Gasp!! Gasp!! I am so sorry....That took alot longer than I thought.
Where were we? Oh yeah. WATERBOM! So there was Poo at the the bottom of the slide...........wait.......oops! That didn't sound quite right. Realizing how high up we were, we tactically retreated down a flight of steps or two to the 'Race Track.' My 17 year old son pipes up, " C'mon Dad , let's go together." [ This has a familiar ring to it.] The Race Track is a pair of parallel slides much like a slippery dip, just with water flowing down it. Off we go, Sonny-Jim & I, side by side. what a giggle. Father & son yahooing and egging each other on. Speeding down the slide we stay abreast of each other. But what is this?! Junior is slowing down gently in a small spray of water. Why am I still going, and going, AND going?? Apparantly basic physics suggests that carrying 30kg more than the person next to you results in momentum pushing you a tad further.
I am SO SORRY about the fact that a ride attendant chose to be standing at the end of the slide. He must have thought that he was perfectly safe considering most folks ceased their slide 20 metres further up the slide. He looked genuinely surprised when I bowled him over in a wall of water & spray. Luckily I broke his fall. I could tell how grateful he was by the way he frantically murmured that other little local pray,"Hati-Hati." Poo, having rearranged his bathing attire trotted over to help us up."My ride was AWESOME, Darbs!"he said.Trouble is, much like my ride up on the 'Slingshot' the other evening, Poo had shut his eyes for a split second and missed the view on the way down. It was over for him in a flash.
Very odd thing. as we were drying the ride attendant off, we noticed a zimmer frame wash past us on the slide....I bet there's a story to that! Seeking new thrills we pattered off to conquor ,"The Boomerang!"
As we climbed the stairs we watched other patrons fly down a return slide and almost bounce into the water below. My 15 year old daughter looks at the rather chubby passengers that have just shot past and says," Dad, you're coming with me. I might need your uh ballast!" How rude! Eventually we edge our way to the summit and are surprised by the ride attendant's big, cheesey, grin. " OH BOSS!, you gonna get gooood air." ----------Whatever could he mean? Sure enough as we thunder down the slide and climb perilously close to the top of the return wall, we hear the raucous cheers of spectators as we fly over the last hump and physically leave the slide. Remember the scene in the movie , "FREE WILLY" , where it majestically leaps out of the water and hangs in the air for an eternity? With my daughter, "Wahooing", and my face contorting into , "Oh my Gawd!!!", we descend with the grace of a Boeing 747 landing on water....
I'm told when they finally revived me that we had set a new Park record for distance travelled. I felt quite delerious and wandered off in a daze looking for a phone-box to call Guiness to place the new record. I asked some park attendants to direct me to a phone-box and they pointed up to another staired tower marked,'Climax'.
In a dream-like trance I trudged up the stairs being greeted at every turn by ride attendants pointing and grinning at me. They must have heard about my record breaker over at The Boomerang. Finally reaching the top of the stairs another attendant cheerily waved my towards the phone-booth. Funny spot for a phone, but I suppose they get better reception if they are up high. "In you go Boss" says the grinning attendant. I suddenly realize that I don't have any change on me to make a call. "No worries, Boss. It is a collect call." He closes the booth door and saunters back a step or two. " You can collect when you reach the bottom.....Ha ha." I tell you one minute I was looking around the booth looking for the phone, the next minute, WHOOOOOSH!!
That Arak liqueur has some nasty lingering side effects. Again, just like on the night of the 'Slingshot' ride, my eyes bulged my head spun and when I came to I was lying down in a puddle of water with ride attendants helping to my feet. "Boodoggh, you great boodoggh," they cheered at me. What a goose I felt. God knows how I ended up there or for how long but since I had set several new Park records, I thought that we should call it a day.
You know, as we headed out of the Park, with the lifeguards and ride attendants all tossing us gifts of shoes and water bottles, Waterbom is really just a great metaphor for life in Bali.
*LAZY RIVER: like Bali itself. Put yourself in neutral and let the current take you with it.
* SMASH DOWN: Life is very fast. If you don't open your eyes occasionally and look around you might miss it.
* THE BOOMERANG: At last a ride where weightier people are revered and are sought after by skinnier folk to enhance their journey.
* THE RACETRACK: A picture of comparison. You 20 years ago and what you look like now.
* THE CLIMAX: A sometimes exciting ,yet confusing, and quite damp experience that can be shallow for some or drowning for others. Left me wondering what the dickens just happened.
* SUPERBOWL: Enjoy life lest it suck you down the drain pipe
and finally,
*THE MACARONI: Like the short pasta, life is short. Be sure and ride it along with a big cheesey grin...
Final last note to reader; should you split your pants during the course of the day think carefully about wearing slogan underpants lest people stare at you intently for the wrong reasons....