Mumbai is a city to fall in love with at first sight. The people are really sweet and the food - Oh! don't even get me started on that! The age-old buildings with beautiful architecture catch one's eyes. If you want to enjoy the true essence of Mumbai then you will need a couple of days, but if you want to take a brief gist of that feeling, this blog will take you through that experience.
I, along with my friend, decided to visit Mumbai to end 2021 on a high note. (P.S.- We felt that due to the rising threat of the Omicron variant the government will impose a lockdown. Otherwise, we would have planned to visit it in Jan 2022)
If you are visiting Mumbai then hands down there is no better option for traveling than the 'Lifeline of Mumbai' itself; the local train as it is the cheapest and fastest mode of transport (except for monsoons).
We arrived at CSMT at 9:30 am, which is a bit early for an OG Mumbaikar, but the perk of arriving early is that you will find the roads almost empty and less crowded, which I liked personally. Started our journey by taking pictures of CSMT and then seeing what the city has to offer!
As mentioned above, the roads were less crowded and we arrived early. So, we decided to walk to the Gateway of India which is like a 30 minutes walk. (We were going to take a cab, but it would have charged us some amount… I was like, why do I spend money here, instead I can spend it on food and books).
Soon we realized that the decision to walk to Gateway of India was great because if we would have taken a cab ride then we would have seen the beautiful buildings just at a glance! But now we can just see them to our heart's content!!
After clicking a couple of pictures I wanted to buy some books. So, we decided to go to Flora Fountain which is a place; not a place but a paradise for every bibliophile!! Google maps showed that it was a 20 min walk, but it took us 2 hours to get there.
While heading towards Flora Fountain we came across Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya. It is a museum. So, we both decided to pay a visit.
See this is the beautiful thing about walking and exploring any place that you visit. You get to see the places that you have not planned to visit!
So per head, the cost of the ticket is Rs. 65 and there are additional charges if you want to click photos. We went in there and as we didn't have that much interest in history, we just went through it in 90 minutes.
Those who want to visit there for them I would like to tell you that this museum comprises 3 floors in total. The ground floor holds taxidermies of various animals and birds. The first floor holds coins and ornaments from history (along with old 500 and 1000 rupee notes. It was pure nostalgia seeing them XD). The second floor consists of Modern Art paintings.
Now we left the museum and started walking towards the Flora Fountain and my friend asked how much time it would take to reach there. I opened Google Maps and both of us looked at each other and changed our course of walking. Because it showed that we were near Dalal Street. It was a given that we would go there as both of us were huge Scam 1992 web series fans! It was awesome to see the BSE building which hitherto I have only seen in the news.
From here the Flora Fountain was just a 2min walk.
Finally, we reached here. I was just in awe after seeing these many books! This place is right opposite the Flora Fountain and below the Oriental Buildings. The books here are mostly pirated. Even though the books were pirated, the quality of books and the print was beyond my expectation and it also costs only Rs. 100 per book.
These guys may not know the contents of the books (sometimes they do), but they know about every author and their books. Let it be the scorching heat in the summer, the coldest of winter, or windy rainy days... You can find these guys there no matter what!!! And they have been there for years!
(If you happen to come here, there is a place called Kitab Khana which is just 1 min walk from here and it has a great ambiance to it!)
Now, by all the walking we have done, we were extremely hungry. We planned that we would go to Mohammed Ali Road to have our lunch. But it was too far to walk and go there. So, we took BEST which also gave us the best and affordable experience.
We reached Mohammed Ali Road. But, instead of exploring the local street food we went to Noor Mohammadi Restaurant, where celebrities like Sanjay Dutt, Shilpa Shetty, etc. have dined at. Sitting there we heard many people order a dish called 'Chicken Sanju Baba'. It is Sanjay Dutt's chicken recipe. We ordered that along with Chicken Korma, 4 Rotties, and 2 Chicken Biryani. We were full. The total cost was about 600ish.
We took BEST to get back and got down at CSMT. From there we decided to end our trip at Marine Drive. So, again we decided to walk after that heavy lunch for about 22 mins. While walking we came across the RBI and The Asiatic Society of Mumbai.
Finally, we reached marine drive at the right time. Actually, before visiting this place I had it in my mind that I had to click a pic like Ranbir Kapoor's character 'Sid' clicked it in the film 'Wake Up Sid'. And I was so happy that I got it right.
I just plugged in my earphones and listened to ‘Iktara’ as the sun was setting. It was a different and blissful experience after going through such a challenging year.
So, yeah I guess this was the end of my journey. If you have made it here, then thank you so much for reading.
Take Care.