I had been invited to Mumbai by my very good friend, Lubna to spend some time with her and her family. She was going to show me around Mumbai (Bombay) for a few days, then we’re going to journey up to Goa. From there, I would go to New Delhi on my own to see the capital and Agra which was just a couple of hours away.
I landed at Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport about 5 :30 AM in the morning. All airports are basically the same. Some nicer and some not so, but it is all about waiting for your friends to arrive or pick you up, watch your plane to takeoff or land. Lubna finally arrived about 6:15 AM and we grab a taxi to take us across the city to her enclave, Colaba.
Watching the sun raise on this mega-city of 19 million was amazing. The contrasts between rich and poor, old and new, and feelings of passage of great time, but the sense of now were exhilarating to me! May be it was the lack of sleep or just being overwhelmed by the fact I was in India. A 3000 year old culture, and I was going to try and understand it in 3 weeks.
As Lubna and I rode across the city toward Colaba at 6;30 AM, the legendary Indian traffic was not in full view, but as we arrived in Colaba, the city was waking up and the streets began to fill with people and traffic. Cars, scooters, trucks, vans, motorbikes and tuk-tuks everywhere. On a road with 4 lanes for traffic, Indians would have created 6 or 7 traffic lanes. I had never seen traffic like this. It made Rome traffic look tame. And it would be even worse when I got to New Delhi.
Colaba is a wealthy enclave of Mumbai filled with high-end shops, clubs, bars, galleries and it very popular with tourists. The Gateway to India, the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Prince of Wales Museum are located here. Colaba is also the art center of Mumbai, with all the major galleries and museums located in and around this area. As you walk around the area, the buildings are old with some dating back 200 years. But inside the many apartment structures that look run-down by modern standards are state of the art, very modern apartments and residences. This is like the Beverly Hills of Mumbai but older and cooler. The area is very high density with crowded streets and endless traffic, yet it maintains an old English charm mixed with a very modern feel as well.
Of course, this area had been settled by Indians for 100’s of years before the first Europeans arrived. They were the Portuguese who were very far ahead of the rest of Europe in acquiring colonies in Asia. The Portuguese had acquired these lands from the Sultanate of Cambay in 1534. They would hang on to the area until 1661 when it became a wedding gift to the English when Charles II married a Portuguese princess. Then it would leased to the British East India Company in 1672, and then become part of the British Empire when the East India Company failed in 1857. That is when the British Raj era started lasting until 1947. The name the Brits gave this area was Wellington Pier.
As you walk around Colaba, the English influence is everywhere, in the buildings, in the architecture, and how the streets are laid out. And there is no place in Colaba that is more British in feel then the Royal Bombay Yacht Club. This was where I was going to stay during my visit in Mumbai due to a large family event happening at Lubna’s home.
The Royal Bombay Yacht Club is one of the premier gentlemen clubs which was founded in Colaba in 1846. When people still traveled by sea, the Royal Bombay Yacht Club would have been one of the first buildings visitors spotted when arriving in Mumbai harbor. Today, the waterfront venue remains popular because of its old-world charm. This colonial relic of the British Raj oozes history with its high ceilings and geometric tiled floors, along with a strict dress code and facilities that include sailing, a library and a billiards room. The private club has a prime location beside the popular Taj Mahal Palace hotel. The lounge, where wooden fans whirr overhead and staff in mock naval uniforms amble in and out, is rarely busy. Thanks to a ban on mobile phones, the dining room is the perfect place to eat dinner. It offers uncomplicated Indian and Chinese fare, or traditional British dishes. A full meal with drinks will set you back just Rs750 ($12) per person. Members from other sister clubs around the world can visit on a reciprocal basis, including the East India Club in London and yacht clubs everywhere from Monaco to Hong Kong.
The club has an exclusive membership and offers chambers for residence overlooking the Gateway Of India, a bar, a lounge, a restaurant, ballrooms, a club shop, a library and members sleeping room, in addition to sailing facilities in the Arabian Sea.
My room was like stepping back in time. I felt like an Indian butler was going to walk through the door with a pot of Earl Grey or Darjeeling tea on a silver tray at any second. With huge high ceilings and whirling fans and a tile floor, the room was cool and inviting. Of course, before the invention of air conditioning, this room would have been a sweat box during the summer months in India.
My bathroom was gigantic, easily the size of my kitchen in my home in Los Angeles. The rest of the room included a large sleeping area, a walk-in closet that you could truly walk into, and a separate seating area. The room must have been 500 plus square feet. Filled with old but very comfortable furniture, large windows including a balcony that looked out over Colaba but of course it was too hot to use the balcony as I had arrived during August right in the middle of monsoon season.
There was an ocean breeze coming into the streets of Colaba but it was still one of the most humid places I had ever been in my life. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was in one of the most interesting cities in the world, I don’t think I would have ever left the cool darkness of my hotel room. And at $80 US a day it was really a bargain. The service and the staff were excellent. I truly felt like I had stepped back into the early 1920’s and 30s.
After I checked in at the Royal Yacht Club and put my luggage in my room, Lubna and I went for a quick jaunt around the streets of Colaba. I had a real Indian breakfast and was fascinated by the street traffic and crowds and the sense of age yet vibrant energy of Mumbai. However the jet lag and the extremely high humidity got to me so by lunch time we had retreated to the club room at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club where we had a delightful lunch and a couple of cocktails. After all that I was knackered so I took a long nap and got ready to spend my first full evening experiencing the Nightlife of Mumbai.
COMING NEXT: MUMBAI AND THE GATEWAY TO INDIA