21 Fun Things to Do in Mumbai that’ll make you fall in love with itself!

There are plenty of things to do in Mumbai serving you diverse options as adventure sports, shopping,and sightseeing to list just a few. Spend lovely moments on a romantic dinner cruise, party or simply chill out at Ghetto, and get high on adrenaline at outbound adventure activities.

 

Just choose your very own answer for what to do in Mumbai from all this and a lot more.

**21 Fun Things to Do in Mumbai**

1. Fish at Powai Lake

 

There almost seems to be more crocodiles in the Powai Lake than Rohu but don’t let that stop you from throwing out a line.

Moreover, the Maharashtra State Angling Association assures us it’s safe to scope the waters for fish.

2. Bet on the horses

 

The Derby is strictly for wannabes.

Moreover, for the real deal, visit the Mahalaxmi Racecourse on a normal raceday. In fact, you can visit twice to four times a week, depending on the time of year – and put your lot in with the punters of every description who mill about the bookies.

 

Also, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know your Flying Ranee from your Flying Toofan, just go with the favourites.

3. Sip Irish coffee at Prithvi

 

Although, the management denies that there’s any liquor in the Irish coffee. But the drink is the most sought-after item on the menu of Prithvi Café, the suburban hangout of choice for theatrewallahs and television actors.

Prithvi Café, JankiKutir, Juhu Church Road, Vile Parle (W)

4. Jetski at Chowpatty

 

The H2O water sports centre offers scuba diving, snorkelling, water and jetskiing, among other facilities.

However, if you are above 18, you can charter a jet ski after attending a familiarisation programme, which is offered free to all participants.

 

Furthermore, once you’re used to the mean machines, you may be able to ride them alone but a lifeguard is likely to hover close by.

5. Run the Mumbai Marathon

 

It’s the one day all of Mumbai takes to the streets.

Moreover, a charitable event is held in January. In fact, the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon has five categories, from the popular seven km Dream Run to the 42 km full-distance Real Thing.

6. Spend time at the Coin Gallery

 

Numismatists will go gaga in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghrahalaya’s House of Laxmi coin gallery.

Not to mention, the gallery traces the development of money from the sixth century BC to the British era.

7. Build a model aeroplane

 

It takes more than a wing and a prayer to take flight. But at Virar’s Space Apple, it takes a three-day aeromodelling camp to help creative types find their inner aircraft engineer.

 

In fact, participants are introduced to the theory and principles of aviation and are taught how to make models of three planes using paper, foam and thermocol.

8. Watch movies at Avishkar

 

For the past few years, some of the classrooms of the New Mahim Municipal School have been used as a performance space by the theatre group Avishkar. Apart from staging plays, Avishkar has joined forces with film groups Vikalp and The Short Circuit to screen short films and documentaries.

 

Moreover, Cinemascoop celebrated its first anniversary in September, and it continues to draw small but committed crowds, despite making them squat on the floor.

9. Hangout at the Hanging Garden

 

Until ten years ago, standing at the highest point of Pherozeshah Mehta Garden opposite Kamala Nehru Park meant you could see all the way to the refineries at Wadala. Also, count each jewel on the Queen’s Necklace on Marine Drive.

 

However, new high-rises have started to obscure two of those views, the garden is still the best seat in the house for panoramic views of the city.

10. See the BNHS butterflies

 

The wooden cupboards around the desk of entomologist Naresh Chaturvedi at the Bombay Natural History Society contain slim drawers. These hold roughly 20,000 moths, butterflies and winged insects labelled and mounted on support rods.

 

Moreover, the collection covers 650 species, including 11-inch atlas moths, translucent Kaiser-i-Hind butterflies and a fancy turquoise-tipped papillion from Paris.

11. Cheer at the Cooperage

 

The Cooperage ground may be better known as a venue for high-profile weddings than for serious sports.

 

Moreover, that shouldn’t stop you from cheering for Mahindra United-in-the-making that battle on this ground for a place in the Mumbai League.

12. Walk through the Vasai Fort

 

Vasai may now be just one more stop on the northern fringes of the suburban line of the Western Railway but back in the day, the 1600s to be precise, Vasai was where all the action was.

 

Moreover, it was the birthplace of the only Indian Catholic saint, Gonsalo Garcia. Moreover, it was a jewel in the Portuguese crown, Vasai fort, or Bassein was filled with impressive public buildings, imposing private mansions and soaring churches.

 

Today, none of the buildings are intact but the walls of the fort still stand and it’s a calm spot of collapsing arches and decrepit belfries.

13. Browse through the Asiatic Library

 

If you’ve grown up on a diet of Bollywood movies, you might confuse the Asiatic Library for the Bombay High Court or an assortment of city colleges. But the steps of this whitewashed building at Horniman Circle actually lead up to the city’s largest public library.

 

In fact, you can browse and read for free (or take a snooze in its peaceful corridors).

14. Eat a thali in Kalbadevi

 

One of the best thalis you’ll ever eat in Mumbai is to be found on the first floor of an ancient building in Kalbadevi. Set up in the early 1940s, the Friends Union Joshi Club serves up a delicious Gujarat-Marwari thali. It combines a salad, four vegetables and rotis, dal, chaas and a dessert.

15. Explore the National Park

 

The Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali has two lakes Tulsi and Vihar.

Moreover, it has a range of wildlife, including cobras, pythons and spotted porcupines, around 1,500 kinds of insects and over 150 species of butterfly.

 

In addition, the park is also home to leopards. But you may not want to get in their way. They have killed over 60 people since 2004, mostly slum dwellers who live inside the park.

16. Drink beer at Janata

 

Janata is a regular working-class bar, like the hundreds of such boozers that dot Mumbai.

 

Moreover, it has the same Formica benches and tables, the menu offers similar Mangalorean and Indian-Chinese pub grub and the alcohol too is identical.

 

Yet, Janata has acquired a certain cache, primarily because it’s the quintessential Mumbai dive – even if it is now the spot for the more high-brow to slum it out.

17. Buy Musibat Mein Mumbai

 

The Bhojpuri folk music form of birha has been keeping residents of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar up-to-date about current events for centuries now.

 

Recently, bestsellers in the genre include two video-CDs entitled Musibat Mein Mumbai. Part one, released in 2005, recounts the deluge that struck the city on July 26, 2005. While part two released earlier this year centres on the bomb blasts that took place on Mumbai’s suburban trains on July 11, 2006.

 

The quality of the music is debatable but the VCDs are heart-felt chronicles of two of the city’s greatest tragedies.

18. Eat Ayurvedic food

 

Swadshakti is probably Mumbai’s only ayurvedic restaurant, where a chunk of the menu is dedicated to detoxifying “panchakarma” dishes.

 

Moreover, the lack of spice in the dishes may take some getting used to. But the palate is disciplined, the flavours of the healing herbs that the restaurant uses liberally – ginger, garlic and fenugreek, among others – will emerge more strongly.

19. Guzzle cheap wine at Ivy

 

Ivy has none of that old-world hokum of zero-watt lighting, wood panelling and leather sofas.

 

Instead, this little bar in Worli has brightly coloured walls, genial waiters and pretty much all types of fermented grape found in the Narayangaon area. Bacchus would be pleased.

20. Feed the cows at Panjrapole

 

Bhuleshwar Road is exotic India at its finest – temples, eager-eyed shop owners, the thick smell of incense, flowers, puffed rice and cows.

However, at the end of this road, is a pukka Mumbai experience that you’re unlikely to find in other cities.

 

Moreover, if you make your way past the stalls selling temple bric-a-brac, you’ll find yourself facing a massive, light-green arched doorway. This leads you to the Bombay Panjrapole trust, started by the philanthropist Sir Jamshetjee Jeejeebhoy for the welfare of cows.

 

Inside the Panjrapole stand bevies of bovine beauties who munch the grass you offer them as though they’re doing you a favour. This is the oldest of five cowsheds run by the 170-year-old trust.

21. Chew on vada pav

 

Indulge in Mumbai’s iconic snack at Mama Kane’s SwatchhaUpaharGriha, the establishment that claims to have invented India’s potato-filled answer to the hot dog.

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MINISTRY OF TOURISM, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

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