Four days in Mumbai: the city the rest of India moved to

Three nights in the south, on foot wherever possible. Victorian Gothic, Art Deco, a Sufi shrine on a causeway and a fish market before dawn.

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Length
4 days, 3 nights
Where you stay
Mumbai
Places
11 across 4 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Bombay came to the British as part of a dowry in 1661 and was leased to the East India Company seven years later for ten pounds a year, which turned out to be the best property deal in history. The seven islands were joined into one by two centuries of reclamation, and the result is a peninsula about twenty kilometres long with the sea on three sides and no room at all.

That shape governs everything. Mumbai runs north to south, the old city is at the bottom, and the daily migration of several million people up and down it is the single most impressive thing about the place.

It is also the least monumental of India's big cities. There is no fort with an emperor in it. What there is instead is a working port, the best surviving Victorian Gothic outside Britain, one of the largest concentrations of Art Deco anywhere, and a level of ambition you can feel in the street.

Highlights

  • The Gateway of India at dusk, with the boats going out to the caves
  • A seafront that lights up in a long curve after dark, and the whole city out walking it
  • A Victorian Gothic university and an Art Deco cinema facing each other across a cricket field
  • A fifteenth-century shrine half a kilometre out to sea, cut off twice a day by the tide
  • The fish dock at six in the morning, before anybody has swept anything

Where to stay

Mumbai, three nights

Almost everything a visitor comes for is in the bottom five kilometres of the city, which is a stroke of luck given how long the rest of it is. Colaba is the tip: the Gateway, the hotels, the cheap guesthouses and the tourist shops. Fort, immediately north, is the Victorian business district and the best architecture. Kala Ghoda between them is a small art quarter of galleries, cafes and one very blue synagogue.

North of that the city changes character every couple of kilometres: mill districts turned into malls, Parsi housing colonies, film studios, the open-air laundry, and eventually the suburbs where most of the twenty million actually live.

Four days does the southern city thoroughly, gets you out to the western shore once, and leaves a morning at the docks.

Day by day

Day 1 in Mumbai

The Gateway, the seafront and the beach at Chowpatty

Mumbai's airport is about forty minutes north of Colaba outside rush hour and twice that inside it. Whatever time you arrive, the first evening belongs to the water.

Start at the arch on the harbour. It was built to mark the arrival of a king and queen in 1911, finished thirteen years later, and in 1948 the last British troops in India walked back out through it, which is either the neatest bit of symbolism in the country or a coincidence nobody could resist. Behind it stands the hotel that is the other half of the photograph.

Then walk north and west to the seafront. It curves for three and a half kilometres, with a six-lane road behind it and a parapet the whole way, and at night the street lights follow the bend, which is why it is called the Queen's Necklace. Everybody in Mumbai comes here. Nobody has ever been alone on it.

At the far end is the city beach, which is not for swimming and never was. It is for standing on at nine at night eating bhelpuri out of a paper cone.

  1. 17:00

    Gateway of India

    Other

    Indo-Saracenic, built to commemorate a royal visit of 1911, and the point every boat to the caves leaves from. Come at dusk and expect crowds, photographers and men selling balloons.

  2. 18:30

    Marine Drive

    Landmark

    A long promenade round a natural bay, and the best free thing in Mumbai. Walk it northwards in the last of the light and sit on the parapet at the end like everybody else.

  3. 20:00

    Girgaon Chowpatty

    Nature

    The city's beach, at the north end of the promenade. It is for street food rather than swimming: pav bhaji, bhelpuri, kulfi, and a lot of noise. It is also where the Ganesh idols go into the sea every September.

With more time: Colaba Causeway behind the Gateway is the tourist shopping street and is fine for an hour of haggling. The better walk is the parallel lane inland, past the covered market and the old Portuguese and Parsi houses that most people go straight past.

Day 2 in Mumbai

Victorian Gothic, Art Deco and a very blue synagogue

One square kilometre, on foot, and it holds two UNESCO listings' worth of architecture. The Victorian Gothic buildings went up in the 1860s and 1870s when the American Civil War cut off cotton supplies and Bombay got very rich very fast. The Art Deco went up in the 1930s along the seafront and around the maidans, facing the Gothic across the grass.

Start at the museum, which is Indo-Saracenic, opened in 1922 and holds Indus valley terracottas, Mughal miniatures and a room of Himalayan art. Two hours, and skip the natural history section.

Then walk into the Fort district for the university and its clock tower, which was modelled on the belfries of northern Italy by way of a Victorian architect and is stranded on a green in the middle of the business district. The cricket field in front of it has games on it every day of the week.

Finish at Kala Ghoda's synagogue, built by the Sassoons in 1884, restored a few years ago and painted the strongest shade of blue in the city.

  1. 10:30

    Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya

    Culture

    Established in 1904 and housed in one of the best Indo-Saracenic buildings anywhere, with an audio guide that is worth the extra. The miniature painting galleries are the strongest part.

  2. 13:30

    Lunch at an Irani cafe

    Eat

    The Parsi and Irani cafes of south Mumbai are a hundred years old, run to their own rules, and serve bun maska, keema pav and berry pulao under signs listing what you may not do. There are far fewer than there were.

  3. 15:00

    Rajabai Clock Tower

    Architecture

    Finished in 1878 in a mix of Venetian and Gothic, on the edge of the cricket ground. You cannot go up it, and the view of it from the far side of the grass is the one worth having.

  4. 16:30

    Kenesseth Eliyahoo Synagogue

    Religious

    Built in 1884 by the Sassoon family, restored recently and painted a blue you can see from the end of the street. Bring a passport; security is thorough and the guards are polite about it.

With more time: The Art Deco cinemas around the maidans are still working: the 1938 one near the museum, and another of 1933 further south. Seeing a Hindi film in one of them, with an interval and an audience that talks back at the screen, is the best evening in Mumbai.

Day 3 in Mumbai

The laundry, a shrine on a causeway and a hill above the bay

North up the western shore today, which is where the city works rather than where it poses.

The open-air laundry has been going since 1890: several hundred concrete pens, each with its own flogging stone, where the washing of hospitals, hotels and half the city gets done by hand and hung out in rows. The bridge above it is where you look from, and it is free.

A few kilometres on, a white shrine stands about half a kilometre out in the sea, at the end of a causeway that goes under water at high tide. It was built in 1431 over the tomb of a merchant who gave away his fortune and died on pilgrimage, and the walk out along the causeway between the beggars and the stalls is as much the experience as the building.

End on the hill at the south end of the bay. The terraced garden on top was laid out in 1881 over the city's reservoir, and the view down the whole curve of the seafront from the road below it is the one on the postcards.

  1. 09:30

    Dhobi Ghat

    Visit

    Built in 1890 and still the largest open-air laundry in the world. Look from the bridge by the station rather than going down into it, unless you have arranged a guide from the community itself.

  2. 11:30

    Haji Ali Dargah

    Other

    A 1431 shrine on an islet, reached by a causeway that disappears at high tide. Check the tide table before you set out; there is no way across for several hours either side of it.

  3. 16:30

    Hanging Gardens

    Nature

    A terraced garden of 1881 laid out on top of a reservoir at the top of Malabar Hill, with topiary and a lot of families. Go for the walk down afterwards, which is where the view is.

With more time: The bridge out to Worli is worth crossing at night for the view back at the city, and the old Koli fishing village at the far end has been there since long before any of the rest of it. Go late afternoon and eat at one of the shacks by the jetty.

Day 4 in Mumbai

Fish before breakfast, and a church for a lost war

Get up at half past five. The fish dock at the bottom of Colaba is the oldest in the city and one of the biggest markets in it, and the whole thing is over by about nine.

Boats come in through the night, the catch is auctioned on the quay at first light, and several hundred women of the Koli fishing community, who were here long before the Portuguese or the British, run the sale of it. It is loud, wet and completely unstaged. Photography is restricted in parts of the dock, so ask before pointing anything at anybody.

Then breakfast, and a last building on the way south: a grey basalt church with a spire visible from most of Colaba, built by the British to commemorate the dead of the First Afghan War, which they lost catastrophically. The names are on the walls inside, and there is very good Victorian stained glass above them.

  1. 06:00

    Sassoon Docks

    Other

    The first wet dock built in Mumbai, and the fish market that supplies half the city. Between six and eight in the morning, and not at all after that. Wear shoes you do not mind ruining.

  2. 08:30

    Breakfast in Colaba

    Eat

    Anything with eggs, at any of the old cafes on the causeway, with a pot of tea that keeps coming. You will have been up for three hours.

  3. 10:00

    Afghan Church

    Religious

    Consecrated in 1858 for the dead of a war Britain lost, in dark basalt with a tall spire and good glass. Quiet, usually empty, and a ten minute walk from the docks.

  4. 12:00

    To the airport

    Travel

    Forty minutes to the domestic and international terminals outside rush hour, and up to ninety in it. Leave early; the road north is the one thing in Mumbai that cannot be hurried.

Before you go

When to go

November to February. Warm, dry, and about as pleasant as the coast of India gets. March to May is hot and increasingly humid, and by the end of May the city is waiting for the rain.

The monsoon breaks in the first half of June and runs to September, and Mumbai gets a great deal of it: streets flood, trains stop, and the whole city develops opinions about drainage. It is genuinely dramatic and a bad time for a first visit.

Getting around

South Mumbai is walkable and almost everything below is on foot. For anything longer, use a ride-hailing app; black and yellow taxis are cheap and metered but increasingly scarce, and autos are not allowed south of Bandra at all.

The suburban trains carry something like seven million people a day and are the fastest way to move north or south, but do not attempt them between eight and eleven in the morning or five and eight in the evening unless you want the full experience. There are women-only carriages, marked and enforced.

Where to stay

Colaba and Fort, at the southern tip. Everything colonial, everything Art Deco, the museums, the seafront and the boats are within a couple of kilometres, and you can walk home from dinner.

Bandra, ten kilometres north, is where the city's creative and film crowd live and has better bars and restaurants. It is also forty minutes from everything on this list in the wrong traffic. Stay south for four days.

Elephanta, if you have a fifth day

Boats leave the Gateway of India roughly hourly and take about an hour to reach the island, where sixth-century caves are cut into the rock with a six metre three-headed Shiva at the far end of the main hall. It is a UNESCO site and it is worth a full day.

The caves are closed on Mondays, the last boat back leaves in the late afternoon, and there is a small train and a long flight of steps at the other end. Take a hat.

Mumbai does not have a great monument and does not need one. What it has is a rush hour that moves millions of people twenty kilometres twice a day, a hundred-year-old lunch delivery system that still runs on chalk marks, and a seafront where the entire city goes to sit down in the evening.

Four days is enough to stop finding that overwhelming and start finding it impressive. Give it the fifth if you can.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is four days enough for Mumbai?
For the southern city, yes, comfortably. A fifth day is worth having for Elephanta, and a sixth for Bandra and the northern suburbs, which is where most of the eating and drinking happens.
Where should I stay?
Colaba or Fort, at the southern tip, where almost everything on this list is walkable. Bandra is more fun in the evening and forty minutes away in traffic, which over four days costs you most of a day.
Should I take the local trains?
Yes, once, outside rush hour, and preferably a short hop in first class or a women's carriage. They are the circulatory system of the city and the fastest thing on it. Rush hour is a genuinely crushing experience and not something to try for fun.
How do I get to Elephanta?
Boats leave the Gateway of India roughly hourly from the morning, take about an hour, and stop running back in the late afternoon. The caves are closed on Mondays. Allow a full day and check the sea state in monsoon months, when the service stops.
Are slum tours ethical?
It depends entirely on the operator. Some are run by residents or by organisations that put the fee back into the neighbourhood and prohibit photography of people. Others are not. Ask who guides it, where the money goes and what the photography rules are, and if the answers are vague, skip it.
What should I eat?
Vada pav from a street cart, pav bhaji at Chowpatty, seafood cooked the Koli way, and something Parsi: dhansak, berry pulao, or just bun maska and chai at an Irani cafe. Mumbai eats better on the street than most cities do in restaurants.
Can I change this plan?
Yes. Copy it and shift the days to fit your flight. The one thing worth protecting is the last morning: the fish dock only exists between six and eight, and it is the best hour of the four days.