This vibrant city in India claims one of the richest homes in the world

Going to India and missing Mumbai is like going to the United States and bypassing New York. Yes, it’s ramshackle, sprawling and chaotic, but it’s also stylish, cosmopolitan, arty and, in places, filthy rich. There’s nowhere else in the country like it.

You’ll need at least a week to cover Mumbai’s attractions, and the city is so vast it’s worth changing hotels once or even twice to get the feel for the whole place.

Antilia, in central Mumbai, is the home of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.

Ease yourself in gently with a few days in the tourist hub of Colaba. Located on the southernmost tip of the peninsula and cooled by sea breezes, you can meander along the seafront and into backstreets packed with colonial-era architecture.

The area is also home to Mumbai’s most famous icons, the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. If your budget won’t stretch to a room at the Taj, try nearby boutique hotel Abode, a beautifully designed and evocative homage to old Bombay which also offers an excellent early morning tour that includes Sassoon Docks and the flower market at Dadar.

A few minutes’ walk north-east of the Taj will take you to the art galleries, boutiques, cafes and restaurants of Kala Ghoda, which hosts an annual arts festival in February. Stroll on towards Oval Maidan, where you can catch a game of cricket surrounded by the magnificent, imposing Victorian law courts on one side and delightful art deco apartment blocks on the other.

Once you’ve got the hang of crossing busy streets (cars will go round you but motorbikes will mow you down), you can explore the Fort area on foot as far as CSMT, Mumbai’s main railway station. This whipped-cream cake of madly meshing architectural extravagance, which handles more than a thousand trains a day, lives up to its reputation as a tourist attraction in its own right.

It’s surprisingly free of tourist tat and shopkeepers don’t hassle you, but it is hot, dusty and dirty, so be prepared.

PAULINE WEBBER

Further north is the tiny enclave of Khotachiwadi. Residents of this heritage village, many descended from the original Christian community that settled here 200 years ago, have fought a battle to preserve their homes, the last few examples of the area’s 18th- and 19th-century architecture. It is a delight to wander these narrow, car-free cobbled lanes with their brightly coloured Portuguese-style houses, religious statuary and pocket-sized gardens.

A half-hour walk will take you to the undercover Mangaldas Cloth Market, where brides-to-be bargain furiously over beaded saris and sober gentlemen knowingly finger suiting fabric. Nearby is Chor Bazaar, a vast expanse of treasure and trash. Industrial machinery, furniture, motorbike parts, vintage iPhone covers, curios, art, street barbers and little mosques – you’ll find everything here. It’s surprisingly free of tourist tat and shopkeepers don’t hassle you, but it is hot, dusty and dirty, so be prepared.

At the end of the day, head for Marine Drive to watch the fat red sun drop into the Arabian Sea. This harbourside promenade, which stretches from Nariman Point to Chowpatty Beach, is where Mumbai steps out to relax. Come nightfall, everyone is here – toddlers toddling, joggers jogging, teens huddling, couples canoodling and old folk strolling. It’s a nightly lightshow of local life. Then grab a cab to one of the smart rooftop bars in Worli for dinner with a view, detouring on the way to check out Antilia, the sky-scraping private residence of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani.

Bandra West is where Mumbai’s money is on show. Home to Bollywood stars, investment bankers, designers and entrepreneurs, this harbourside suburb has become the city’s trendiest locale. But it’s around 20 kilometres from Colaba, so consider relocating to one of the area’s many hotels to see a different side to the city.

In Bandra you’ll find very classy restaurants, gorgeous cafes, craft-beer bars and ritzy clubs alongside crumbling mansions and arty graffiti. It’s still definitely Mumbai, but in Bandra, the old and new rub up against each other in a way that, more than anywhere else, tells you this city is going places.

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