Best Private Mumbai Guide – India

July 4, 2014 | Updated: July 27, 2015 | By Elizabeth | Reply More

Private Mumbai guide Vinita Shahani with the lunchbox men.

A private Mumbai guide named Vinita Shahani gets all the credit for our last – very successful – visit to this enormous city. Keep in mind that neither my husband nor I are easily intimidated by noise and chaos…but Mumbai, India (formerly Bombay) really did feel a bit overwhelming.

We could have played it safe and just visited the top tourist sites (never an option for me) or taken a guided group tour (ditto not an option). However, what we really wanted to do was wander around and get a feel for India’s biggest city.

Enter Vinita – who the concierge at the Taj Mahal Palace said was the best private Mumbai guide. After a short meeting in the hotel lobby, we set off on foot to see the city.

The lunchbox men

I’d heard about Mumbai’s famous lunchbox delivery service and the men who make it possible and asked Vinita about them. Before I realized what was happening, our private Mumbai guide was steering us through traffic and down a shaded street where the dabbawala were leaning up against trees and lounging on their bicycles. As soon as they saw her, the lunchbox men started joking with her. I was full of questions, which she translated for us, and – because we were with her – the men were happy to pose for photos.

Vinita introduced me to her dabbawala friends.

This was before the movie The Lunchbox came out and became the top foreign film of 2014 in the U.S. In case you didn’t see it, the dabbawala collect hot food from the homes of men who work in the city and deliver it to their workplaces. The men travel on bicycles and trains (where they stand in boxcars) and return the empty boxes back to the customer’s residence in the afternoon – and they never make a mistake.

The lunchbox men are now known worldwide. The movie was a box office hit in the U.S. and elsewhere.

More real experiences with our private Mumbai guide

Next our private Mumbai guide hailed a taxi. One stopped almost immediately, but was rejected for reasons I didn’t understand (looked like crook? was dirty?). The “chosen” car took us to Dhobi Ghat, the great open air laundry where dhobis wash the clothes from Mumbai’s hotels and hospitals.

Our private Mumbai guide introduced us to Dhobi Ghat.

No one has made a movie about them – yet – but it can’t be far off. Where else in the world can you see a space the size of a football field filled with big soapy pools? Here blue jeans and bed sheets are stirred, wrung, and hung out to dry by an army of guys wearing shorts and flip flops. In an adjacent area, ironers create stacks of perfectly pressed shirts. My husband – ever the engineer – commented that their electrical wiring (draped over the pools) would “never meet code” in the U.S. Unlike the dabbawala, the dhobis didn’t seem all that friendly. We were the only visitors in the area and I was glad we were with our private Mumbai guide.

Dhobi Ghat is Mumbai’s huge open-air laundry.

At this point, Vinita bought some sweet pastries for all of us at a nearby stall, and saved one for the taxi man who was waiting for us.

Next stop: Sassoon fishing docks. Built in 1875 on reclaimed land in South Mumbai, this is one of the few docks in the city open to the public. Here we watched local women and girls cleaning fish and peeling shrimp that had just come off the boats. Nearby, fishermen haggled over prices with wholesale buyers. Again, we were among the few visitors and I was glad we were with a guide.

The Sassoon Docks, where catch is unloaded, cleaned, and sold, are a busy hive of activity.

Traditional sights and the Leopold Cafe

In addition to the grittier side of Mumbai, we also saw a number of heritage buildings with grand colonnades. I was particularly impressed by the Prince of Wales Museum, the Bombay High Court, and the University of Mumbai (est. 1857).

We talked as we walked back to our hotel, and I learned that Vinita’s son and daughter-in-law are both doctors in the U.S. When the conversation turned to Shantaram: A Novel the book my husband was reading, she offered to take us to the Leopold Café – the popular restaurant and bar featured in the novel.

If you’ve read Shantaram, you’ll want to visit the Leopold Cafe.

We love authentic travel experiences

Finally, we said good-bye to Vinita near the Taj Palace at the Gateway of India. This waterfront landmark is the city’s top tourist attraction and I was happy to see it. However, I was even happier that our private Mumbai guide had helped us explore the city’s everyday life. As always, experiencing a slice of the local lifestyle left us with vivid memories.

The Gateway of India is a monument built during the British Raj in Mumbai, India.

I haven’t written about Vinita before now because I thought she might be hard for you to contact. However, when I spoke with her recently, she said her “kids” were setting her up with an email account for Mother’s Day…and that was the green light I needed.

I’m really pleased to be able to share with you that you can write to Vinita Shahani at vinitashahani@icloud.com or phone her at (91) 9870029764. I just know you’re going to love her, as we did.

Enjoy,

Elizabeth Hansen