Indians from world over come to meet ganpati at this place, even foreigners don't skip the darshan if they are visiting Mumbai. One of the most famous temples in mumbai, I am talking about siddhi Vinayak Mandir.
Although we live in Mumbai but we don't go to siddhi vinayak often due to time and traffic constraints, but we ensure to seek bappas blessings on important occasions, one such occasion being my son's birthday.
He turned 2 recently and we decided to start the day by visiting siddhi vinayak Mandir.
As soon as you reach the temple area you will see lots of vendor selling flowers and pooja ki thali, so go ahead and buy one from any of them, it starts with Rs 21 and you can go with whatever amount you want. I usually go with Rs. 250 thali, coz it comes with a 250 grams packet of modak too.
Proceed to security check and then straight ahead, and you will start noticing people starting in long queues in various lines. There are 3 kind of lines, one free darshan, second paid darshan, and third for VIP and celebrities darshan. So for us the mango people only 2 options are there. The free one takes a longer time usually since the number of people are more in that queue.
We have a small kid and very less patience and time coz we had a party at home too, so we opt for paid darshan wherein they charge you Rs.100 for faster entry into the temple. So after moving in circles with barricades we finally reached the main area, and got our bappa darshan. Inside the main hall you won't get more than 10-15 seconds to get your darshan so hurry up.
Once out of the main hall,you can spend some time in the inner temple area, sit for some bhajans, eat your modaks and enjoy.
One interesting fact, there are few big silver mouse in this area, it's a saying that if you ask the mouse in his ear, your wishes will come true. I try this everytime, more than anything, it is fun.
On your way back buy the big boondi laddoos to carry for your friends and family as prasad.
