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There's plenty to see in Mumbai, but it doesn’t have much in the way of the stationary monuments that London, Paris, Delhi, and other major cities possess. The art of experiencing Mumbai lies in eating, shopping, and wandering through the strikingly different neighborhoods and the various markets. Think of Mumbai as a 50-km (30-
There's plenty to see in Mumbai, but it doesn’t have much in the way of the stationary monuments that London, Paris, Delhi, and other major cities possess. The art of experiencing Mumbai lies in eating, shopping, and wandering through the strikingly different neighborho
There's plenty to see in Mumbai, but it doesn’t have much in the way of the stationary monuments that London, Paris, Del
There's plenty to see in Mumbai, but it doesn’t have much in the way of the stationary monuments that London, Paris, Delhi, and other major cities possess. The art of experiencing Mumbai lies in eating, shopping, and wandering through the strikingly different neighborhoods and the various markets. Think of Mumbai as a 50-km (30-mile) -long open-air bazaar.
Colaba, headed by Gateway of India, is the tourist district and main drag for visitors, and from the Gateway of India to Colaba Market, along the main road, is a walkable stretch of hotels, pubs, restaurants, and interesting shops. Churchgate and Nariman Point are the business and hotel centers, and major bank and airline headquarters are clustered in skyscrapers on Nariman Point.
The district referred to as Fort—which includes Mumbai's hub, Flora Fountain—is filled with narrow, bustling streets lined with small shops and office buildings, as well as colleges and other educational facilities. Another upscale residential neighborhood, Malabar Hill, north of Churchgate on Marine Drive, is leafy and breezy, with fine, old stone mansions housing wealthy industrialists and government ministers.
Shopping and people-watching are most colorfully combined in Mumbai's chaotic bazaar areas, such as Chor Bazaar, Zaveri (jewelry) Bazaar, and Crawford Market (aka Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Market). Many of the city's newest and trendiest shops and restaurants are now out in the suburbs—where more and more people have been moving due to soaring real-estate prices and a lack of space—but South Mumbai still retains some of the very best.
Some travelers opt to stay in the suburbs, either in Bandra, at the end of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link; or in Juhu, a popular coastal suburb between Mumbai and the airports (about 20 km [12 miles] north of the city center). Juhu's beaches aren't clean enough for swimming, and the place can be scruffy, but staying out here is a good way to observe everyday Indian life beyond the shadow of Mumbai's skyline. Sunday nights bring families down to the beach for an old-fashioned carnival, complete with small, hand-powered Ferris wheels, and lantern-lit snack stalls hawking sugarcane.
This narrow thoroughfare, in the center of classic Muslim Mumbai, is lined with dozens of stores crammed with antiques and general bric-a-brac: clocks, old phonographs, brassware, glassware, and statues; some of it quite cheap. Over the years the value and breadth of much of this stock has dwindled, but there's still a chance that you'll find an unusual, memorable piece. Haggle. In the same lane a number of shops are engaged in the profitable business of constructing new furniture that looks old; many will openly tell you as much. Some shops do stock genuine antique furniture from old Parsi homes. Around the corner, stolen cell phones and car stereos are being hawked. The Thieves' Bazaar got its name because it's always been the kind of place that sold goods that fell off the back of the truck—or back of the camel—and even today you can't be too sure of the provenance of your purchases. Getting to the Chor Bazaar will take you on a tour of an interesting and very staunchly Muslim neighborhood, where life has a completely different flavor from elsewhere in the city.
Renamed Mahatma Jyotiba Phule market decades ago, but still known by its original name, this building was designed in the 1860s by John Lockwood Kipling (father of Rudyard, who was born in this very neighborhood). The market's stone flooring supposedly came from Caithness, Scotland. Check out the stone relief depicting workers on the outside of the building. Come here early in the morning for a colorful walk through Mumbai's fresh-produce emporium, and if it's late spring or early summer, treat yourself to a delicious Alphonso mango—the experience has had many people rhapsodize that they've never truly had a mango until they ate one of these. Everything from cookies and party streamers to cane baskets is sold in other sections of the market—the meat section can be a bit hair-raising. In the middle lane (Sheikh Memon Street) of Crawford Market, is the chaotic Mangaldas Market, a covered, wholesale cloth market with a tremendous variety of fabrics at hundreds of indoor stalls. Across the street from the market's main entrance on the west, spread across a trio of lanes, is a smaller but popular bazaar area called Lohar Chawl, where the selection ranges from plastic flowers to refrigerators. If you're headed to the market during the monsoon, wear rain boots or shoes you don't mind getting dirty. The floors can become quite mucky.
D. Naoroji Rd., at L. Tilak Rd., Mumbai, Maharashtra, 400003, India
Mumbai's crowded, century-old jewelry markets have shops filled with fabulous gold and silver in every conceivable design. The two bazaars are so intermingled at this point that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other starts. If you notice people walking past with plastic bags full of cash, try not to stare—this is also a major hub for (certainly illegal, widely known, wholly tolerated) money laundering, completely out in the open, with no security measures in place. You'll find the bazaars a little beyond Fort in the neighborhood of Kalbadevi—a 10-minute walk northwest of Crawford Market. One of the lanes leading off Zaveri Bazaar is called Khao Galli (literally "Eat Lane") and its endless food stalls feed most of the bazaar workers daily; it's here that you'll find some of Mumbai's best—and most unusual—non--veg street food.
Sheikh Memon St., Elephanta Island, Maharashtra, 400003, India
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