A Day at an Indian Theme Park

Welcome to Queens Land the 'best amusement park in Chennai'. This was the venue for the Year 10 excursion. It was an all day affair, leaving by bus from the school at 8:30 am and arriving back at 6:30 pm. In true Indian style we finally departed at 9:25 am and arrived back at the school at 7:10 pm. It was a day full of fun, disappointments and new adventures for IW and AM that left us both exhausted. We will attempt to give you the highlights of this day.

The Year 10 girls had been talking about this for ages and were so happy. The event was supposed to be a few weeks ago but was cancelled when one of the former teachers at the school died and the school was closed for the original day of the excursion. The girls thought it was going to be cancelled again as two days prior to our going the owner of Queens Land died.

This did not happen so IW, AM and the 12 intrepid girls eagerly looked forward to spending the day together with the rest of the Year 10 day girls plus four teachers.

Despite strong protests from IW, AM made sure we were outside on the dirt at 8:25. Much to our surprise the girls started to come over from their classrooms ready to assemble for the bus boarding. When they were about halfway across the dirt, Mrs Wesley, the Deputy Principal, with the loudest voice and gentlest heart in the world, sprang into action.

"You girls get back to your classrooms" she bellowed across the dirt. Apparently they had committed the most heinous (my favourite word) sin of walking in a group rather than in two ordered lines. We do not know what happened in the classrooms but we stood there for another twenty minutes until the ordered lines of children we have come to know and love proceeded out the door and across the dirt, accompanied by their teachers.

When they reached us they stood in their lines and were again counted. AM wondered why - how many children had been lost previously walking across the dirt quadrangle? After counting was complete, Mrs Wesley appeared from her Office and noticed that a lot of girls did not have the required maroon ribbons in their hair and instead had secured their long hair with elastic or even worse, different coloured ribbon.

I don't know if Mrs Wesley is a part owner of the little shop over the road but girls were ordered to go and purchase maroon ribbon to tie their hair back. No one was moving until the hair ribbons were correct. This was a sllooowwww process but eventually Mrs Wesley was happy. She did not seem to care about the variety of socks and shoes that were not part of the school uniform but those ribbons were important. Another count was done then the Principal was summonsed to wish the girls well and prayed for the day out.

We were not using the school buses as they would be required in the afternoon for transport so the school had hired transport for us. One of the things we have learned over the years when organising excursions is to know how many people you are transporting and then order the buses with enough seats for everyone.

This does not happen in India as they have an incredible ability to travel long distances with three or four people in a normal bus seat designed for two. We had 124 people all up and two buses with a capacity of 40 seats in each. Is this a problem? Not at all! We were allocated the front seat, as is usual, and then the amazing metamorphosis from individual people to clumps of Indian humanity occurred. It was an incredible experience - not a whine or a whinge just the sight of laughing four headed, eight armed contorted bodies enjoying the trip.

As soon as the bus departed, most girls removed the mandatory maroon hair ribbons. None of the teachers on board seemed to worry so neither did we. The trip took about 40 minutes and we arrived at Queens Land to an empty car park.

When any mass transport system (plane, bus etc) here stops, there is no orderly departure of the people in the front getting off first. This was no different and it took all of AM's old football skills to block the aisle to allow IW to alight before the mass exodus occurred. Once outside the girls gathered in two lines to be counted, yet again. As we were all counted getting on, I can only assume this was in case someone jumped out the window or the de-morphing process did not work for some girls.

We stood and waited while the four teachers met and discussed something. This discussion took about twenty minutes while the girls waited patiently. We decided to move through the entry portal and see what laid ahead of us. There were ticket booths and the entry turnstiles and inside we could see the obligatory 'greeting creatures'.

We were soon issued with our 'wrist band' entry passes and proceeded through the gates to make friends with our new pals. I got the bull/pig cross and IW took the indescribable moving Garden Gnomes.

Overall the place was nice and clean on the paths but again the Indian penchant for throwing everything they don't want away was evident behind the shrubs and fences that lined the paths. Beside us the only ones present were a small group of boys from a local Engineering College so movement was easy and there was no waiting. As we strolled down the path from the entrance we saw the 'Free Fall Tower' rise before us.

A number of the girls were terrified so IW and AM felt they had to show the way and strode forward taking several fearful girls with them. We were soon locked in and being hoisted skyward. At the half-way point, the ride drops to the bottom and then goes all the way to the top for the big fall. We knew this by watching the ride before but the girls in their excitement missed this small point so the halfway drop caused quite a few problems for them.

There were multiple cries of 'Sthothiram, Sthothiram' (pronounced "soltrum") from the girls when we reached the bottom. This is Tamil for 'Praise the Lord'. AM muttered a few things as well but 'Sthothiram' was not one of them.

The entrance wrist band serves to record which rides you have been on. One of the disappointing things about the park was that everyone is only allowed on a ride once. This really limits what you can do as not all rides are open at once and there is often announcements as to what is open. i.e. Wave Pool will open at 3:00 pm for 30 minutes. We found this really useless.

We believe it is used to limit the number of staff required, because as the crowd passes from one ride to the next they close the ride and move the staff on to a different one. So if you think you are smart and skip a couple of rides to avoid waiting at all, you will find either no one at the ride two down the line to operate it or when you double back to get the one you bypassed there will be no one there to operate it.

Under the raining umbrella

We proceeded through the rides with IW leading the girls. Unfortunately AM could not go on a lot of the rides as he had to guard the backpack and take the photos - great reason!! AM also withstood the strong pressure to go on several wildly spinning, gyrating, back-breaking rides because he was sure he would have caused some breach of cross-cultural etiquette.

By 2:30 pm we were finished all the rides and were hoping that it would mean an early departure. This thought process was heightened by the physical exhaustion suffered by both IW and AM in trying to keep up with 14 yo girls. Perhaps we are getting old??!!

This was not to be the case and we wandered back and forward looking at the empty rides but not being able to go on them because we had already partaken of our 'one ride'. One of our girls had not gone on the 'Dark House' ride (aka in OZ as the Ghost Train). She now wanted to go but not by herself. There was no one on the ride and no line up so we confidently approached the operator and explained the situation and asked if IW could accompany her. This was met with a stern refusal and it was quickly pointed out that IW had already ridden. No amount of pleading would change his mind so we moved on.

At about 4:00 pm a loudspeaker announcement called us to assemble at the train station. When we got there we were informed that the teachers were going to buy everyone an ice cream and we were to meet back at the station at 5:00 pm to catch the train to the entrance to go home.

Unfortunately the ice cream station was a 10 minute walk from the train station. We walked, had our ice creams then came the announcement that the chair lift was open. Great excitement - enquiries were made. Two answers came back with one teacher saying yes go and another saying no stay.

Mass confusion reigned. Some of the girls headed off and others stayed. IW and AM went with some of the girls towards the Chair Lift which was a good 20 minute walk away. We knew it was about a 20 minute ride so a quick bit of maths involving walk time plus ride time plus walk back to the meeting point would have had us at the 5:00 pm meeting time at about 5:40 pm.

At this moment there was a complete role reversal for IW and AM. For AM this was not a problem as he was in India and that seemed close enough. IW had reverted to all the good time principles about being on time that AM had taught her so was in great distress. When we finally reached the Chair Lift two very exhausted girls caught us and informed us that we did not have time for the ride and had to return to the station immediately.

IW took off at a cracking pace leading the breakaway while the peleton followed. AM used his team skills and dropped back to help those who were caught napping by the sudden change of pace. IW scored maximum points for the hill climb and also won the sprint finish with AM losing over 5 minutes on this stage.

We assembled at the station about 5 minutes late and surprisingly no one else was there. After a few minutes some girls arrived telling us we were to assemble at the place where we had ice creams. This made no sense as we would then have to turn around and walk back. IW took control of the peleton and we headed off. Eight minutes into the 10 minute stage we met the other group plus teachers walking back to the station. We wheeled around joined the pack and returned to where we started.

A few things were obvious at this stage (this was apart from IW's extreme frustration at the lack of order).

• How were 124 people plus the general public that was there going to fit on the 60 seater train. AM immediately thought of the bus trip and could not see any reason to be concerned.
• It was ages since a count was done - was everyone here?

We assembled in the 'cattle grid' to board the train. This was the girls, the general public, a couple of the 'stuffed people' from the entrance and a stuffed IW and AM. Soon afterwards the call went out for all girls to exit the 'cattle grid' and get into their classes in two lines to be counted. Once the count was done it was identified that about ten girls were missing.

At this point several major events collided in time. The train pulled into the station, the missing girls came running into view and about five girls realised they had left their bags back at the ice cream station and started to run off to collect them. The only peaceful thing that happened was IW and AM standing in 'the grid' ready to board.

Although the Station Master(hereafter known as SM) looked Indian he had this strange desire to only allow 60 people on the train. Most of the general public plus IW and AM were on board when the charge of the school girls occured. The 'cattle grid' stood no chance as the girls climbed over, under and through it. The teachers stood politely outside as the sight of the SM being overrun by the girls bought a wry smile to AM's face.

As SM picked himself up from the platform and dusted himself off there was no panic in his eyes or his actions. He gently retrieved his whistle which was dangling from its cord and placed it in his mouth. It should be noted here that in India the whistle is the 'chosen weapon' of people in power. AM had seen its skilful use by the Police, Traffic Wardens and School Teachers and now SM is added to the list of adept whistle users.

A few shrill blasts and the girls not already on the train froze in their place and with some deft hand movements SM ushered them back to the 'cattle grid'. He then proceeded to check the seating and remove any overcrowding - how unIndian!! As our train pulled out, the ejected children and teachers stood quietly and were rejoined by the five who had run to retrieve their bags.

We proceeded back to the entrance, alighted and waited for the train to return with the rest of the group. While we waited we were entertained by the resident 'stuffed things'.

The bus ride home involved the usual morphing of bodies but was considerably quieter. IW slept and AM pondered how tired the girls were. Perhaps he was not getting old after all.