Wonder La

Time for the biggest park in the Bangalore area, Wonder La.

Just as we got onto the Mysore Road highway that takes us to the park we passed this stunning Ganesha temple. 

To attract you to the park they've cleverly chosen to put a big wheel on top of a tower; a very unique and impressive beacon to the park.

This Wonder La park is one of two. The first one opened in Kochi in the south of the country. I would have liked to have gone there too but I couldn't squeeze it into an already tight schedule. One for next time. 

A little more expensive than the other parks but still cheap by UK standards. I was able to get around this park no problem without using a fast pass but I guess during peak season you might want to consider it.

There were a few school parties today all of whom were really well behaved, with the teachers hitting the unruly ones with little wooden batons should they choose to deviate from that. Perhaps we should consider bringing that form of discipline back. 

A slightly creepy looking pig statue met me just inside the park where we had to wait for another 15 minutes or so for the park to open properly.

An even creepier clown just stood there. What a great way to freak people out.

But it was the Beatrix Potter rabbits that were creepiest of all. There's something in their eyes that just said "kill" to me. 

After a brief delay waiting for the rope to drop to let us into the park properly I made my way up the hill to the left as you enter where an impressively themed termite mound lay, home to two roller coasters.

The first was a wacky worm but it looked way better than most given the theming. I think only the one in Rimini, Italy beats this. 

Running around that ride was the second coaster, a smaller powered ride made quite fun by a group of teenagers cheering the hole way around then demanding we be sent round for more laps as there was no queue; the clearly not interested ride op obliging to get them, and me out of her hair.

Beside the termite mound is a dark ride which unfortunately was down for maintenance all day. 

The park is really well maintained and of a high quality. That wheel is such a backdrop stealer though :)

A little tribute to an elephant called Ammu that used to reside at the other park and became a bit of a mascot. This animatronic one drinks water from the bowl and sprays it at you. I think the park are also saying that you don't need to keep a real animal in captivity to entertain the people. If I've interpreted that right it's a nice touch.

Errr, a little use of licence here?

I wish this wheel would stop getting in front of my camera the whole time.

Outside of the coasters the park has a really good selection of flat rides, and as they were running they were playing a great selection of music to accompany them, so much so that this park took my unofficial best park music crown from Valleyfair in the US. Every track without fail was one of my favourite with the likes of Chemical Brothers, Propellerheads and The Prodigy being played. They even had some Andy C. Whoever chose the music at this park did an amazing job.

Cinemagic 3D was one of two 3d cinemas in the park. This one at the top of the hill showed a self-made but fairly average ride through skies, roads and rivers. The other one at the back of the park was much better featuring a James Bond style ski chase down a mountain. 

One of the many spin rides, and this was one that people were running down the hill to ride.

Some views from the wheel and tower, which took a little while to get up due to them not letting me ride the elevator on my own, even though there was a guard in it with me. I guess they can't trust people up the tower unless they're accompanied...If a park is driving it's visitors to want to commit suicide they're doing their job wrong and if I was depressed enough to want to kill myself the last place I'd do it is at a theme park.

The big sign is making a deal about how many solar panels the park has installed.

The tower does of course offer some unique viewpoints of the park and the rides in it. I don't think I've ever looked down on a mixer before.

and you can get a nice shot of the tower ride too. The ride operators of the wheel very kindly dealt with my single rider predicament by stopping it and putting me in with an existing group of 5 school kids, who stopped looking out of their car to ask me lots of questions about where I was from and what I thought of India.

Rather than put another staircase to ascend the hill, the park made a rope walkway up and this was really popular.

The third water splash ride of the trip and this one was one of the wetter ones, but I was still dry when I got back to the car.

Well I guess it's better than just calling them an on-ride photo. We'll take your photo and flatter you.

This is sky ride attraction that is like a cable car up the tower but which descends rather than stops at the top. It looks scarier than it is, and I was clearly confident with the ride safety enough to take photos from it. This one had to be ridden late in the day as it took a long time for a decent sized crowd to get to it.

A really well themed breakdance.

and having done everything I wanted to and over running a little bit I said goodbye to the park and waited 30 minutes for my driver to show up. I don't think he'd believed me when I said I wouldn't need all day at the park and had fallen asleep somewhere.

Wonder La can be located on the Mysore Road SW of the city and it took around 45 minutes from the Crowne Plaza.

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