Mumbai

Date arrived: 14th December 2023

Date Departed: 19th December 2023 

Favourite sight: Mumbai City

Average Cost: £57.25 PPPD (Blasting through our Europe budget, nevermind the India one!)

Mumbai is India's glittering jewel of a truly modern multicultural city. In our few days here we felt as if we were in an entirely different country in almost every way imaginable, and we loved it!

14th December 2023

Pulling into Mumbai Central Station, we could see the steel and glass skyscrapers of the financial district, and the crowded suburban commuter trains running next to us; it felt like we were entering central London. This was our first real view of how different Mumbai is from everywhere else we've been in India so far. 

As we departed the train, even the layout of the station was more reflective of a typical Central London terminus, and unike any other train station we've visited so far, with multiple platforms running up to a single statino building at the top. Haggling with a taxi-driver over a reasonable fare was no change - except it was a taxi not a Tuk-tuk (none of those in Mumbai), but we did eventually find one to take us through the city to our accommodation, near the docks and cruise terminal.

Pulling up at the Grand Hotel, we were helped to our fourth floor room by a porter, and did chuckle somewhat that, like our first abortive hotel room in Ahmedabad, the lift stopped at the floor below. The room was rather nicer than the FabHotel Palliate however, although that's not setting a high bar. We settled in, made a cup of tea, and managed to book ourselves on a walking tour for the following afternoon.

15th December

First day in Mumbai! With a walking tour of the Fort area booked for the afternoon, we enjoyed our included hotel breakfast (complete with Chicken sausages and baked beans) and set out to explore the local area - the Ballard Estate - where our hotel was based. This area was built in the 1920s using the earth and mud dug out for the adjoining Victoria docks, and was designed by the same architect responsible for other notable Mumbai buildings such as the Gateway of India and the Prince of Wales Museum. The latter has since been renamed in line with the city itself.

Much like our hotel, the Ballard Estate is a tale of faded grandeur, with magnificent colonial buildings, looking very much like London's grand villas, now lookng much the worse for wear between food stalls, as well as a fair few abandoned and even burned out cars at the side of the road. It's still impressive architecturally, and there are several major institutions here like Customs House, but the streets are generally looking a bit rough.

From the Ballard Estate we headed up the road to the railway station we would be leaving from in a few days. As our 9 hour train was leaving at 05:50, we wanted to be clear of where to go so as to maximise time-in-bed that morning! The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, also known as CSMT, was once called Victoria Terminus and was one of the jewels in colonial Bombay's archtectural crown. You can see why, as the building is massive and magnificent. It's also a pretty well organised railway station, with 17 platforms covering everything from local suburban commute trains to the long distance monsters that are the heart of Indian Railways.

Once we'd figured our where trains were displayed and how the platforms worked, we headed further south into the Fort part of Mumbai, to the area known as Khala Goda, which translates to Black Horse, and is home to a number of art galleries and Museums. As we had time to spare and were feeling pretty good, we headed for the big Chhatrapati Shivaji Museum, which used to be knon as the Prince of Wales Museum. This was pretty huge, but entertaining, with a stunning building and interesting and informative exhibits.

We managed to find a really good European style cafe for lunch, which not only served a superb latte, but real, flakey croissants with a range of fillings! At this point we were definitely very impressed with Mumbai, from the city, to the culture, and the culinary side of this metropolis.

We joined our walking tour  after lunch, which was with a group called Khaki Tours, who profess to be heritage evangelists. They comprise ordinary Mumbaikers with day jobs, who have a passion for the heritage of the city, and wish to share that with others. Our guide today was an ex-architect who has lived all her life in Mumbai, and was extremely knowledgable about the city.

From learning about the history of Bombay's 7 islands, how they came to be the base of the British East India Company, and how that led to the foundation of Bombay and the importance of that city, we progressed to tour a number of significant buildings and sights, ending at the magnificent Taj Palace Hotel, and the Gateway to India. At each stage we learned something about the city and the buildings we were seeing, and felt very well informed - and as if we know our way around the area a bit - by the end of the day.

As we approached the end of our first day in Mumbai, and after 10 days in dry Gujarat, we spotted a taproom, serving a selection of locally brewed beers, so took great pleasure in relaxing for an hour with one of those. We then headed back to our accommodation, finding a nearby restaurant for some dinner along the way, where Julie had the spiciest meal I think she's ever eaten! The restaurant was showing a sports channel, with a match from the Indian Pro Kabaddi League. Half watching, I observed that it looked a bit like professional tig - and after a bit of Googling, confimed that's basically what it is!

Well, it's good to know that there is another sport that Indians love as well as Cricket!

16th December

We decided to explore a bit further south into Colaba today, walking down to the famous Sassoon docks, where the city's fishermen sell their wares. This was reasonably quiet by late morning when we arrived there, but still an intriguing riot of colours and smells. From boys walking boxes of iced fish through the streets on 30' long wooden carts, to girls peeeling shrimps directly on the cobbled streets, we could only imagine what it might be like a few hours earlier as the boats came in.

From the docks we explored some of the busy streets of Colaba, eventually finding a branch of an excellent coffee chain - Third Wave Coffee - where we enjoyed a very civilised Latte and a snack. Once again, Mumbai was very much feeling like a different city.

From here we caught a taxi back to Kala Ghoda and visited the Jehangir Art Gallery. This is a private gallery with a continuously rotating sequence of exhibitions of established and up-and-coming Indian artists. We saw some really good and varied art here, and even got to chat to a couple of the painters. Arted out, we headed back to the hotel on foot for a well earned cup of tea!

Fod dinner this evening we thought it would be good to go to Leopold's Cafe, at the top of the Colaba Causeway. Leopolds is something of a Mumbai institution, and is also infamous as the scene of one of the 2008 terror attacks that shook Mumbai. To us, however, it is the regular hangout of the main character in the book Shantaram, and is where he used to meet up with his various other ex-pat friends in Bombay. We were keen to pay our homage to the book :-) 

We arranged a taxi down there, but typically the place was rammed, so we actually went round the corner to a really good crepe house called Kitchen Garden, and had anoher lovely - if quite westernised - meal, before walking back to the Grand Hotel once more.

17th December

Today we decided to roam further afield around South Mumbai's Back bay.  We started by exploring Oval Maidan, which is one of the three large grassy parks that stand where the Esplanade used to be in the days of the Fort. As we learned on our walking tour, this part of Mumbai is unique in the world because on one saide of the parks is some of the worlds most impresssive Victorian Gothic architecture (CMST train station, the University, Law Courts, etc) and on the other is a wealth of Art Neaveau buildings from the 1920s, when the Mumbai city wall  was disbanded and city expanded West to reclaim land from the sea. This whole area is now a UNESCO site because of the importance of this Architecture.

The border of this reclaimed land is now Marine Drive, a long sweeping road with the Ocean on one side, and Art Neaveau buildings on the other. THe street is very impressive, and you could almost be on Ocean Drive in Miami (so Julie tells me.) It certainly beats the other Marine Drive we know well, in Scarborough.

We got caught up in what we can only assume were works for Mumbai's new Metro line (which would have been really useful for our tip if it were finished) and ended up walking through about a mile long building site, before eventually finding another Third Wave Coffee outlet where we had some well earned lunch in air-conditioned comfort.

From here we walked to Mani Bhavan, which was the house where Ghandi stayed when he was in Mumbai. Much like the Ashraam at Ahmedabad, this was a really nicely maintained little place, with a meaningful but not OTT exhibition, It really helped you to get some understanding of the Mahatma. I particularly liked the letter he wrote to Hitler in 1939, urging him to consider peaceful means to bring about his aspirations.

We briefly visited Mumbai Beach, as much to see quite how dirty the water was: Very, was the answer. The beach itself was nicer than expected, but even getting close to the sea here you realised it was pretty polluted. Certainly not a good place for a swim! 

Fortified from this experience by an ice cream, we continued our quest to walk right around the bay, with a view to visiting the governer's bunker, right at the far tip of the curve.

Clockwise from top-left: Mumbai beach, with Marine Drive in the background; The sweep of Marine Drive looking North towards the financial district; Looking East across Back Bay, with Coloba on the right and Marine Drive on the left.

Fortified from our beach experience by an ice cream, we continued our quest to walk right around the bay, with a view to visiting the governer's bunker, at the far tip of the curve. This was going well until we got to the gates of the Governor's mansion, and it was explained to us that, yes, the bunker contains a museum, and yet it is open, however (and it was a big however) the only way to get to said museum is to join the daily 5.45AM tour of the governor's mansion. 

Well this was a shame - but we decided it was our cue to get a Tuk-tuk back to the far side of the bay and retire from the heat for a few hours!

After our long day we dined quite close, at a small Italian restaurant. This led us through some of the slightly less touristy streets, although still close to the tourist areas, and was quite insightful for the number of street eateries, and also people sleeping out on those very streets.

18th December

With one more full day in Mumbai, we decided to visit the Delhi Art Gallery exhibition in the city, as it not only had a new exhibition starting that day, but is now housed inside the Taj Palace hotel. This gave us an excuse to wander around this famous Mumbai landmark without feeling self-concious.  The exhibition nd gallery were actually pretty small, and a little disappointing - but the Taj Palace was very impressive!

From here we made our way to Leopolds where we managed to get a table and enjoyed a very nice lunch. I admit, it cost half the day's budget - but it was pretty good, and the dessert especially was world class! Homage paid to Shantaram, we retreated back to the hotel to start getting read for our - ulp - 5:50AM train the next morning.

We briefly visited the Bombay Coffee House, next door to our hotel, where we had a light tea. I wished we'd tried it earlier to be honest because it was genuinely excellent!

19th December

Today's alarm was for 04:00! this is not a good thing, however we did manage to get to the station and on to our 9 hour train to Goa in plenty of time. There's not really much to say about this long journey in chair class, except that we were only about half an hour late arriving, and we were actually quite well fed on the train. Arriving into Madgaon station, we found the taxi we'd pre-booked, and headed off on the last let of our journey to Christmas on the beach!