Ramoji Film City unt NTR Gardens

Today was destined to be another eventful day in my Indian saga. We went to visit Ramoji film city. It tried its very hardest to be a westernized type theme-park, but there were a few things that I had a bit of a laugh at and a few things that I thought were just weird. The day actually started on a couple of weird notes. When we first got there, we went through what I thought was the entrance to the park, but it wasn't. It was the entrance to the studio property I guess, but then we had to take a bus from that gate to the actual park itself. That wasn't incredibly odd in itself, but the thing that was odd was that we passed through a small village on the way to the park (I am rather certain it was an actual village and not a film set or anything like that). The next weird thing was that once we got to the entrance to the park we had to wait another 45 minutes or so before it officially opened. After that, one of the amusing things happened. They had their whole opening ceremony with lots of dancing and stuff, and then they introduced the different themes of the park. They had their normal Indian stuff, and then the amusing part - when they announced the western theme, a bunch of teenagers came out dressed in pretty normal-looking clothes except for fake-looking vests and cowboy hats and they were all, ALL, sauntering along spinning a fake gun on their index fingers. It was quite amusing to watch. Especially after seeing all of this Indian stuff which was much better done because they know the Indian stuff better.

Shortly after the opening ceremony, the next amusing thing happened - I saw someone dressed up as batman. There were several things that made this particular batman character comical. First of all, he was the smallest, scrawniest batman I have ever seen. Then, there was his costume. It seemed to consist of black trash bags, and to top the whole thing off (or bottom it off I guess) he was wearing rubber muck-boots which looked much to large for him. It took me a couple seconds after I walked past him to register all the things which were hilarious about him, and then a couple more seconds to realize I had to get a picture with him. By that time he had walked off, but fortunately I tracked him down later in the day and got a couple of shots with him. This provided for further amusement because I was going to try to put my arm around him to take the picture, but as I reached for his opposite shoulder, he pushed me away with one hand and then posed like he was about to punch me for the picture. I could hardly contain my laughter, it was great. You can see the pictures here.

Shortly after my first batman sighting, I realized that almost completely everyone was going to one small area of the park so I decided to go check out some other stuff. Seriously, the rest of the park was pretty much completely empty - the funny thing I found out about Indian theme parks, however, is that even though the attractions do not have advertised times that they are closed or open, they almost all have only certain times that they are open. This particular day, I guess just about everything was closed in the morning except for a couple of rides (which was where everyone had congregated) and a tour of the 'film city' (the film city consists of a bunch of sets, gardens, and stuff spread out over a large land area and then there is the more parkish type area which is where a lot of the theme park attractions are). Because of this unadvertised timing stuff, I got to wander the empty streets of the park.

I think one of the best examples of the level of quality of this park was the fact that I was one of the attractions. I got asked at least twice if people could take their picture with me. Of course, I had no problem with it, but I did find it quite amusing. One of these times was when I was wandering the streets alone. I saw a group of fellow crowd-avoiders and they immediately came up to me and asked if they could get one picture with me - this was actually the second time, the first being just before the opening ceremony.

Fortunately, I didn't really miss anything due to my wandering, but I did learn a great deal that even simple things like how a theme park runs can be vastly different from country to country. As it turns out the ride that everyone was thronging to immediately after the opening ceremonies was a roller-coaster simulator. It was pretty cool, but I've always thought of roller coasters as a sort of simulator of airplanes themselves, so I found it quite amusing that one of the main attractions would be a simulation of what, in my mind, was already a simulation. I mean seriously, what's next? A simulation of a person experiencing a simulation of a roller-coaster?

After spending almost all day at the theme park, we headed to NTR Gardens. This was quite refreshing after the hectic day at the film city. I suppose I have been mostly desensitized to 'modern attractions' such as theme parks and shows and the like, but I do enjoy walking quietly and appreciating God's creation. Even at NTR gardens, to my dismay, there was still the fair-type rides and a haunted house, but there was also a 'desert garden' and a collection of bonzai trees which caught my interest. I think it must be my personality-type that mostly leads me to appreciate peace and quiet. Never before had I been reminded so strongly of Tolkien's words when speaking of hobbits, "Their heart really lay in peace, quiet, and the joy of fresh, tilled earth" (I'm sure I completely slaughtered that, but it gets the basic idea across (Edit: this is the original quote: "But where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet, and good tilled earth; for all Hobbits share a love of things that grow." - wow, I was really close :P)). While I was at the gardens I decided that if I ever have a library or a home office or something, I want a bonzai tree in it, so I decided to take pictures of some of my favorites (for those of the readership who look at my pictures and think, 'What's up with all the trees?'). After the gardens, we headed home for a spicy supper and bed. I felt like I should've gotten a round of applause when I finished my plate of food (except for some curd and chilis), oh well, I guess I'll just have to pat myself on the back...