Mumbai
Attractions and Recommendations
Description | Climate | Attractions | Recommendations
The main drag of Colaba Causeway is alive and full of street vendors, shops, stalls and cafes that leads south to Sassoon Dock which has an area of intense and pungent activity at dawn as fishing boats arrive to unload their catch.
North of the Colaba Causeway is the fascinating Indo-Saracenic Prince of Wales Museum. The excellent new National Gallery of Modern Art in the nearby Cowasji Jehangir Public Hall showcases Indian modern art and is the city's most dramatic exhibition space.
The extravagant blend of Victorian gothic buildings in the Fort district of Mumbai, reinforces the European roots of the city and sends shivers of familiarity down the spines of visitors from the industrial cities of northern England. This lively area occupies the site of the old British built fort and is the established commercial centre of Mumbai. It's jampacked with commuters, street stalls and the grand facades of 19th century British institutions and trading houses.
Victoria Terminus is the city's most exuberant Gothic building looks like a lavishly decorated cathedral or palace than a terminus. Carvings of peacocks, gargoyles, monkeys, elephants and British lions are mixed up among the buttresses, domes, turrets, spires and stained-glass windows. Topping it all is a 4m high image of 'Progress' .
Other buildings include Bombay University, the High Court, the BMC building and stately Horniman Circle, laid out around the sole surviving section of Bombay's original Cotton Green. St Thomas' Cathedral near Horniman Circle was begun as early as 1672 but remained unfinished until 1718. It's whitewashed interior contains poignant colonial memorials, including one to Henry Robertson Bower, Lieutenant of the Royal Indian Marine, 'who lost his life returning from the South Pole with Scott' .
Built on land reclaimed from Back Bay in 1920, Marine Drive runs along the shoreline of the Arabian Sea from Nariman Point past Chowpatty Beach to the foot of Malabar Hill. It's one of Mumbai's most popular promenades and a favourite sunset-watching spot. You certainly won't be loitering on the sea wall long before you're engaged in conversation.
Mumbai's famous beach is no place for a sunbathe or a dip. In fact, there's not much going on at Chowpatty at all during the day but in the evening it develops a magical fairground atmosphere as locals come to stroll among the contortionists, masseurs, balloon sellers, gamblers, fortune tellers, magicians, drug dealers, nut vendors, ferris wheels and shooting galleries. In the middle of all this is a small Koli fishing community, where the original inhabitants of the island mend their nets and dry their fish oblivious to the shenanigans going on around them. Eating at the collection of stalls on the edge of the beach is an essential part of the Mumbai experience. Chowpatty is a great place to witness the annual Ganesh Chaturthi Festival in August/September when large images of the elephant-headed god are immersed in the murky sea.
On the northern promontory of Back Bay is the expensive residential area of Malabar Hill, favoured for its cool breezes and fine views over Back Bay. The colonial bungalows that peppered the hillside in the 18th century have now been replaced apartment blocks of Mumbai's rich. The formal Hanging Gardens (or Pherozeshah Mehta Gardens) on top of the hill and there are superb views of the city from neighbouring Kamala Nehru Park.
Beside the Hanging Gardens but carefully shielded from view are the Parsi Towers of Silence. Parsis hold fire, earth and water as sacred so do not cremate or bury their dead. Instead the bodies are laid out within the towers to be picked clean by vultures. Elaborate precautions are taken to keep out sightseers.
Towards the southern end of the promontory is the temple of Walkeshwar the Sand Lord. According to the Ramayana, Rama rested here on his way to rescue Sita in Lanka and constructed a lingam of sand at the site. The original temple was built about 1000 years ago though the current structure is much more recent. Just below the temple is the Banganga Tank which was built on the spot where water spouted when Rama shot a bana (arrow) into the ground. Bathing pilgrims and scores of curious kids make this neighbourhood an oasis from the world of luxury apartment blocks towering above.
Situated at the end of a long causeway poking into the Arabian Sea, is a white washed fairytale mosque containing the tomb of the Muslim saint Haji Ali. The saint is believed to have been a wealthy local businessman who renounced the material world and meditated on a nearby headland following a pilgrimage to Mecca. The mosque and tomb were built by devotees in the early 19th century. Alternative versions say Haji Ali died while on a pilgrimage to Mecca and his casket amazingly floated back to Bombay and landed at this spot. The mosque can only be reached at low tide. There's nothing sombre about the building's cool courtyard, which is generally full of chattering families and refreshment stalls. The rocks exposed at low tide behind the mosque are a favourite spot to catch sea breezes.
The colourful indoor Crawford Market or Phule Market is the last outpost of British Bombay before the tumult of the central bazaars begins. It used to be the city's wholesale produce market before this was strategically moved to New Bombay. Today it's where central Mumbai goes shopping for its fruit, vegetables and meat.
No visit to Mumbai is complete without a foray into the bazaars of Kalbadevi, north of Crawford Market. The narrow lanes of this predominantly Muslim area are hemmed in by laundry-draped chawls, and a seething mass of people bring Mumbai's traffic to a standstill. It's in complete contrast to the relative space, orderliness and modernity of South Mumbai. Entire streets are often devoted to a single product. Some people consider the bazaars a spectacle rather than a place to shop, but it's a lot more fun doing both. The main areas are Zaveri Bazaar (jewellery), Mangaldas Market (cloth), Dhabu St (leather goods) and Chor Bazaar (Mumbai's 'thieves' market'). You can pick up anything at Chor Bazaar from car parts to Victorian porcelain. Mutton St in Chor Bazaar specialises in antiques, ingenious reproductions and miscellaneous junk. Don't place too much faith in authenticity or the lifespan of objects with mechanical parts.
Mumbai's major tourist attractions are the rock-cut temples on peaceful Elephanta Island, 10km north-east of the Gateway of India. Thought to have been carved between 450 and 750 AD. The main cave contains large sculpted panels relating to Siva, including the astonishing 6m high triple-headed Trimurti - in which Siva embodies the roles of creator, preserver and destroyer. Boats run daily from Mumbai's Apollo Bunder every hour until early afternoon, although it's best to make the trip during the week.
The Buddhist caves at Ajanta in northern Maharashtra are dramatically cut into the precipitous rock face of a gorge on a bend of the Waghore River and contain some of India's most magnificent paintings. The 29 caves were excavated from around 200 BC but they were abandoned in 650 AD in favour of Ellora. Their tempera murals exquisitely depict scenes from Buddhist legends and reveal telling details of the culture at the time they were painted. Five of the caves were temples and 24 were monasteries, thought to have been occupied by some 200 monks and artisans. The Ajanta Caves were gradually forgotten until their `rediscovery' by a British tiger-hunting party in 1819. Make sure you pay for a `lighting' ticket when visiting the caves or you may see very little of the murals. A little light will also prevent you from tripping over.
The Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves at Ellora, carved between 600 and 1000 AD, are renowned for their remarkable sculptural work. Situated on a gentle escarpment the caves are believed to have been carved by priests and pilgrims using the caravan route between the northern cities of Madhya Pradesh and the ports of the west coast. It seems that the caves were started by the Buddhist builders of Ajanta when they deserted that site but later non-Buddhist caves were created simultaneously in a flowering of creative competition between the different religions.
The highlight of the 34 caves is the mighty Kailasa Temple, the zenith of Hindu rock-cut temple architecture. The temple's measurements and the statistics involved in its construction are astounding. Hewn from solid rock from the top down using the most rudimentary of tools, the temple now appears free-standing. It incorporates enclosures, galleries, a bridge, two large stone elephants, massive stone 'flagstaffs' and several finely carved panels. Aurangabad is the nearest sizable town to the caves.