I’ve travelled the world, but Bombay will always be my No.1

This professional globetrotter has been travelling the world for decades — but this colourful and chaotic spot will always be his favourite place.

Ornate Muslim architecture of Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai.

Bombay is my favourite city. India’s craziest, most chaotic metropolis – rechristened Mumbai in 1995 – will always be Bombay because that was its name when we first met. The memories are tattooed on my brain. They can’t be changed easily.

Bombay was the first city I set foot in outside Australia. I went alone. With no plans, no friends, nothing booked, no idea what to expect. The only certainty was that it would be an adventure.

My first sight of the city was descending in to Sahar International at 3am. The dim yellow glow of street lamps illuminating stray dogs on dirt roads. Low buildings that looked unfinished. And then, once through immigration, a terrifying crush of humanity that spilled from the arrivals lounge onto the streets.

Mobbed by hotel and taxi touts, I eventually succumbed to the Hare Krishna ashram because it offered free transport and was brand new.

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It turned out to be a marble palace in the middle of nowhere with signs forbidding alcohol and smoking. I was so far out of my comfort zone I sat on my balcony taking secret swigs of duty-free scotch and chain-smoking while listening to Madonna and nervously eyeing the world outside.

Next morning I caught a taxi into the tourist hotspot of South Bombay (the cool kids call it SoBo nowadays) and a sea-facing room at the Strand Hotel. I dropped my bags and went for a walk to get the measure of the place.

Seasoned swindlers marked me immediately and pursued me through the streets begging for food or business. “Lovely manicure-pedicure, madam!” (For the record, I am quite clearly male.)

Workers wash clothes at Dhobi Ghat, an open-air laundromat in Mumbai.

There was even a rhesus monkey willing to dance for me in exchange for a few rupees.

Tormented, exhausted, I fled back to the Strand, threw myself onto the shady-looking bed and bawled my eyes out. Heaving, inconsolable sobs at having left behind the comfort and safety of home for a living hell. And to think I was actually paying to suffer.

Fast-forward a month and I am back in Bombay having the time of my life. In between, I’d run away to Delhi and spent weeks drifting about the desert state of Rajasthan. I felt ready to face Bombay again and then, on the flight down, I met Bakhtyar Khan, a businessman who insisted on showing me his city.

The one that makes Mumbaikars so proud to live there.

He spent a week wooing me with coconut juices on Marine Drive where the entire SoBo population gathers each evening to watch the fireball sun sizzle into the Arabian Sea. We zipped about on motorbikes to the Hanging Gardens on Malabar Hill for aerial views of the twinkling night city, shot balloons with air rifles on Juhu’s sideshow alley and spent hours at his Warden Road home where his sister Kashmira started teaching me the canon of Indian cuisine.

Handmade shoes at a flea market in Mumbai.

I spent four months in India that first trip and longed to return as soon as I got home. It became an annual obsession and every visit began and ended with Bombay (later Mumbai).

Over the years there have been many kind people who have shared with me their love for this mixed-up city. I can say confidently now that what Bombay/Mumbai offers everyone, rich or poor, is that most precious commodity, hope.

For all its mayhem and madness, this is the Manhattan of India, the engine-room of Asia. A powerhouse of finance, shipping, IT and film. And the city of dreams for a polyglot, poly-gods nation of 1.4 billion people.

A few of my favourite things in my favourite city: the Victorian Gothic architecture, so beautifully brooding and totally out of place; vada pav, white-bread buns stuffed with spicy potato dumplings and chutney; Parsi diners; tandoori pomfret at Excellensea seafood restaurant (so much of what I love about Bombay is food-related); the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, undaunted symbol of a city’s pride; Crawford Market, Thieves’ Market (Chor Bazaar) and Phillips Antiques; Chimanlals stationers; the galleries and Gujarati thali joints of Kala Goda; the open-air laundry at Mahalaxmi; mango smoothies and ornate Islamic architecture at Haji Ali’s tomb.

Decades on, I still struggle to convince friends and strangers of the wonders of the magnificent human creation that is Bombay. But at least I don’t have to try so hard these days.

Soho House, the private members’ club-cum-global barometer of cool, has just opened on Juhu Beach, a strip of coastline favoured by Bollywood stars and tech tsars. Soho House first opened in London, then Manhattan, now Mumbai. Truly one of the world’s great cities.

incredibleindia.com

Vada pav is one of the author’s favourite food memories.

Read “A” of Kendall Hill’s A-Z of Travel at escape.com.au

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Originally published as I’ve travelled the world, but Bombay will always be my No.1