Oh Hi Mumbai!

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After the longest train journey of possibly our whole lives (around 18 hours), we arrived into Bandra terminus in Mumbai.! A little bit apprehensive after our time in the other touristy cities, we shouldn't have been as Mumbai was cracking.

This time we stayed in a hostel, named Basit Backpackers Hostel, again we were slightly apprehensive that we would meet the old 'trustafarian' but we were pleasantly surprised! We bumped into a welsh guy named Nathan and compared stories of our northern India travails, then headed off for a streetfood tour of the Bandra Area. The first stop on the tour was the Chaat man, (Lily’s favourite) followed buy some rank sugar cane juice, then chicken kebabs, onion pakoras and a strange deep fried white bread sandwich (possibly the most unhealthy thing you could ever eat) and finally Pau Bhaji and Masala Dosa (Lukes Favourite) all of it utterly delicious (bar that drink). Pics below.






Friday we headed off into the city. We got the extremely cheap local trains into town (10 rupees each for an hour journey) and based on advice given to us about the mental at rush hour where there are people hanging off the open doors, we started our day a bit later and left around 10.30. We arrived at the incredible CST station such a beaut of a building, immediately we were taken aback by the British architecture and how grand and over the top they were, the most basic buildings like the police station are made to look like a grand palaces!


After finding out there was a Starbucks, we headed that way through town towards the Gateway of India. This one was a lot more jazzy than the one in Delhi and was actually worth taking a photo of. (see below). We were recommended to head over to Elephanta Island to tour the caves. So off we went on a rather slow ferry boat through possibly the most highly polluted shipping lanes in the world. Rows and rows of the biggest tankers, and what looked like oils rigs surrounded us. The Island was nice and it was a good walk through the caves with monkeys everywhere.

Gateway of India


Elephanta Caves

Elephanta Caves

Elephanta Caves

Once back we took a short taxi ride to Marine Drive, stunning coastline in the misty city, a very nice evening stroll. We stumbled across the Wankhede Staduim and saw the flood lights on, we perused over to see if there was a match. We  were in luck as the local T20 Mumbai league had an evening match on. A rather nice gentleman offered us two free tickets to said match, Luke was happy for the tickets Lily for the free Wi-Fi. Although the stadium wasn’t full, it was great to witness a game in India – great to tick off the bucket list! Also being the only westerners in the room, the local TV channels were all over us!







Back towards Bandra on the train, after missing the early rush hour the way home was a far more intense experience. People crammed in every crevis of the carriage, and quite literally hanging off the side. The trains stop in the station for about 10 seconds and there are no niceties like London where you wait for those to get off first. Getting of the train was like trying to get in the door of John Lewis on boxing day morning, absolutely brutal.

Once back we sunk another Pau Bajhi between us and a masala uttapam (a pizza but made of rice, and a bit spicy) excellent with the classic south Indian Sambar and coconut chutney. After that with about 20,000 steps on the fitbit we headed for bed, very happy with our day out in Mumbai. Sad to leave Mumbai after such a short stay, as we missed out so much of the city. We would fully recommend flying into Mumbai rather than Delhi, a great advert for India.

Next stop, Goa.

Luke and Lily


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