My adventure with Lucknow: 
My adventure with Lucknow was a memorable one and UNIQUE as it demanded sacrifice of materialistic pleasures, tested my stamina, my emotions and lasted for over 3 months. Consequently the write up will include more than just a traveler’s review.
From a traveler’s perceptive, you need just two days to absorb the best of city.
How to reach Lucknow?
Distance from Delhi is approx 600 km and it takes around 14 hours to complete it by non-deluxe state transport buses. A very strong suggestion - if somebody is traveling from Delhi to Lucknow by rail, kindly make use of Lucknow Mail (an ISO 9000 certified train; to be separately reviewed) or Lucknow Duplicate. Having slept 8 Friday and 8 Sunday nights in LM, I believe it is one of the best trains currently running in the country.
Rate Card for LM – Rs 594 (3AC), Rs 222 (Sleeper)
Start:
We boarded Shatabdi (morning edition) from New Delhi Railway Station and landed in Lucknow at 12:30 A.M. Unlike my earlier journey, this ended normally and within time. It was a comfortable ride as expected from Shatabdi. Cost per ticket - Rs 610
Sites:
Bara Imambara and Bhool Bhulaiya – It is a complex man-made structure. On ground floor you have Imambara, which has some artifacts from past and photographs of the time when Lucknow was flooded by river Gomti.
Above floors have been named Bhool Bhulaiya (Lost by mistake). For first timers, it’s advisable to take a guide along. Puzzle inside is quite simple. You have to start from one hall and end at another. At every crossing, there are 4 ways to go, out of which 3 are wrong. And the correct one leads to Delhi, Agra, Faizabad (as per our guide).
Apart of these, there are other facts too (like building’s material made up of organic stuff, etc). As you reach higher floors, view of the city is majestic. City looks charming from the top galleries and you can see other nearby monuments too.
Disclaimer – many Nawabs of Lucknow do not agree with the information provided by guide and consider them false.
Rate Card: Entry ticket (Rs 20), Guide rate (Rs 75 for Bhool Bhulaiya/ Rs 150 for Bhool Bhulaiya + Imambara + a nearby Baouri). If you are going for guide kindly go for Bhool Bhulaiya only.
Nearby monuments include – Chota Imambara, Clock Tower, Rumi Darwaza and more of Mughal architecture. They all are worth one look and not much spectacular.
Next day early morning we went to Lohia Park and Ambedkar Park since it was close to our Gomti Nagar guesthouse.
These parks are huge. They are not parks, they are fields. They are fields in which money has been invested like water. There are no bulls here for tilling, but there are arrogant elephants everywhere. Sadly, there are no crops for these fields. Fields (parks) are good, still in harvest (maintenance) but when you see the cost for making them; you can’t appreciate them. May be thatswhy, crowd wasn’t there. 
If the concept is extended to the ciiy and these fields starts coming up everywhere with those elephants, City of Nawabs will soon turn to 'City of Elephants'.
Next places to visit where malls. Lucknow malls are quite different from that of metros. These malls have many ‘budget’ outlets rather snobbish showrooms. Consequently, buying percentage in Lucknow’s malls exceeds malls of a metro like Delhi.
Two of the famous ones are Saharagunj (Hazratganj) and Fun Republic (Gomti Nagar).
Markets:
Hazratgunj market near Vidhan Sabha is the best market of the city. Aminabad and Chowk are considered cheaper and are famous for there Chicken Suits shops (Chicken is some type of embroidery which ladies like).
Food:
One thing you love about this place. Awadh-lucknowvi andaaz is best on platter and food here is relatively quite cheap. Some places which you have to try –
Ram Aasrey Sweet Shop – This shop belongs to Ram Aasrey Halwai. The first branch was opened at Chowk. Besides Chowk you have branches at Hazratganj too. The best community which is served here is Malai Paan (also known as Malai Ki Dori). Instead of beetle leaf, Malai is used to make the paan. Inside stuffing has dry fruits in liquid sugar. The taste is quite unique and lovable.
Rate Card – Malai Paan @ Rs 8
.
Royal café @ Saharaganj mall – This shop is located in the food court of Sahaganj Mall. It is quite popular among localities and serves Indian dishes. There USP is availability of taste at very low prices. I was a regular here and am a big fan of there Thalli. Servings in Thalli include – 4 combinations of dals/vegetable (including paneer items), veg biryani, 1 naan, 1 lachha parantha, sweet curd (mouthwatering) and 1 sweet with salad and papad. 1 Thalli per person can serve the purpose of Breakfast and Lunch. Mouthwatering is the term I use for there food and the Thalli here is definitely one of best North Dishes items available in Lucknow.
Rate Card – Thalli @ Rs 76 (taxes extra)
Burma bakery @ Aliganj – I used to buy my snacks from this place. Building itself is quite multi-functional – Bakery is on the first floor while first floor hosts mosque. Try there chocolate cookies.
Rate Card – Choc Cookies @ Rs 76/kg.
Worst place to eat in Lucknow is Tunde Kababi @ Aminabad. Now this place is very very hyped. Ambience is horrible. This place is equivalent to Hell if you are a hardcore veggi. I was accompanied by some of my Lucknow acquaintances and the review of non-veg written below is heresay from them. Kababs are in the form of circular soaps and there top surfaces are burnt in already over-burned oil. Chicken Butter Masala was one more dish which was ordered.
According to my understanding of Chicken dishes it was a ‘gravy-wala-chicken’. People with me thought it was killed twice before being cooked and must be a victim of malnutrition. Gravy was mixture of yellow oil and red oil and had a disgusting smell in already disgusted environment. Now about the veg items which I tried. Menu has only 3 veg items – raita, biryani and kheer. Biryani was boiled rice with non-veg smell. Raita was a chemical mixture of 30 ml ‘beakerfull’ of white colured diluted liquid and 2-3 spatulas of Boondi balls floating in it. Roti were inspired from chewing gums ads. We weren’t that brave to try Kheer.
Rate Card – 1 Kabab soap @ Rs 10, Gravy-wala-chicken @ Rs 50 (approx), Raita @ Rs 15, Rice @ Rs 20.
Also, Lucknow also gets quite a lot variety of Mangoes. Langda and Dehseri are found in abundance and are quite cheap here.
Finding a room in Lucknow with adab and tehzeeb –
This should not be extended to all of Lucknow localities.
Lucknow doesn’t boost much IT or much industry and therefore number of migrants are quite less. Single Employed Bachelors find really difficult to get a room on rent. Searching 1 BHK in a locality nearby office is not an easy job. I finally managed to adjust myself in the city but the landlords screwed me up totally. Forcing a new rent agreement, thorough scrutiny of ‘yours truly’ and 50% increment in rent, it was all bestowed on us with all Lucknowvi adab and tehzeeb.
Return from an Ordeal –
After being on receiving end of all adabs and tehzeebs, we were finally returning back. We boarded Shatabdi (evening edition) from Charbagh Railway Station at 3:30 pm and were scheduled to reach New Delhi around 10 pm. Just when I was thanking God for my long journey, a surprise came on the way. AC wasn’t functioning in the train (we had crossed Kanpur at this juncture). The Lucknow crowd with all their adabs and tehzeebs went for a manhunt for T.T. and Superintendent, who in turn where somewhere on train but not visible. God must have given the helpless people some hidden powers. Some passengers decided to halt the train and wait till the railways send a different one. GOD BLESS THEM for this INSANE idea (at this point we were 2 hours away from Lucknow). Thankfully sanity prevailed and we finally decided to continue with the journey with open doors. Shatabdi soon turned into an interstate local with a fare of Rs 785. Some IIT Kanpur students figured out the fault was with generator and gave up. Superintendent turned up and another cruel reality came out. He wasn’t able to communicate with driver. What would happen incase of a hijack or a burning train? Will Vinod Khanna, Jeetu and Dharmendra turn up as savior as they did in the movie? God save us. Just before Etawah, some pantry guy fixed the generator and it worked till Delhi.
Thank you God (dil se re).
My adventure with Lucknow was a memorable one and UNIQUE as it demanded sacrifice of materialistic pleasures, tested my stamina, my emotions and lasted for over 3 months. Consequently the write up will include more than just a traveler’s review.
From a traveler’s perceptive, you need just two days to absorb the best of city.
How to reach Lucknow?
Distance from Delhi is approx 600 km and it takes around 14 hours to complete it by non-deluxe state transport buses. A very strong suggestion - if somebody is traveling from Delhi to Lucknow by rail, kindly make use of Lucknow Mail (an ISO 9000 certified train; to be separately reviewed) or Lucknow Duplicate. Having slept 8 Friday and 8 Sunday nights in LM, I believe it is one of the best trains currently running in the country.
Rate Card for LM – Rs 594 (3AC), Rs 222 (Sleeper)
Start:
We boarded Shatabdi (morning edition) from New Delhi Railway Station and landed in Lucknow at 12:30 A.M. Unlike my earlier journey, this ended normally and within time. It was a comfortable ride as expected from Shatabdi. Cost per ticket - Rs 610
Sites:
Bara Imambara and Bhool Bhulaiya – It is a complex man-made structure. On ground floor you have Imambara, which has some artifacts from past and photographs of the time when Lucknow was flooded by river Gomti.Above floors have been named Bhool Bhulaiya (Lost by mistake). For first timers, it’s advisable to take a guide along. Puzzle inside is quite simple. You have to start from one hall and end at another. At every crossing, there are 4 ways to go, out of which 3 are wrong. And the correct one leads to Delhi, Agra, Faizabad (as per our guide).
Apart of these, there are other facts too (like building’s material made up of organic stuff, etc). As you reach higher floors, view of the city is majestic. City looks charming from the top galleries and you can see other nearby monuments too. Disclaimer – many Nawabs of Lucknow do not agree with the information provided by guide and consider them false.
Rate Card: Entry ticket (Rs 20), Guide rate (Rs 75 for Bhool Bhulaiya/ Rs 150 for Bhool Bhulaiya + Imambara + a nearby Baouri). If you are going for guide kindly go for Bhool Bhulaiya only.
Nearby monuments include – Chota Imambara, Clock Tower, Rumi Darwaza and more of Mughal architecture. They all are worth one look and not much spectacular. Next day early morning we went to Lohia Park and Ambedkar Park since it was close to our Gomti Nagar guesthouse.
These parks are huge. They are not parks, they are fields. They are fields in which money has been invested like water. There are no bulls here for tilling, but there are arrogant elephants everywhere. Sadly, there are no crops for these fields. Fields (parks) are good, still in harvest (maintenance) but when you see the cost for making them; you can’t appreciate them. May be thatswhy, crowd wasn’t there. 
If the concept is extended to the ciiy and these fields starts coming up everywhere with those elephants, City of Nawabs will soon turn to 'City of Elephants'.Next places to visit where malls. Lucknow malls are quite different from that of metros. These malls have many ‘budget’ outlets rather snobbish showrooms. Consequently, buying percentage in Lucknow’s malls exceeds malls of a metro like Delhi.
Two of the famous ones are Saharagunj (Hazratganj) and Fun Republic (Gomti Nagar). Markets:
Hazratgunj market near Vidhan Sabha is the best market of the city. Aminabad and Chowk are considered cheaper and are famous for there Chicken Suits shops (Chicken is some type of embroidery which ladies like).
Food:
One thing you love about this place. Awadh-lucknowvi andaaz is best on platter and food here is relatively quite cheap. Some places which you have to try –
Ram Aasrey Sweet Shop – This shop belongs to Ram Aasrey Halwai. The first branch was opened at Chowk. Besides Chowk you have branches at Hazratganj too. The best community which is served here is Malai Paan (also known as Malai Ki Dori). Instead of beetle leaf, Malai is used to make the paan. Inside stuffing has dry fruits in liquid sugar. The taste is quite unique and lovable.Rate Card – Malai Paan @ Rs 8
.
Royal café @ Saharaganj mall – This shop is located in the food court of Sahaganj Mall. It is quite popular among localities and serves Indian dishes. There USP is availability of taste at very low prices. I was a regular here and am a big fan of there Thalli. Servings in Thalli include – 4 combinations of dals/vegetable (including paneer items), veg biryani, 1 naan, 1 lachha parantha, sweet curd (mouthwatering) and 1 sweet with salad and papad. 1 Thalli per person can serve the purpose of Breakfast and Lunch. Mouthwatering is the term I use for there food and the Thalli here is definitely one of best North Dishes items available in Lucknow.Rate Card – Thalli @ Rs 76 (taxes extra)
Burma bakery @ Aliganj – I used to buy my snacks from this place. Building itself is quite multi-functional – Bakery is on the first floor while first floor hosts mosque. Try there chocolate cookies. Rate Card – Choc Cookies @ Rs 76/kg.
Worst place to eat in Lucknow is Tunde Kababi @ Aminabad. Now this place is very very hyped. Ambience is horrible. This place is equivalent to Hell if you are a hardcore veggi. I was accompanied by some of my Lucknow acquaintances and the review of non-veg written below is heresay from them. Kababs are in the form of circular soaps and there top surfaces are burnt in already over-burned oil. Chicken Butter Masala was one more dish which was ordered.
According to my understanding of Chicken dishes it was a ‘gravy-wala-chicken’. People with me thought it was killed twice before being cooked and must be a victim of malnutrition. Gravy was mixture of yellow oil and red oil and had a disgusting smell in already disgusted environment. Now about the veg items which I tried. Menu has only 3 veg items – raita, biryani and kheer. Biryani was boiled rice with non-veg smell. Raita was a chemical mixture of 30 ml ‘beakerfull’ of white colured diluted liquid and 2-3 spatulas of Boondi balls floating in it. Roti were inspired from chewing gums ads. We weren’t that brave to try Kheer.Rate Card – 1 Kabab soap @ Rs 10, Gravy-wala-chicken @ Rs 50 (approx), Raita @ Rs 15, Rice @ Rs 20.
Also, Lucknow also gets quite a lot variety of Mangoes. Langda and Dehseri are found in abundance and are quite cheap here.
Finding a room in Lucknow with adab and tehzeeb –
This should not be extended to all of Lucknow localities.
Lucknow doesn’t boost much IT or much industry and therefore number of migrants are quite less. Single Employed Bachelors find really difficult to get a room on rent. Searching 1 BHK in a locality nearby office is not an easy job. I finally managed to adjust myself in the city but the landlords screwed me up totally. Forcing a new rent agreement, thorough scrutiny of ‘yours truly’ and 50% increment in rent, it was all bestowed on us with all Lucknowvi adab and tehzeeb. Return from an Ordeal –
After being on receiving end of all adabs and tehzeebs, we were finally returning back. We boarded Shatabdi (evening edition) from Charbagh Railway Station at 3:30 pm and were scheduled to reach New Delhi around 10 pm. Just when I was thanking God for my long journey, a surprise came on the way. AC wasn’t functioning in the train (we had crossed Kanpur at this juncture). The Lucknow crowd with all their adabs and tehzeebs went for a manhunt for T.T. and Superintendent, who in turn where somewhere on train but not visible. God must have given the helpless people some hidden powers. Some passengers decided to halt the train and wait till the railways send a different one. GOD BLESS THEM for this INSANE idea (at this point we were 2 hours away from Lucknow). Thankfully sanity prevailed and we finally decided to continue with the journey with open doors. Shatabdi soon turned into an interstate local with a fare of Rs 785. Some IIT Kanpur students figured out the fault was with generator and gave up. Superintendent turned up and another cruel reality came out. He wasn’t able to communicate with driver. What would happen incase of a hijack or a burning train? Will Vinod Khanna, Jeetu and Dharmendra turn up as savior as they did in the movie? God save us. Just before Etawah, some pantry guy fixed the generator and it worked till Delhi.
Thank you God (dil se re).
