One of the great things about the internet is that it has made research so much easier and for the theme park enthusiast identifying the parks to visit on a sites such as rcdb.com and coaster-count.com (and I'll blow my trumpet by mentioning my GE file) have done most of the work for you. For those who still thrive on the challenge of finding new rides however, travelling rides are the ones to go for as these aren't as well documented, and in researching this trip I was pleased to find one such ride in the Chennai area.
To reach it took around a 40 minute drive from the last park into the centre of Chennai and as the taxi driver sped through the city I did my best to capture some of the landmarks in the centre of the city. This is the Ripon Building named after a former Governer General. It completed its construction in 1913. The construction now going on in front of it is part of the new metro project.
This cool building is the main train station. Built in the Romanesque style it originally opened in 1873 buit was rebuilt in 1998. A key sign of that style is the over abundance in arches.
Soon after the driver found a place to park and I made my way into the Island Grounds, a huge expense of barren land beside the river on which various festivals take place through out the year. Throughout January there is one such event, which has a fairground. These are the tuktuks that run through the city like ants.
There was quite a crowd gathered at the entrance and a little confusion at the ticket barrier as the locals faffed about trying to decide on whether to go in or not. At only 20pence I had no issue walking past some of them to get my ticket.
The first set of attractions were all haunted walkthroughs with different exteriors but very similar interiors i.e. not very good.But the locals were lapping them up.
Due to the competition a couple of the attractions featured live actors inside and out, and others relied on terrible soundsystems to show how scary they were.
It's fair to say some of those audio productions were trying a little too hard to be scary.
Other attractions included aquariums, magic shows and movie theatres such as this one.
Towards the far end of the strip was the amusement park with a decent selection of rides, and given the events popularity a sizeable crowd to enjoy them.
Most of the rides were variations on the spinning ones.
Busy busy busy.
This one spun whilst spinning.
and this one spun whilst rocking.
Whilst countries are different from each other you can't deny the universal joy that comes from funfairs!
A couple more rides some kiddy friendly, some not.
and my reason for coming here was this coaster which I'd seen on satellite imagery during the research and which I was pleased to see in attendance this year.
This little ensemble at the back showed that it was a powered coaster, which I didn't mind.
and it was barely a coaster as it only just level the horizontal plane, but I handed over the small number of rupees needed to get the ride, squeezed myself in and got the tick.
A view across the river towards a clock tower which forms part of a university campus I think.
Nice to see rides running at capacity, even if it meant the wait time for some of them were a little lengthy due to the reluctance from some people to ride rather than watch.
A two tiered frisbee ride. That's one way to keep the capacity up I guess.
These robots gave you health checks, and were quite popular I guess due to their unusual nature.
These stalls would crush the sugar beet and make drinks from them. Not wanting to risk any stomach disorders and questioning the quality of the water that was being used I gave this a miss.
I finished up with one of the magic shows. Seeing magic in India was one thing I wanted to do on this trip. However this show was pretty basic with a man going through a series of catalogue magic props very quickly before wrapping up the show. Having said that the crowd were lapping up the routine in particular his finale rope escape.
and that was the fair. Nice to get the bonus ride and to see the Chennai folk enjoying a travelling fair just as much as we do back home.
The Island State Fair is found across the river from the northern end of the beach. Its location seems to change depending on it's size with the large events being on the Western side of the river and the smaller on the East.
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