Enjoying at Disney

This article written by my Dad was published in "The Rising Nepal" I liked it so much that I wanted to post it in my blog.. :)

-Lakshmi Dhar Guragain

It was 1^st January 2010 when we visited one of the most wonderful places among the entire world the "Disney World" situated in Florida, USA. It has five theme parks, out of which, one of the beautiful attractions is “Animal Kingdom”. The day was of New Year. The crowds made me feel that people all over America were present there in the park. There was a person making tattoos and children were painting animal tattoos at their face. I could not escape to capture their amazing face into my camera.



Our group entered the artistic gate of animal kingdom to take full enjoyment. Our group included me, my wife Sapana, my daughter Sadhana, and my son-in-law Prakash, my daughter's sister-in-law Manju and brother-in-law Aamod.  

Out of two main areas of the park (Asia and Africa), we decided to enter in Asia first. When I landed my foot on Asian part; I felt that I was in my country Nepal. The ceilings of stone and jhigti were so attractively demonstrated that I was impressed. My heart felt the sense of joy when I saw yak and yeti hotel over there.

My wife stopped her foot suddenly and also asked us to listen the music being played in the huge speaker. I was totally surprised; the song being played was “resham firiri resham firiri udera jau ki dada ma vanjyang reshan firiri". Some footsteps ahead my daughter showed us a temple looking like Shiva Mandir of Gyaneshwor. We chanted panchshyari mantra "om namah sivaya" and moved forward.

My son-in-law showed the place which almost looked like asan, indrachowk. The style of house over there and the demonstration of kuto, kodalo, mandri, gundri was making our group more and more surprised. My daughter said "daddy look over there", by making the level of spectacles perfect I looked at her requested place there I saw "cocacola jaha pani jahile pani". Similarly we could see illam ko chiya, taja momo, Namaste and many Nepali words written in many places. We felt more proud when we saw the posters of Nepali film “Prem Pinda”, “Ama” etc on the wall.

We saw "Namaste" written in Nepali there

Then, we saw our pride over there, our very own mountain Sagarmatha. It was made by steel and white enamel painted so attractively. Its height was almost equal to 20 storey building. There was made provision for the mountain ride called “Everest Expedition”. My daughter purposed us for the ride I was frightened little bit because its speed was almost 100 km per hour. However, I decided to take part because all group members were interested to go for the ride. I was enjoying initially because the speed was normal but later its growing speed (on the zigzag way, both forward and backward motion) made my heart speed fast too. I was totally frightened and only chanted ram ram. I thought what would my only son in Nepal do if that was our last day in the world. Other people on the ride were screaming with fear and excitement but I could not scream, I was so scared. After the ride both of my eyes filled with tears and I heartily gave thanks to god. However, it was just a roller coaster ride, made for the enjoyment of people. 

On the ride "Everest Expedition"

I thought that if people going there are given the knowledge of real Sagarmatha, they will be eager to see it. For that it would be best if there was “Sagarmatha information centre”. It would make our country's economy strong by lifting the foreign investment since huge amount of foreigners could come to see the real Sagarmatha.

Then we planned the rafting at “Kali River”. People used raincoat while rafting but it was not available with us so we were almost wet after that rafting. After Kali River  we saw interesting Donald duck, Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters in person and turn by turn clicked photo with  them. The 4'd film we watched was also the very enjoyable moment of our trip. We took other smaller rides of Disney too.

Continuing our trip we went to “Africa” side, a wildlife reserve by very attractive train. We saw different animals there. Some were huge crocodiles lying over the sandy surface, tall giraffes were eating branch of tree. Little forward we saw a rhino with two horns. The wildlife reserve was so naturally designed that we felt meeting those animals in a free environment itself. 

When we took our foot some steps ahead we saw the very famous cartoon character Cinderella busy in taking photographs with the people. Every kinds of people regardless of their age were there wanting to take pictures with her. It was a great thing for them to take a picture with Cinderella.

Then we saw one huge tree and people were busy in taking photograph of it. We also wanted to know the specialty of the tree. Going near that, we saw that tree's branch was carved by pictures of animals. It was so attractively carved that I also could not miss the opportunity to catch the image of that tree into my camera.

Enjoying the day very well we were moving forward my daughter pointed on one board, there was written "Namaste" by showing the picture of joining two hands. Another place in one sign board there was written "yaha basmati chamal, hariyo kerau, gahu paincha" in Nepali we were surprised and honored too because we were feeling like our country Nepal.

After that my wife and I decided to take travel on a rickshaw. It was interesting. We also clicked photo with the dummy of two horn rhino. There were so many dummies to take pictures.

While returning from the “Disney World”, I was thinking if only one of such theme park was there in Nepal, our children could learn so many things from there. We do not have any of such facilities for the children of our country, where they can enjoy and learn new things side by side. If only a small part of the well managed “Disney World” was there in Nepal, if… if…

(Published in The Rising Nepal 30th July 2010 )