Mumbai India Travel Guide and Facts

Mumbai India Travel Guide and Facts

(Image: Gateway of India, Mumbai)

(Image: Taj Hotel, Mumbai)

Mumbai India Travel Guide and Facts. Mumbai is a very interesting city because it's probably the most cosmopolitan of Indian cities and you've got people from all the way from India coming here to work and now there are lot of international expats as well. It is the financial capital of India.

This is the wealthiest city in India. There are more millionaires and billionaires here than any other city in central Asia. Let's find out more.

Mumbai airport

Mumbai is served by Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport it's brand new, only opened in 2014. It's clean, modern, spacious, full of great amenities and not too far out of town, only about 30 kilometres.
The easiest way to get from the airport into central Mumbai is a prepaid taxi. Just go downstairs from arrivals and you'll find the prepaid taxi desk. Tell the folks where you're going. They'll quote you a price but never pay more than 450 to 600 rupees for your journey. They'll give you a paper coupon with a taxi registration number written on it. Head outside, find that taxi and jump in the journey to Mumbai city centre. It can take from 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on traffic. Don't pay anything extra when you arrive at your destination. Because any fees or tolls are covered in the price you negotiated back at the airport.

Railways

(Image: local trains)

The railways are the nervous system of India, a byproduct of British colonialism. The very first railways in India started here in Mumbai. After she gained her independence India embraced optimise and expanded her railway system to extraordinary proportions and Mumbai with its extensive network covering the city is a great way to experience. Most people get around town using the suburban rail network otherwise known as locals.

Railway Indian

It is incredibly cheap to travel by train in India especially second-class but I strongly recommend that you splurge on a first-class ticket. This isn't about elitism, this isn't about snobbery, it's about survival as anybody here and I'll tell you the same thing. The second-class carriages are designed for the seasoned Mumbai commuter who is used to the jabbing and jostling and jam packing that happens day in and day out. 

As a tourist you can buy the aptly named tourist ticket across 275 rupees or around 2 pounds 50 and allows you to travel in first-class on all three suburban lines all day. It's a good idea to figure out where the first-class compartment is before the train arrives. Lest you get caught swimming upstream when the train actually pulls in, the easiest way to figure out where the first-class compartment will be is to look for the walls and pillars that are painted with red and yellow diagonal stripes. Avoid using local trains during rush hour first-class or otherwise.

(Image: Rush hour crowd)

Rush-hour is around 8:30 a.m. To 10:30 a.m. For trains heading to awards south Mumbai and 5:30 p.m. To 8:30 p.m. For trains in the opposite direction if you have to travel during rush hour then avoid at all costs standing anywhere near the train doors otherwise you will be swarmed by a stampede of every-man-for-himself trying to get off the train while you are trying to get on. 

CST

Image: Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST)

If you're anywhere near Mumbai Central station or Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) as it's known, don't just run to your platform. Come outside and look at the building that mixture of traditional Indian architecture and Victorian Gothic revival is absolutely stunning and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. So give yourself a few minutes and just take a look.

Crossing the road in Mumbai can be exciting. There's a crosswalk in traffic lights but those seem merely suggestions and not the law.

Taxis

Taxis are cheap and plentiful. 10 pounds will get you from one end of the city to the other with no problem. The black and yellow cabs can often not always but often be a little on the older side and if you do decide to take a taxi new or old, insist on a metered journey using the meter inside the cab as opposed to a pre-negotiated fare which can often suddenly inflate at the end of your journey. Obviously most of the taxi drivers here are super honest but the less scrupulous ones tend to cluster around train stations and airports looking for a johnny sucker and janey tourists.

Uber

Another great way to get around Mumbai is Uber which is surprisingly prevalent in the city. There's a few options, Uber black which is your regular car air-conditioned comfortable usually with you in about 10 minutes. Or Uber wi-fi which is exactly as it sounds, a car equipped with wi-fi and in this city which doesn't have a whole lot of open wi-fi spots can be really actually very helpful.

Food
Mumbai is packed with cuisine that you are gonna fall in love with whatever you eat. You will never run out of new things to try as you explore the city. There are thousand types of food varieties. Some of the food varieties are so delicious that you can't just eat them once. When you taste one particular cuisine you crave for even more of it always.
Thali

A really great way to experience a whole bunch of different Indian flavors is with Thali which for one of a better comparison is like Indian tapas. You get a whole bunch of different Indian flavors and this is little mini dishes on this beautiful layout and the idea is to combine salt sweet bitter sour astringent spicy all in a one.  It is really delicious. It's beautiful as well and this could be all vegetarian or all non vegetarian or mixture of both and you can't go wrong with this.

Food nearby

Around every corner in Mumbai you are assaulted by a new smell some awful but some incredible and almost invariably the incredible smells come from the street food. Mumbai is known for it's street food, mouthwatering street food. It's absolutely delicious.

Here you may look at Mumbai street food and think oh maybe I shouldn't try but trust me just do it. You will be rewarded with cheap amazingly delicious food. A few things to remember to really make the most out of your Mumbai street food experience, when you see a crowd gathered around a stall get in line. There is no better endorsement than popularity. Also, make sure that the snack that you're enjoying is cooked right in front of you and that they're using bottled or filtered water. 

Lets find out what we should be eating, how we should eat it, where we should go to find the best eats in Mumbai. You get local Maharashtrian snacks in Mumbai. Maharashtra is the state to which Mumbai belongs to. 

Poha and Upma
Poha is made with rice flakes. When you're having it with the peanuts and the curry leaves there's a nice textural contrast. If you come to the stall selling Poha or Upma around 8:30 am or 9:00 am there's a queue of people who come to have breakfast. 

(Image: Poha)

(Image: Upma)

Tea

(Image: Cutting tea)

People also come at the stall (tea stall) for tea or chai. Tea stalls are found almost in every corner of the city on streets. Tea is loved in Mumbai. There's a lot milk in the tea and and they also put ginger and cardamom is called a masala chai. It is also called the cutting chai.  It's hot tea but it cools you down.

Vada Pav

It was discovered in the 1970s. There is little crockett which is like mashed potato spiced covered with gram flour and deep fried and that's put into the bun pav (bread) with a bite of the green chilli and then you follow it up with some cutting chai and this is what keeps Mumbai on the go. And it's  really cheap if you put the two of them together it's about 20 rupees. It's very filling and you should always choose a shop where there's a big crowd and where people are frying things constantly and it's everything's made fresh on the counter like. Like tea stalls Vada pav stalls are also in abundance in Mumbai. On every lane or inner road you will surely find one vada pav stall or shop. Mumbai can't live without vada pav, its that famous. It is like a necessity.

Money

India uses the rupee and generally comes in notes between 1 and 2000 rupees. Coins come between 1 and 10 rupees and ATMs are widely available now. Credit cards and debit cards are widely accepted in Mumbai especially in restaurants and in some of the chain stores. 

But if you want to hit the streets in indulgence for that amazing street food cash is king. By western standards Mumbai is incredibly cheap. You can eat like a king for under 5 US Dollars but hotel bars and restaurants will charge you five to ten times what a local restaurant or bar will charge you. 

For more on what things cost, let's do the rundown. A cup of coffee will cost you around a 100 rupees. A beer will cost you 110 rupees and for the most reliable indicator of a nation's cost the good old big Mac. The local, the Chicken Maharaja Mac is a 110 rupees or just over 1 pound. 

Now on to tipping. It's actually relatively simple here if you're at a sit-down restaurant, tip 5 to 10 percent unless a service charge has been added to your bill. And a quick note on that. The service charge goes to the restaurant and its staff and the service tax goes to the government. 

If you feel like doing some shopping, there are markets like Crawford market it's okay to haggle but only if you're serious about buying something. 

BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex)

Bandra Kurla complex which is like the new central business district and and you've got all the swank restaurants over there all the new openings are over there. It's a completely different world that's new Mumbai. This is modern Mumbai and this is what Mumbai was.

Mumbai 

Mumbai is a very interesting city because it's probably the most cosmopolitan of Indian cities and you've got people from all the way from India coming here to work and now there are lot of international expats as well. There are different parts of Mumbai in which different communities live like some people from Gujarat or from South India.

This is the wealthiest city in India. There are more millionaires and billionaires here than any other city in central Asia. It has the highest GDP of any city in central southern or western Asia.

Population

Mumbai is one of the most densely populated places on earth. 22 million people crammed into a space half the size of London. So getting around can sometimes be an adventure but it is doable. It is really cheap and sometimes it can be a lot of fun.

Poverty

If you take a look around among that wealth and that opulence there is poverty. You can walk through a slum and in the next minute into a Bentley dealership. The divide between rich and poor has never felt greater than here in Mumbai and yet somehow in spite of this economic inequality the city works the collective cacophony that's generated by the ebb and flow 22 million people crisps crossing the city. 

Spirit of Mumbai 

It can seem intimidating but I've noticed something and I think that you will too. Everywhere you go people have been so friendly no matter where you are. People will greet you with smiles and salutations. It's a wonderful feeling and I think that something Mumbai can be incredibly proud of. This city grabs you by all your senses and doesn't let you go until the moment you step on the air plane at the end of your trip. 

Mumbai may feel overwhelming at first but in a few days that you spend here you will know that it is never unsafe here, surely you take the same precautions as you would in any other city.

It's hot, it is chaotic, it is noisy but those are all wonderful things. It's everything a city should be
Thank you for reading Mumbai India Travel Guide and Facts.