Mumbai is the city I’ve seen in countless movies and TV shows. The city I knew about so much even before visiting it. The only Indian dream city until the IT revolution happened. Its the city I’ve always wanted to visit which is why when my friends planned a sort of a reunion new year’s celebration in Mumbai, I was all too happy. There were some last minute hurdles like canceling and booking flights right before the trip started but then everything went smoothly and I landed in Mumbai. I accidentally hired an AC taxi instead of a regular one and ended up paying more than double. Well, lessons learnt!

Soon, I, along with my friends, most of who were playing the hosts, set out on a tour of South Mumbai. But not before my first ride on the Mumbai local trains. Apparently, these trains are the fastest way to get around Mumbai. Though my friends claimed that the train was empty by Mumbai’s standards, it was almost full. When we got out of the station, I found myself exactly where lots of Hindi movies begin, CST. From there, we walked through the Fort area of Mumbai all the way to Gateway Of India. We passed through a lot of landmarks, all of which were captured by my camera. Since we all were hungry by that time we reached Gateway, we decided to look for an eatery and decided to head for the famous Leopold’s Cafe. But since it was full, we had to settle for the nearby McDonald’s.

We restarted out tour by taking a taxi to Marine Drive and it looked beautiful at night. Our next stop was Girgaon Chowpatty, which was the beach my friends thought would be less crowded than Juhu beach. I could barely see the beach cos it was really dark and the water there was so dirty and polluted that none of us even wanted to go anywhere near the beach. That didn’t dampen our spirits though. We went to Nariman Point next and clicked lots of pictures.

On day 2, We left for Kashid, a clean and serene beach 150 km from Mumbai because my friends felt that the first beach I say in my life should be good. (Yes, if you remember reading this post, I had never been to a beach before this!) And what a beach it was! Absolutely clean and with almost no people. I was thrilled to be there. I played like a baby for hours in the water to the amusement of my friends. I don’t think they had seen this side fo my before. After we all were tired and dirty and wet, We struggled for more than hour to find a decent place for lunch and had to travel 15km more to Murud in the end. We reached Mumbai at night and hit the bed.

The rest of the trip went on pretty well but these two days were definitely the high point. To see all the pictures from my trip, head over to my flickr set.