What place should we visit next?

Mughal Gardens

Tulips

Amidst the sprawling landscape of the eminent Rashtrapati Bhawan lie the extravagant Mughal Gardens which are frequented by thousands (maybe millions) in the brief time period that they are open to the public every year. So this year, we decided to visit and see what the fuss is all about. We took the metro to the central secretariat station and took an auto rickshaw from there, it took us about 5-10 minutes to reach. The auto rickshaw driver was pretty friendly and probably thought we were tourists as he pointed out all of CPs main attractions like the India Gate etc. We were expecting it to be pretty crowded since we went during the last few days but the queue moved fairly fast and we went in pretty smoothly. There on we followed the crowed into the medicinal plant gardens, most of those didnt seem to be in full bloom, so the start didnt turn out all that great and we were quite disappointed as we expected much more. There were some pretty interesting kinds of healing plants though, we even noted names for future reference. Then we went to the bonsai garden. The bonsai plants resembled miniature trees and looked adorable as if the huge trees had been compressed into tiny miniatures. It was a much smaller enclosure and after about ten varieties of bonsai, most of them were repeated. Though initially exciting, it soon got boring.

After that we finally entered the central Mughal gardens and then we realised what the fuss was all about. They were breathtakingly gorgeous! They are divided into smaller parts in a square grid formation and not the whole gardens were open to the public. We were not allowed to stop near a flower for longer than 2 minutes at most and because of a lot of school children the area was considerably crowded. There was a huge variety of flowers, and most of them had names like mother teresa, indira gandhi and manmohan singh? Other interesting ones were Jantar Mantar, Peter Frankenfeld, American Heritage, Bejazzo, Iceberg, Granada. The most intriguing were the tulips, carnationsand some purple creeper flowers whose names im not very sure of.

This was the first year they allowed mobiles inside the compound. Of course, picture taking was prohibited, but that didnt really seem to stop too many people. At the end, one of the senior officers got angry and ended up scolding most people for the indiscipline. Either way, the last bit was pretty beautiful, we spent about half an hour in that area looking at the flowers and the small stream that flows all around the garden.

On coming out there was a small bazaar in the adjacent lane. The chola bhaturas looked pretty tempting but we werent all that hungry. Then we walked to the Rakab Ganj Gurudwara and to Bangla Sahib from there. It’s just on the other end of the road. About a bit more than a kilometer. The weather was decent so the walk was nice.
Then we took the patel chowk metro to Khan Market and ate at SmokeHouse Deli. We had the delicious Five spice Chicken and a heavenly Apple soaked mojito. The perfect energy boost.

Our cost came to about 250 per person and the whole trip took about three hours. And maybe ten bucks for ice cream.

Overall,What to look out for?

– while sometimes the flowers look better in puctures, try not to waste too much time clicking photos. The live experience always feels better.

– they are more interesting for people interested in flowers and indian heritage

– not to carry too many valuables because most of them wont be allowed inside and they are a burden to carry around anyway.

-wear shoes and fortable clothing. A thin jacket should be good around the last few days, you will probably end up taking that off too.

– take the metro. Parking situation isn’t the most ideal.