When it costs US$63 for an adult to get into Disneyland, many tourists do not really blink an eyelid, but here in Bangladesh a trip to “Fantasy Kingdom” only costs US$4 for an adult entry ticket but yet the average bangladeshi's family trip to this kingdom will cost them approximately a tenth of their yearly household income. Although “Fantasy Kingdom” isn’t Disneyland, it is the closest that many of the 140 million Bangladeshi’s will get to “a wonderland where your dreams come true” – a wonderland that doesn’t present any of the realistic elements of the poverty outside but somehow this US$600 million theme-park can exist in a city where approximately a quarter of it population (3 million) live in slums.
My expedition to this new kingdom was lead by intrigue, although I wasn’t sure what I was most intrigued about; was it the intrigue in seeing women in burkha’s going down waterslides, or the chance to experience a western theme-park all for $8, or was it just to see such a juxtaposition within society, or just simply was it a chance to get out of Dhaka? To be honest I think that it was all of these factors that led me to heading north-west of Dhaka in a beaten up old taxi!
After an initial fight with the attendant at the gate about whether he was charging us skin tax on top of the price we had seen in the paper that morning, in retrospect we were arguing over $3, but somewhere between the marketing department and the gates there was a 100% increase. To be honest it is a wonderful advertising ploy, get people to come an hour out of town with the expectation of a day in a “Fantasy Kingdom”… and then offer them the options of a 100% increase in price or a return trip back to a place far from the world of “Fantasy Kingdom”.
So our little aussie possie decided to spend the day in the “water world” half of the kingdom, far from Bangla reality was this kingdom. There were girls showing skin and not getting stared at, teenage boys and girls openly cuddling and flirting in public, no crowd watching the foreigners every second move… and of course $600 million of theme-park fun! But the reality of all of the waterslides, the random water cave disco and the biggest rollercoaster in Bangladesh was all gone when it was time to get stuffed back onto the hot and humid local bus home!
My expedition to this new kingdom was lead by intrigue, although I wasn’t sure what I was most intrigued about; was it the intrigue in seeing women in burkha’s going down waterslides, or the chance to experience a western theme-park all for $8, or was it just to see such a juxtaposition within society, or just simply was it a chance to get out of Dhaka? To be honest I think that it was all of these factors that led me to heading north-west of Dhaka in a beaten up old taxi!
After an initial fight with the attendant at the gate about whether he was charging us skin tax on top of the price we had seen in the paper that morning, in retrospect we were arguing over $3, but somewhere between the marketing department and the gates there was a 100% increase. To be honest it is a wonderful advertising ploy, get people to come an hour out of town with the expectation of a day in a “Fantasy Kingdom”… and then offer them the options of a 100% increase in price or a return trip back to a place far from the world of “Fantasy Kingdom”.
So our little aussie possie decided to spend the day in the “water world” half of the kingdom, far from Bangla reality was this kingdom. There were girls showing skin and not getting stared at, teenage boys and girls openly cuddling and flirting in public, no crowd watching the foreigners every second move… and of course $600 million of theme-park fun! But the reality of all of the waterslides, the random water cave disco and the biggest rollercoaster in Bangladesh was all gone when it was time to get stuffed back onto the hot and humid local bus home!
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