Mumbai is India’s financial and commercial capital and a city of glaring extremes. It’s a city of visible prosperity and grinding poverty, of 21st-century technology surrounded by medieval squalor, a colourful, energetic and friendly city with myriad temples and mosques and the finest collection of Victorian buildings anywhere in Asia.

Whether you’re snarled in and deafened by the chaotic traffic, dazzled by the bobbing sea of vividly coloured saris, jostled along broad avenues by multitudes of commuters or boxed in by shoppers, vendors and cart-pushers in the teeming bazaars, it’s hard to avoid the impression that Mumbai is about to detonate.

Morning
Get an idea of the city’s colonial legacy in the Colaba and Fort districts, home to the magnificent Victoria Terminus railway station, the Gateway of India and the ornate High Court building.

The arched Gateway of India was built in 1924 to honour the visit of King George V and Queen Mary, from where ferries leave for the World Heritage-listed temple caves on Elephanta Island, containing elaborate Hindu carvings from the sixth century. Across the road is the Taj Mahal Hotel, one of the world’s most beautiful pubs.

See Mumbai’s huge alfresco laundry, the Dhobi Ghats on Dr E Moses Rd, Mani Bhavan; Mahatma Gandhi’s former home on leafy Laburnam Rd; and the excellent Prince of Wales Museum on Mahatma Gandhi Rd.

Lunch

Pressed for time? Try the Mumbai specialty of bhel puri – rice, chutney, chilli, onion and coriander served on a deep-fried puri (flat bread) and available just about everywhere. Bade Miya is a famous kebab and tandoori stall a block from the Taj Mahal Hotel in Colaba.

Swati Snacks in Tardeo, opposite Bhatia Hospital, also does terrific bhel puri, panki chatni (savoury pancake steamed in a banana leaf) and Gujarati dhals but you may have to wait for a table. For something upscale, Indigo (4 Mandlik Rd, Colaba) is one of Conde Nast Publications’ “Top 60 restaurants in the world”.

Afternoon

Mumbai is shopping heaven. Fashion Street on Mahatma Gandhi Rd is an outdoor market selling cheap, mostly good quality Western-style, big-label export rejects. Find antiques and curios in Chor Bazaar, gold in Zaveri Bazaar, hand-spun silks in Gandhi Bazaar and fabrics at Kala Niketan Silk and Sarees (Queen’s Rd).

For high street fashion, try the shops on Linking Rd in Bandra and Juhu Tara Rd at Juhu Beach.

Day trips

Catch the train from Churchgate station to Borivali station about 45km north of Mumbai and take an auto-rickshaw to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park where monkeys, reptiles, civets, leopards and barking deer roam 9000ha of pristine rainforest. There are safari tours from the main gate.

Nightlife

Join the locals for a late afternoon stroll along Chowpatty Beach (Marine Drive) and a beer at one of the shorefront bars before heading back along Marine Drive to sip cocktails and watch the sun set over the Arabian Sea at the Dome on the upper terrace of the Intercontinental Hotel, voted Mumbai’s Most Romantic Restaurant of 2006.

For dinner or late night drinks, join the A-list at the trendy Olive Bar and Kitchen, a stucco bungalow in the exclusive Pali Hill district with North African decor and a “new Mediterranean” menu.

Mumbai nightclubbers favour Enigma at the Marriott Hotel, Juhu Tara Rd.

More information: www.tourisminindia.com