CHAPTER 8- THE DRIVE AND DISNEYLAND PART 1
The day exams ended, we packed and wanted to sleep early so that we could get up early the next morning and start at 4 am as planned. But we were not confident if we would get up at 4 am if we went to sleep and so we decided to have an all-nighter. We fine-tuned our plans and ironed out the flaws and took more printouts and made more notes and got ready for the trip. It was terribly tiring just planning for the trip, as it was a daring one as we were in a totally alien land and we were going to take a car for rent and travel 1000 odd miles, without any experience of driving in the US and knowing only theoretically how to get there, through the internet and so we had to have all our plans perfect. In hindsight, I am sometimes amazed at how quickly and confidently we decided to embark on the trip but at that time, all that fuelled us was our enthusiasm to see the real California.
And so we set out on our journey at 4 am sharp as planned. MS took the wheel and I got to say he drove pretty smoothly. Kudos to you man! One of us acted as the cartographer, sitting beside him, with the various printouts and maps that we had printed out and giving him instructions on which turn to take, when one came. The GPS that we had borrowed also came in very handy, as it kept telling us where to go (in a lady’s voice who we addressed as “akka”) but it wasn’t that accurate, and so we had to double check with our maps each time it predicted a route.
LA was about 500 miles from Davis and it was a straight highway, so the drive was pretty smooth. The car was pretty comfortable and spacious (it was a luxury car after all) and we all enjoyed the drive, as every sight that our eyes drank in was new to us. We passed through the bay area and caught up with the coast there and drove further and further south. We stopped for breakfast at a McDonalds on the way and also stopped by for lunch at someplace. We didn’t feel the strain of our long journey as we kept chattering in the car (its amazing how we always find something to talk about) and entertaining each other. MS also was totally at ease driving the car, and really started enjoying it too. We were on “cruise” for an hour in the middle at 80 mph. We also experienced showers in the middle of the journey as we were passing some hilly areas and that was pretty exciting too. I guess everything was exciting at that time as it was all new to us.
After a long journey, we finally reached Los Angeles at about 3 pm. From here, things started to get a bit slow, because of the notorious LA traffic.
We had to pass through LA to get to Anaheim, where our hotel was located. We also had to pay universal studios a visit to collect our tickets, which we had ordered online, at the counter. It was exciting going into those Hollywood parts and seeing quite a few really loooong limos passing by us. Who know who was in there? We might’ve been a few metres away from a Brangelina or a Scarlett Johanasson or a Will Smith. Damn those tinted windows that those cars had, else we could’ve looked in. :x
We collected the tickets and then drove away rather ruefully, as we had to wait a couple of days to come back here according to our plans. We then drove for another good hour to get past LA in its heavy evening traffic and went past quite a few interesting buildings such as the one in this pic ;) . (We even toyed with the idea of going in to see if they let us see them in aah...action...But alas we were short of time)
We finally reached Anaheim at about 5 pm. We found our hotel quickly, thanks to our maps and checked in and took an hour’s rest. Then it was time to go to....Disneyland, which was just a mile away from the hotel.
We arrived at Disneyland at about 7 pm, and after putting the car in the car park, we had to take a toy train to go into the place. It was a good 10 minute ride, with each passing minute increasing our excitement of what lay ahead.
That was when I contemplated where I was. I was in the US, in California, in DISNEYLAND, at a place where I had not even dreamt of visiting in the near future, at a place which has delighted millions with its colorful entertainment, at the place which acts as a living memory to the many fictitious characters who have made many a kid's and quite a few adults’ life more cheerful with their amazing entertainment- Mickey, Donald, Goofy...and the list goes on... I got goose bumps thinking about all this and a glance in the others directions told me they were also getting a similar feeling.
Once we got down the train and entered this wonderful world, we were babbling out of excitement. With huge expectations, we entered the gates to be beheld by a sight which took us aback even after all this anticipation. We were stunned by the amazingly cheerfully lit streets and cartoonish buildings and the characters standing at every corner of the streets and the huge crowd of cheerful equally-amazed people basking the streets was a sight which could not be described. The fervor of the night added to this experience. Also, as Christmas was round the corner, the whole place was doubly decorated with Christmas trees and the like. Nothing could’ve prepared us for this majestic sight. Now, I never for my life have imagined I would state the sentence I am going to in my next line, but then I guess this is the only way to describe it. "The majestic sight I faced was similar to the image of Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi". (for more on this refer to my older blog post "FROM AN AGNOSTIC TO A HAPPILY CONFUSED PERSON"). You have to be there to see it. Anyways... back to the subject... We stood in wonderment, taking in the whole scene with awe. For a minute or two, we couldn’t say anything; neither did we know what to do or where to go. All that mattered was that present moment and we wanted it to prolong it forever. Finally, we broke the ice and someone uttered "It’s beautiful", stating the obvious but getting us out of that reverie.
We then walked aimlessly the first few minutes along the streets, just along the way people flowed. Each street were filled with as many people as there would be on Ranganathan street in Chennai or on Commercial street in Bangalore or in Palika bazaar in Delhi, but this was one place we wanted to be with the crowd. There were lots and lots of excited kids and looking at them made us feel like one again and that increased our excitement level by another notch, if that was ever possible. I felt my pulse and I was positive I would count over 200 a minute just due to the excitement. There were an equal number of adults too, all as excited as the kids. I could not see one glum soul in that place. I guess, if ever someone could sulk in that place for more than a few seconds, he/she would have to be one of the most cold-hearted people.
After sometime, we recovered and looked at a map of the place and decided what rides to do in the night and what during the next day. We chose a few rides which would be a good experience in the dark and went ahead. There were just so many rides that we would have to spend a whole 3 days covering every one of them. So we had to choose wisely about which ones to take and which to give a miss. Our choices were pretty good, I guess, as most of the rides we went on were pretty exciting ones. Though we went on at least 10 equally exciting rides in those couple of hours that night, there were a couple which still give me the goose bumps out of excitement.
The best ride in the whole place was the "Indiana Jones" one. It was pretty popular, I guess, as we had to stand in a queue for half an hour to get on the ride. As we passed along the queue, we went through artificially made caves, whose every aspect looked so realistic. We finally got on the wooden cart on rails, which seated about 10 people and the ride started. It was a rollercoaster kind of ride, which took us through the massive caves, with stalactites and stalagmites whizzing past us, with cave-dwelling creatures like rats on the floor, gaps on the floor of the caves, propelling us downwards every now and then. All this was really exciting and we thought the ride over and was worth every bit of the wait. But only then, we got to know the best part was yet to come. Our cart stopped in a dark cave for about ten seconds and Indiana Jones himself came in front of us and screamed "A boulder is gonna fall on you. Duck!". I looked up to see a HUGE boulder of at least a 5 metre radius falling freely right towards our cart. It kept getting closer and closer and it was only a few feet above us, when I realized how realistic it is and I in fact felt it WAS real. Had I lifted my hand, I swear I could’ve touched it. It was that close. I thought there was some technical flaw as the boulder should’ve never come this close and it was going to fall right on our head. I looked at the others and everyone seemed equally panicked. Suddenly, the track our cart was perched on gave way, and we underwent freefall for a couple of seconds as another track caught us down below and we looked up to see the boulder stuck in the hole we had fallen through. We sighed with relief for a moment and only then it dawned upon us that we were actually in a safe ride in Disneyland and not really adventuring in caves a la Indiana Jones. That’s how realistic it was. We came out stunned and swearing to come back to this ride again the next day.
