As time has gone by in India, between us, we have decided to spend as little time as possible in any main cities. As Mumbai was a large and, as indicated by the guidebook, expensive city to stay in we decided to give it a miss on the whole. We had decided on a journey that would allow us a fleeting visit to this huge city and in hindsight this was a mistake as the few hours that we spent there we enjoyed very much.
We boarded the train at Nasik for a pretty uneventful 4 hour trip to Mumbai. Because of the ticket we had purchased we needed to get another train when we got to Mumbai in order to get to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Station (CST) (Asia’s busiest station with 2.5million people using it per day!). This part of the journey was done on a local train, which resembled something like a glorified cattle cart. After an embarrassing ten minutes in the ladies carriage and a quick shift to a common carriage we swept into CST station hanging out of the large openings like true locals.
We dumped off our bags in the large cloakroom and stepped out into the daylight. We didn’t have time to see much of the city and headed straight towards Colaba to see the Gateway of India Monument and then to Chowpatty Beach. The impression we got from the guide book is that its complete bedlam in Mumbai. The areas that we walked along and to were nothing but well ordered and it seemed like the cleanest place we have been in India by far. There was not even a hint of bedlam or chaos, but we must stress that we only saw a fraction of what the city has to offer and we know that Mumbai has the extremes of high rise modernity, glitz, glam and wealth alongside poverty and slums that house 55% of the city’s population.
We strolled along towards Colaba passing the impressive colonial reminders like the Prince of Wales Museum, St Thomas’ Cathedral and the National Gallery of Modern Art. We turned a corner to see that the Gateway to India Monument was actually undergoing some restorative work which made it tricky to get a decent shot of it!
We saw that there were boats coming and going offering short trips out into the harbour. We couldn’t resist this and boarded one of them so that we could get some snaps and look at the views.
After our little nautical outing we jumped into a cab and headed for Marine Drive and Chowpatty Beach. The causeway that runs along marine drive is popular with couples and walkers alike at sunset.
We spent a couple of hours here just chilling out....
walking....
and taking in the views.
As the light dimmed we ended up at the northern end of Chowpatty Beach which was busy and entertaining with all sorts of activities going on along with a vibrant bunch of food stalls.
We shunned these for a special treat that we felt we deserved and ended up eating in swanky place just along from there. It was expensive, especially as they added 20% tax to the drink and 10% tax to the food bill! It was quite a shock to receive but the G&T’s and the first steak I had had in months made the bill more bearable. After a bit of time killing here we jumped into a taxi and headed for the station. Our train was due to leave at midnight and we were starting to feel a little tired. We were greeted by the usual late night / early morning station scene with wallas selling chai and people asleep all over the place!
As luck would have it our train was already waiting, so we got our luggage and headed for our pre-booked seats for the overnight journey that would take us to where we had been looking forward to going for some time: Goa.
We boarded the train at Nasik for a pretty uneventful 4 hour trip to Mumbai. Because of the ticket we had purchased we needed to get another train when we got to Mumbai in order to get to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Station (CST) (Asia’s busiest station with 2.5million people using it per day!). This part of the journey was done on a local train, which resembled something like a glorified cattle cart. After an embarrassing ten minutes in the ladies carriage and a quick shift to a common carriage we swept into CST station hanging out of the large openings like true locals.
We dumped off our bags in the large cloakroom and stepped out into the daylight. We didn’t have time to see much of the city and headed straight towards Colaba to see the Gateway of India Monument and then to Chowpatty Beach. The impression we got from the guide book is that its complete bedlam in Mumbai. The areas that we walked along and to were nothing but well ordered and it seemed like the cleanest place we have been in India by far. There was not even a hint of bedlam or chaos, but we must stress that we only saw a fraction of what the city has to offer and we know that Mumbai has the extremes of high rise modernity, glitz, glam and wealth alongside poverty and slums that house 55% of the city’s population.
We strolled along towards Colaba passing the impressive colonial reminders like the Prince of Wales Museum, St Thomas’ Cathedral and the National Gallery of Modern Art. We turned a corner to see that the Gateway to India Monument was actually undergoing some restorative work which made it tricky to get a decent shot of it!
We saw that there were boats coming and going offering short trips out into the harbour. We couldn’t resist this and boarded one of them so that we could get some snaps and look at the views.
After our little nautical outing we jumped into a cab and headed for Marine Drive and Chowpatty Beach. The causeway that runs along marine drive is popular with couples and walkers alike at sunset.
We spent a couple of hours here just chilling out....
walking....
and taking in the views.
As the light dimmed we ended up at the northern end of Chowpatty Beach which was busy and entertaining with all sorts of activities going on along with a vibrant bunch of food stalls.
We shunned these for a special treat that we felt we deserved and ended up eating in swanky place just along from there. It was expensive, especially as they added 20% tax to the drink and 10% tax to the food bill! It was quite a shock to receive but the G&T’s and the first steak I had had in months made the bill more bearable. After a bit of time killing here we jumped into a taxi and headed for the station. Our train was due to leave at midnight and we were starting to feel a little tired. We were greeted by the usual late night / early morning station scene with wallas selling chai and people asleep all over the place!
As luck would have it our train was already waiting, so we got our luggage and headed for our pre-booked seats for the overnight journey that would take us to where we had been looking forward to going for some time: Goa.
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