides. The slide did not have an opening. It was more a tunnel, a pipe..We had to go down a pipe. Not so exciting, right? Well, the exciting part comes in where the pipe turned in the middle by 90 degrees. The rest of them went in shouting out names of people they like. I went in at the last, i think. The sliding part was okay till the turn. The turn was sudden and unexpected. Like the previous ride, this was also very fast and me not wearing my shirt, I think my back was bruising a little. Okay, back to the ride. It was going fast and at the end of a slide there was a huge ball cut at the top and the bottom. We rotated twice or thrice in the huge ball before we fell down in the 4 foot deep water. This was one of the best rides they had. We couldn't get enough of it. Went twice and then again.
We then went in one of the tube rides. This one was slow and it jumped up and down on a cascade of rocks. Then in a dry ride, which took us up to a certain height and down again. Too slow, too simple, not scary at all.
Then, the wave pool. No waves at the time we went in. Water was only 5 feet max. There were a bunch of girls we were looking at. Not too good looking but we had to pass some time. Some of us were trying to learn to swim for a while. Then the waves came in and it was really fun. We then went to the waterfall. Water was really cold but it did not smell too good, so went to have our lunch. we took our money and bought Chilli parotta. The food didn't taste that good, so we ate very little and then had ice cream. I got a cornetto. One of us(Dilip(Don)) bought one of those ball ice creams and we had a lot of fun playing with it later in the water.
It was fun to play catch with the ball in the water. We could dive all we want and it would never hurt. Ok, we went to the wave pool again and one girl held on to my shoulder from the back and her mom pulled her away..lol..And then we saw a girl that looked like one of our classmates.
WE had fun playing catch in the wave pool. Once the ball hit an old man and he threw it away somewhere. We got it back though. The others started copying us by playing catch and some kids joined us.
we then went on to the next water ride. It was this large three-dimensional parabola cut at both ends. We went to the top and slid down by tube. We oscillated a few times, back and forth, back and forth wen went. This ride was kinda nice.
Then came this other exciting ride. Two people could sit in this tube and we went two by two. It was the usual slide stuff. Twisting and turning, but at the end we went down, like going down the drain spiraling down in a toilet or a sink or a bath tub :P. It got stuck in the middle and we had to push ourselves down.
Then we went down a family ride. We sat three in a raft. It was a pleasant ride. Then came this horrible ride. There was a tunnel that ended in a huge cement mixer. We had to go in the same round family raft. The bottom of the rafts were not inflated. Only the sides were. It was fine until we were in the pipe. Then there was this sudden fall into the cement mixer like thing. We were in the mixer for a few seconds. My chest hurt and did my butt when we got out of the raft. Remember i told you, the raft was not inflated at the bottom. Anyways, we didn't go in that ride again.
We then went to the little roller coaster which went into the water at one moment. The roller coaster guy said there was maintenance work to be done. But we took our chances and went anyways. The splash was fun.
It was the dry rides next. It was almost 6 when we got there. There was this giant wheel, only this wheel was inclined to the ground. It rotated very fast and at one point we would be at the top and that was kinda scary. Two people sat in one bucket and i scared the shit outta Goutham who happen to sit next to me when I said "How would it be if the the chair got unscrewed and we were thrown away?" :P
Then Goutham was excited about this thrillatorium. We waited for a long time for this thing. We were then made to wait in this small air conditioned room and some one farted. Ewwwww. We finally went into the thrillatorium. We sat in cushioned seats. There was a large screen in front of us and a thick rod that ran across all seats for us to hold on to. There was a movie playing on the screen and the chairs moved to gives the effect that we were in the movie. It was okay. Not thrilling at all though.
Then it was the end of the day there. We were just sitting and talking. I mean the others were talking about Tamil movies and I was just listening. We bought vada and tea which tasted horrible. We then started from there at around 7. We reached home by eight. My eyes were a little red and whole body aching. But I didn't mind. By the way, the 400 rupees were totally worth it. I slept late as usual.
See you in my my next post :)
P.S i did not check this post for errors So if there are any, please ignore them.
