Mumbai is a city of jarring contrasts. Grand British-built edifices - monuments to the glory days of a vanished empire - loom over streets teeming with ordinary Indian daily life: vendors, beggars, sweepers and shoppers. Oxen pull cartloads of goods as smartly-dressed middle class Mumbaikers whiz past in their BMWs. Rickshaws, bicycles, scooters and 1950s Ambassador taxis honk and fight for space on the clogged streets.
Underneath a billboard advertising luxury bathroom fit-outs, a family crouches on the dusty footpath, their belongings tied in bundles beside them. The mother is cutting up vegetables to cook for dinner, right there on the pavement. They make the residents of nearby Dharavi slum, one of Asia's largest, look wealthy. Meanwhile, Bollywood stars sip cocktails at swanky bars in the city's upmarket suburbs.
There are places to escape to if it all gets too much. The green, palm-fringed Oval Maidan, where so many social cricket matches are underway on any given afternoon that their outfields overlap, is one of them. And the vast Taj Palace Hotel, in pride of place on the waterfront next to the massive stone Gateway of India arch, offers ridiculously-priced cups of tea and cucumber sandwiches to weary sightseers.
We found refuge in the tiny Kotachiwadi neighbourhood, near Chowpatty Beach. One of the several wadis, or hamlets, in Mumbai that somehow escaped the bulldozers as high-rise office blocks grew around them, Kotachiwadi is a Christian enclave of quaint wooden houses and winding lanes - a village within a city. Its streets are too narrow for taxis, cars and rickshaws, so the area is blissfully free of honking horns. Wandering the lanes reveals a quiet life, with many residents operating small businesses such as tailor shops out of their homes.
Every evening, people swarm on to Mumbai's beaches to see the sun dip below the Arabian Sea horizon. Dozens of food stalls offer up street food snacks to the crowds. Competition is fierce - the stall holders will do anything to get you to eat at their stall, from shoving their menu in your face as you walk past, to offering free samples. Whichever one you choose, you'll be able to taste Mumbai favourites such as bhelpuri, a tasty and crunchy mix of puffed rice, chopped onions and tomatoes, thin spicy besan sticks, coriander leaves, lemon zest and chutney. We also got stuck in to pav bhaji, a spicy vegetable curry served with little bread rolls fried in ghee; and pani puri, small hollow balls of crisp fried pastry filled with spicy tamarind water and potato.
Underneath a billboard advertising luxury bathroom fit-outs, a family crouches on the dusty footpath, their belongings tied in bundles beside them. The mother is cutting up vegetables to cook for dinner, right there on the pavement. They make the residents of nearby Dharavi slum, one of Asia's largest, look wealthy. Meanwhile, Bollywood stars sip cocktails at swanky bars in the city's upmarket suburbs.
There are places to escape to if it all gets too much. The green, palm-fringed Oval Maidan, where so many social cricket matches are underway on any given afternoon that their outfields overlap, is one of them. And the vast Taj Palace Hotel, in pride of place on the waterfront next to the massive stone Gateway of India arch, offers ridiculously-priced cups of tea and cucumber sandwiches to weary sightseers.
We found refuge in the tiny Kotachiwadi neighbourhood, near Chowpatty Beach. One of the several wadis, or hamlets, in Mumbai that somehow escaped the bulldozers as high-rise office blocks grew around them, Kotachiwadi is a Christian enclave of quaint wooden houses and winding lanes - a village within a city. Its streets are too narrow for taxis, cars and rickshaws, so the area is blissfully free of honking horns. Wandering the lanes reveals a quiet life, with many residents operating small businesses such as tailor shops out of their homes.
Every evening, people swarm on to Mumbai's beaches to see the sun dip below the Arabian Sea horizon. Dozens of food stalls offer up street food snacks to the crowds. Competition is fierce - the stall holders will do anything to get you to eat at their stall, from shoving their menu in your face as you walk past, to offering free samples. Whichever one you choose, you'll be able to taste Mumbai favourites such as bhelpuri, a tasty and crunchy mix of puffed rice, chopped onions and tomatoes, thin spicy besan sticks, coriander leaves, lemon zest and chutney. We also got stuck in to pav bhaji, a spicy vegetable curry served with little bread rolls fried in ghee; and pani puri, small hollow balls of crisp fried pastry filled with spicy tamarind water and potato.
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