A trip to India’s ‘Maximum City’ — Mumbai

This summer we thought of going somewhere out of south India. As we live in a town, we wanted visit some city which is busy, vibrant, energetic and at the same time entertaining. None other than the ‘maximum city’ Mumbai flashed into our mind immediately.

Our journey

We started off from Coimbatore to Mumbai by flight, operated by Jet-lite. For my family and me it was going to be our first flight and as usual my 11 year old was a bundle of nerves and excitement. We found that Spicejet and Air-Deccan also operates flight to Mumbai around the same time. After completing the initial formalities, the flight took off at 8:20 PM without any delay. The 1.5 hours of flight journey was comfortable except for landing. Due to heavy air traffic, our flight was not able to land on time. We were held waiting on air for more than an hour. For my son, who was sitting in the corner seat, it was a bonus time. He was thoroughly enjoying the beauty of Mumbai from up above in the sky. Finally we landed in Mumbai’s Santa Cruz domestic terminal.

First set of observations

First thing I observed were the Mumbai taxis. They were numerous. The taxi system is well regulated with meter system. No driver demands more than the meter charge and the minimum charge starts from 13 rupees. It was also interesting to know that there is no auto available inside the corporation limit, mainly to avoid traffic congestion. I have heard a lot about extremely crowded Mumbai local trains. But we avoided it mainly due to our son.

Coming to accommodation, we booked our office guest house. It was extremely economical; in fact it came almost free of cost. I am not able to provide any hotel information due to the same reason. If possible check with your employer if they have any guest house. Our guest house was in Girgaum, nearer to Mumbai CST station. Girgaum is one of the prime areas in South Mumbai with proximity to famous places like Gateway of India. City buses are available from Girgaum to all areas of the city. There are lots of vegetarian hotels in almost all places of Girgaum. As diversified people live in Girgaum, all varieties (South Indian, North Indian both veg and non-veg) of food is available without any problem.

Climate and food

The best time to visit Mumbai is during Feb-April or Sep-October . Primarily Mumbai has typical tropical climate. We tried the famous vada-pav and rotis were also good. Rice is also available in all places if you are core south Indian even in late nights. Also don’t miss to try out Kulfi, Fruit plates available at tourist places, which cost 10 rupees per item. Now let me cover specific places.

Gateway of India

On the first day, we kick started our trip with Gateway of India. This monument comes first when anyone thinks about Mumbai. It was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Bombay, in December 1911. Currently some renovation work is going on to make it better (see the picture below).

We ate lot of ice creams and milk-shake in the nearby shops to keep us hydrated and save us from the scorching sun. Just next to Gateway of India, the famous Taj mahal palace hotel is there (see the picture below). Apart from these two famous landmarks, there are quite a number of old British buildings in and around that area.

Elephanta Island

After visiting these two places, we headed towards Elephanta Island. It is about 1.15 hours travel (by boat) from Gateway of India. Ample number of boats is available. They charge Rs. 80-100 per head for 40 seater. Apart from that catamarans and family boats are also available. Primarily the island is popular because of its cave temples. From the boat dropping point we can reach cave temple by toy train. The tickets cost just 5 rupees per person. If you are interested in walking, you can cover the 1.5 kms distance without any problem. The toy train left us in the bottom of the cave temple from where we climbed about 200 steps. They were very steep steps. Might be difficult for elderly persons. There were lots of shops available in both sides primarily selling sea ornaments. It is better to carry your own food due to the crowd in the small joints in the cave. Also one needs to be cautious about the umpteen numbers of monkeys out there. Incidentally one fellow snatched our snack box (see photo). For elders carry persons are available for taking them to the top.

Once we reached the top, we could see lot of ancient statues and sculptures inside the temple. It’s amazing to marvels of ancient times (see picture below). Starting with lord Shiva, we could see lot of sculptures inside. However the immediate feeling that accompanied was a feeling of horror these marvelous pieces of art had gone through. According to Wikipedia most of the sculptures here were defaced by the Portuguese, who used the sculptures as target practice in the 17th century. We boarded the toy train again, followed by the boat journey to reach Gateway of India. The whole day of journey made us very tired. We went back to sacks, with lot of hopes for the next day.

Package trip for the second day

For the second day, we wanted to cover remaining tourist attractions in Mumbai quickly. So we took one day package tour using Mumbai-Darshan. It is extremely economical (starting with 140 rupees per head). There are multiple packages available for different cost. There was a pick up point near Girgaum, where we boarded the bus. They took us to Jahangir art gallery, Museum near by the gateway of India, Police head quarters, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and then to Nariman point. The Nariman point and nearby areas form the financial hub of Mumbai. Almost all the financial majors have their India office located around that area and we found the area is extremely costly just by looking at it. We then covered Mantralaya (state assembly), Marine drive and then to the wonderful Queen’s necklace, just next to the shore.

Followed by that we went to Tarapore aquarium, Malabar hills (water supply for Mumbai comes from this place), Kamala Nehru Park, Hanging garden, Tower of silence, Mahalakshmi temple, Haji-ali mosque, Worli beach, ISKCON temple, and finally to Juhu beach. It will be too long a travel blog if I start explaining each of these places in detail. Going by a package tour has its own advantage of covering many places on a single day, but spent less amount of time in each of the places. We need to settle for the package trip mainly due to the time constraints.

Shopping on the third day

On the third and final day we wanted to do some shopping in a relaxed manner. There are lots of shopping places around Girgaum. To start with we went to Mumba devi temple, which is surrounded by whole bunch of shops. Zaveri bazaar and Bhubhaleshwar are other shopping areas for artificial jewelers, cloths, chappals & shoes, hardware/electronic items, building materials etc. Almost all the items were in a affordable price range and we negotiated well. We did purchasing for the whole family members without hurting my pocket too much. This concluded our three day trip to Mumbai.We are now ready to board our train to Hyderabad from Mumbai CST station.

Mumbai