How do you keep the fun going at fairs in a country affected by frequent power cuts and blackouts? Simple, just hire a bunch of workers to dangle from the bars of manual ferris wheels to keep it in motion.

India’s human-powered ferris wheels recently made headlines in Western media after a video of one such contraption at a fun fair in New Delhi went viral on YouTube and various news sharing sites, but the truth is the phenomenon is very common in Asian countries where electricity is unreliable. Some fairs use generators or even car batteries to power ferris wheels, but the simplest and most cost-effective way to keep people entertained is to hire a couple of daredevils to climb a manual ferris wheel and dangle from its metal bars to keep it spinning. The simple installations are made up of a simple metal frame and a few open-air cages, and without a power source they look like non-functional decorations when not in use. But as soon as people climb in the cages and the fearless wallahs start working their magic, you get pretty much the same feeling as you would from a modern ferris wheel.

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Remember Mary Poppins, that lovable nanny played by Julie Andrews in the 1964 movie adaptation of P.L. Travers’ children books? Growing up I always asked myself if floating around with an umbrella was possible in real life. Now, thanks to the stunt of extreme athlete Erik Roner, I finally have an answer.

I remember wanting to climb on to the roof of my parents’ house to test out Mary Poppins’ umbrella-powered traveling technique, but as crazy as that sounds to me today, it’s nothing to the stunt pulled by Erik Roner. The famous daredevil teamed up with camera maker GoPro to conduct a “retro-tech” experiment and see if Mary Poppins was actually more than a delightful fairy tale. Using a sturdy garden umbrella instead of a parachute, he jumped out of a hot air balloon, over Southern California. “We’re gonna see if an umbrella actually slows you down, like Mary Poppins’ does…What am I thinking?” Erik says before detaching the umbrella from the supporting balloon and starting his descent. For a few moments, his umbrella flight seems quite smooth, but the pressure of the air ultimately turns it inside out and tears the fabric to shreds.

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Circus shows have been getting censored, simplified and overall less exciting just about everywhere. Not in India though, that’s the place where the infamous phrase “death defying stunt” lives on through Mauth Ka Kuan, or the Well of Death.

Though originally performed all over the world, riding a bike on a vertical wall can now only be seen live in the “Land of contrasts” and it makes visiting the place even more tempting. The stunt is old so you’d imagine India’s bike riders have honed and perfected it to the highest level. Actually, the Well of Death – as the arena is referred to – isn’t just a marketing ploy.Riding on incredibly old bikes that haven’t seen maintenance since they left the factory, the Indian bikers ride with absolutely no safety gear at break neck speeds. The walls on which they ride are vertical and built from salvaged wood.

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In everyday life we usually only use the phrase “walk on water” as a figure of speech, but Polish kite surfing champion Maciek Kozierski traveled to the Sea of Galilee, in Israel, where Jesus himself did it, and accomplished the feat.

Accompanied by a team that included Israeli wakeboard champion Lior Eliyahu, and photographers Predrag Vuckovic and Joerg Mitter, Kozierski spent four days in the Sea of Galilee overlooking the historic church at Capernaum, trying to accomplish the miracle of walking on water. The plan was pretty simple: Maciek would use his kite to accelerate to maximum speed, then release the kite, step off his board and start walking on water.

But, as always, the plan looked a lot better on paper than in practice. The elements just didn’t seem too eager to help him achieve his Miracle (the name of the project) and the Polish kite surfer encountered serious difficulties that caused him to hit the water at high speed, over 50 times. Strong winds caused the waves to become too rough, while a calm sea meant no wind power for his kite, so the daredevil had to repeat his attempts until he nailed the perfect walk on water.

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I know it’s not exactly Victoria Falls, but this waterfall is definitely not a safe place to jump dive. If someone told me a guy jumped from the top of that waterfall and lived, I probably wouldn’t believe it. But these photos show he did just that and not once, but twice.