Explore a place that’s alive

Discover the most populated city in India, the country’s main economic and entertainment hub, which is home to over 18 million people from a variety of cultures, faiths, and linguistic backgrounds. Start the exciting trip in the early morning when the city is just waking up from a long night of sleep. Observe the rush as locals hurry off to work, the air resounding with foreign languages and lively conversations.

Observe in astonishment as the masses rush about doing their daily tasks and errands, moving quickly through congested market streets to start the workday in earnest. Immerse yourself in the markets’ sensory environment, filled with glistening trinkets, silky brocades that caress the skin, and exquisite perfumes that mingle with the aromas of spicy foods and savory herbs in the humid metropolis.

On your route to the flower market, pass the diligent newspaper vendors who are hastily sorting the morning paper on cracked curbs, as well as the sea of people walking by wearing a variety of sandals, chappals, and jootis. Explore pathways filled with elaborately woven floral garlands that are a kaleidoscope of colors, displaying beautiful arrangements of crimson roses, pearl lilies, violet orchids, and iridescent petals.

Explore the 150-year-old Dhobhi Ghat (riverside steps), Mumbai’s sole open-air laundromat, in awe as it washes more than 500,000 items of clothing from all over the city. The ghat uses a sophisticated system to wash, hang, tag, and package the piles of garments under its care, operating in a sort of ordered chaos.

Continue your tour by passing the Sassoon Docks, which are bursting at the seams with recently caught fish, and then explore the numerous temples and buildings that dot the city’s interior. These buildings combine Gothic Revival, Indo-Saracenic, Art Deco, and modern design elements to reflect the city’s rich and varied history.

On the way meet The Dabbawalas of Mumbai! For any individual who has at any point been to Mumbai, the Dabbawalas are an extraordinary class of individuals who everybody knows! For the unenlightened however – Who is a Dabbawalla? “Dabbawala” in Hindi when in a real sense deciphered, signifies “one who conveys a case”. “Dabba” signifies a case (normally a tube shaped tin or aluminum compartment). The nearest significance of the dabbawala in English would be the “lunch box conveyance man” Every day all through the city of Mumbai, 5,000 of the dabbawalas convey about 130,000 dabbas to workplaces all through the city. In the almost 120 years of this help, the dabbawalas’ methodology has stayed steady: a semi-educated labor force (the dabbawalas) get the filled dabbas from the families that get ready them and convey the containers to the imperative workplaces; they then recover the void dabbas from these conveyance focuses and returned them to the starting families, to start the cycle again the following day.

Add this experience on our tour 16 Days best of North India with Mumbai.

Only available as part of a planned itinerary