Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Chidiyaghar(Zoo) report


So Sunday(March 23rd) morning we left the house around 9:15 to go to Delhi Zoo. Kids were pretty excited to visit the zoo as well. We reached the zoo by 10:00. The zoo is close to the old fort(Purana Qila). We were happy to see empty parking lot. I guess anyone can beat the slow paced Delhites. We put our bags(carrying parathas, paneer and some of their American snacks!) on the back and Chiku in the stroller and started our zoo exploration. The ticket price for the zoo was pretty cheap, around 12 bucks. But we were not allowed to carry any food inside. It seems one of the animals recently died because people feeding.
Here is the score card for zoo

So here are the best parts of the zoo:
------------------------------------
The zoo was beautiful considering it is in a developing country.
It had ramps everywhere for handicapped access.
It is spread over an area larger than Toledo or Detroit zoo.
Good variety of animals like (giraffe,leopard, white lion, antelope, sloth and Himalayan bear, Rhino, monkeys, NeilGuy, Emu, tiger, elephants, wolf, hyenas, crocks, deer)
It was not crowded until 1 pm or so and later started getting packed.
There were beautiful spring colors on the trees and bushes.
All the animal habitats were big and safe.

Not so good parts of zoo:
-------------------------
Bad/not cleaned toilets(I complained to the officer on duty and he mentioned that it is due to Holi absent ism)
Too many alligators in the zoo.
Some of the animals were missing the description name plates.
Not very good arrangement outside the zoo for picnic.
Could have been made little better for little once with a little train or a play structure.
It is too much to walk for kids with no food to carry.

But overall not a bad experience at all. I would recommend that starting an early trip to any of the public places in India is a better alternative than getting stuck with masses.

No comments: