Richard Bannister

Today was supposed to begin in a hotel in Guangzhou, but the group flight yesterday evening was cancelled due to technical problems. The replacement accommodation was fairly basic, and the required early start meant that I managed very little sleep, which coupled with a nasty head cold left me in fairly poor form. Had I been travelling independently I'd have spent another hour in bed before heading to the airport, but having said that, I know from experience that group trip organisers have to make decisions that err on the side of caution.

A few hours later we were at Guangzhou Zoo, home to a pair of coasters. Little Worm Train (#1840) was quite an interesting ride, being a family coaster with a layout that I'd not come across before. With that out of the way, we went over to the Forest Flying Mouse (#1841). Benoît asked me if there was a technique to avoid being hurt by these rides; the only one that works every time involves not climbing into the car!

Park number two had a Fruit Worm Coaster (#1842) that turned out to be a clone of the Little Worm Train, albeit in this case painted a rather hideous pink. The same colour scheme was in evidence on the Golden Horse Spinning Coaster (#1843). We caught a quick lap on the powered Gliding Dragon before heading to the exit.

Xiaofantian Paradise is home to just a handful of attractions; dodgems, a pirate ship, a frog hopper, a paratrooper, a good quality haunted walkthrough, and a Jungle Mouse (#1844). The ride operators' children were playing on the ride station in the vicinity of the track, which didn't strike me as particularly safe, but one presumes that they'd been warned about what might happen if they were to fall in front of a moving car!

My second visit to Amazing World began with a ride on the Roller Coaster, which I'd previously noted as one of the better coasters in China. While still fun, this ride has developed a definite rattle that it didn't have four years ago that made me less enthusiastic about repeating it, though I still managed two laps. From there, I went over to the Speed Mouse (#1845), which occupies the space that once held the Happy Trip and Flying Coaster. The ride was running well today and was a definite upgrade over the two monstrosities it replaced!

The only other ride I tried today was the Drop Tower, predominantly because there were at least twenty people watching the ride while nobody was actually getting on, with a lone Chinese man going on it repeatedly. The ride was pretty much as expected, other than for the fact that the staff suggested that I should ride a second time. I figured it'd be rude not to.