---
type: Video
title: "$1 Theme Park Islamabad 🇵🇰"
description: A wrong turn to a boatyard, two lifts on an overloaded motorbike, and a carnival by the lake with 20-rupee entry — after being turned away from theme parks twice for not being a family.
tags: [pakistan, islamabad, theme-parks, family-only, hitchhiking, prices]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gZZXVHkq5o
video_id: 1gZZXVHkq5o
upload_date: 2021-12-27
duration: 1337
---

# $1 Theme Park Islamabad 🇵🇰

An afternoon that goes wrong in a useful way. Harry and [Mac](/people/mac.md)
set out for the lake and dam area outside [Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md) on a
friend's recommendation, and their driver puts them down at a boatyard in the
middle of nowhere — the right lake, the wrong side of it.

Getting to the actual attractions takes **two lifts on the back of an
overloaded motorbike**, four up at one point on a main road, which Harry
describes as the safest he has ever felt while being unsafe. Neither rider takes
anything for it. The second one's answer to being offered a tip is that it is his
duty and they are his guests.

The payoff is a carnival by the water: **20 rupees to get in**, and about $4 each
for the two rides worth doing. It is also the first leisure venue in the country
to let them in — they have now been refused twice for not being a family, and get
through here by explaining that they are brothers.

*Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles; amounts the transcript
leaves ambiguous are marked unverified.*

## Key moments

- [00:00] A local's opening claim, which Harry doesn't argue with: Islamabad is
  the second most beautiful capital in the world (from video – unverified).
- [01:01] The boatyard they were mistakenly dropped at, and a rowboat out among
  the fishermen. It is the wrong place and he likes it anyway.
- [03:02] **Four people on one motorbike** on a main road, then a second lift the
  same way. He is open about how unsafe it felt.
- [06:14] **Neither rider will take money.** The answer to the offered tip: it is
  my duty, you are our guests.
- [09:50] **The third family-only test.** He states it plainly — two theme parks
  have already refused them for not being a family — and they get in here by
  saying they are brothers.
- [10:21] **20 rupees to enter**, camels and horses at the gate, bumper cars, and
  a park that turns out to be built for young children.
- [11:53] **900–1,000 rupees for two rides**, about $4 each: a zipline and a
  Ferris wheel.
- [14:32] **The zipline**: he puts it at about 50 metres up and 450 feet long,
  run in the dark, with a hole in the ground at the landing he makes a joke about
  and doesn't entirely mean.
- [19:10] From the Ferris wheel: four or five separate small theme parks in the
  same area, no large ones, the lake in one direction and the city in the other.
- [20:12] Rainwater still sitting in the Ferris wheel car, which suggests he is
  the first person on it since the weather cleared.

## Extracted pages

- [Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md)
- [Pakistan](/countries/pakistan.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)