What goes up, must come down. This is the most important thing you need to remember when you find yourself sitting in a roller coaster car, slowly getting chain-lifted up with the rest of the cars to the first high point of the ride.
The other important thing is this: You can close your eyes throughout the whole ride if it becomes unbearable.
The thing is, though, even with your eyes closed you can still feel every twist, turn and plunge the roller coaster takes.
The feeling I get when the roller coaster drops or goes through an inversion (turning upside down) is so intense that I often wish it would stop right there and then, even if we were still midway through the track.
They’ll just have to find another way to transport me back down to the ground.
Sometime in the late 1990s, the Sunway Lagoon theme park in Selangor had the Triple Loop Coaster, a 30m-or-so-high roller coaster with, as the name suggests, three loops. The track was just over 1km long, and if my memory serves me right, it was built in front of the theme park entrance, and it was pink or lilac in colour.
As somebody who suffers from a fear of heights, I have always wanted to find ways to overcome it. And so I thought that going on a scary-looking roller coaster would help me do just that.
It didn’t work.
It could be because I had closed my eyes halfway through the first loop... although I am not really convinced that seeing the actual drop, or seeing the world upside-down from such a great height, will finally cure me of my phobia.
After that first attempt, I was “traumatised” and vowed never to ride another roller coaster ever again.
A couple of years later, during an assignment to Los Angeles, I decided to try the Back To The Future: The Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood. It was a simulator ride and I thought the experience would be different as riders would be sitting inside a “DeLorean” that’s lifted just a few metres off the ground. A big screen in front would then display 3D versions of famous scenes from the first movie featuring the car.
It was not as scary as riding a roller coaster but it was still nerve-racking. However, I enjoyed the experience.
I’ve gone on several roller coasters and simulator rides after that (the Harry Potter And The Forbidden Journey Ride at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka was very memorable as I could actually hear my bones cracking during the ride – virtual Quidditch is a real pain, folks!), and I keep telling myself “never again” after each one.
The latest misadventure was at Skytropolis, Resorts World Genting’s indoor theme park, where reporters were invited to try the Super Glider roller coaster and the RoboCoaster VR simulator ride. The Super Glider is close to 20m high, runs for 290m long and has two inversions.
The RoboCoaster is designed as a giant robot (think: Transformers) which spins 360° a few times, suspending riders in the air and lifting them off their seats for what seems like infinite seconds. This is when riders are supposed to experience weightlessness, and feel like they’re flying. Fun, right?
Unfortunately, not everyone will experience that. Some, like me, will feel like it is the end of days.
I may never overcome my fear of heights but hey, at least the phobia did push me to try things I never thought I would. And that’s always a win.
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