Pics from Ramoji Film City Trip
No private vehicles allowed inside. Its quite a distance from the main entrance. They have buses which take you to the heart of the film city.
Shangrila Garderns.
Birds eye view of Shangrila Gardens.
Dump Bin.
There were so many gardens. I don't remember which one was this.
The Rain Dance
Thats me and Yogya....Exhausted and laughing over some silly joke.
Here is the trip's account in Yogya's words.
There was lot of emotions in air when we met up. Friends meeting up after long time and so on. I could bet that friendgod above was singing happy songs but as I am not a betting man I shall pass the opportunity. Naturally none of this happened but still makes for good copy. With total English manners, we shook our hands and commented on whether and got going. He had a nice house though if it was a bit further I could have said that he lived in forest. As for what we should do , we decided to let Ramoji Film city have the pleasure of our company. It was bally thousands of kilometers away from the city but once we started we had decided to complete the quest and go there. On the way, I counted that we asked seven hundred and fifty seven people about the directions and as most of them were people with nothing evil in mind against us, we managed to reach there just after sun had crossed the midway mark. Driving was a pleasure outside city and I will have to say that as long as roads are that good, drives can be considered as a pleasant recreation. It was huge area and those guys had private buses to take us in the interior of filmcity from highway.
As we entered the film city, we realized that this was something different. They claim to be the biggest such thing in world but even if they are not the biggest they definitely are among the best. Infra was very good and there were gardens aplenty, the entire area was meticulously planned and maintained. The guy seemed a greeko-roman lover. There were venuses and apollos along with helens aplenty and most of them in the long honoured tradition were wearing something similar and lesser then what mandakini wore. But the status were aplenty and will have to say were impressive, even if they were of plaster of Paris. There was this one Ulysses or Hercules driving a chariot which occupied deserved centerstage. Surrounded by a small circular garden and a structure which seemed to move as we say with the force of horses pulling it, it was quite different then what we see around cities where dead netas who no one cares about live in every nook and corner. As we got down from bus, there were tours lining up. With the greed of American tourist to cram up as many as possible as quickly as possible, we jumped into one and readied our cameras, rather readied Rahul's camera. It was a tour through the entire campus and he showed up places where they blow up apartments and jails and railway station and some two dozen gardens and pathways which were very nice. There were jap gardens and theme gardens. The guide was an ass with wisecracks about something or other which were rather cheap but that doesnt mean that he was not fun for little bit. As we walked around all this, we felt it was nice but as guys go there wasnt much enthu in us in going and looking in all nooks and corners.
I don't know if you have noticed this, but when only guys go out, they will look around and enjoy the scenery but soon they will look for smoke or just chat and so on. I think that for something of this sort when one is supposed to look around the various things natural girls are a great help. They are the ones who spur on the guys to look for this and look for that. Their oohs and aahs and looking for small stuff is something that is distinctly missing in guys. So naturally after small bit we started looking for smoke or food. Finding neither we abandoned our foray into the garden country and went to main area. Now we were under the impression that place was not quite full and there were even some remarks bandied about how empty the place looks but as soon as we entered the eating area, we were thrown into cauldron of humanity.
Eating has to be up there with sex among things that obsesses people. I sometimes think that people care more about eating then they do about sex and if you don't believe it just compare the figures of people who are overweight due to eating and those who are oversexed. So the entire population visiting Ramoji city seemed to have descended on the restaurant for food. We struggled through and with strategic pushes and shoves, kicks and pinches managed to get near to the chappie who was taking the orders. Food was not good by a long way but still we managed to get that down.
Then we went to dance show and it was decent one. In film city we watched filmy dance and I am sure that I saw rahul salivating at couple of decent looking females but that is to be expected. It was just some music and acrobatic dancing but definitely value for money. Same goes for Wild West show that we went to. Stunts were rather good and worth a dekko was our verdict.
Now i was feeling thirsty for beer but others were not so keen on the stuff so we decided to stick around for a while. There was another area for recreation and we went there. There was scary looking merry go round and considering that we were scared a lot just to look at it, we decided to take a pass and do something that wont be so threatening to life. So we did a bit of rope sliding and bungie jumping. That jumping thing requires lot of stamina, let me tell you. From there we went to the maze and it was wonderful experiece. Thet was amoung the best things on offer over there. The scenes were scary and there were lot of things that we expect but still can thrill us. One of them which had racks falling on people was so realistic that one for a second got frozen. But naturally it was unlike the maze which harry potter had to clear and without any He who must not be named as our nemesis we came out quite safely and happily.
It was time for journey back though there was some dancing under the showers which really tempted me but couldnt do due to lack of enthusiasm exhibited by others. As we waited for the bus, the junta seemed to getting ready for customery fight and pushing and pulling. I dont know why people dont have the common sense to wait for some time. I always try but with all the pushing one just gets this impulse of joinin in the frey. So with buses there was lot of pushing and shoving in which we also participated with all the gaity and abandon shown by fellow revellers and managed to grab window seats which can be considered as equivalent to olympic gold in stuggle of bus entry sport.