12 Hours in Mumbai
It begins!
Our trip started, as many good trips do, in the British Airways First Class lounge at London Heathrow, waiting for our flight to Mumbai. We were on BA199, a very old 777 with the newish Club Suites for our 9 hour, 4,500 mile flight.
In my opinion the single greatest benefit of One World Emerald (BA Gold) is the use of the First Class check in and dedicated security area at Terminal 5. From arrival at the airport it takes less than 10 minutes to get to the lounge. Unfortunately, once you are there it’s inevitably completely rammed and impossible to get a good seat. Hopefully the (extremely unpopular) shakeup of BA’s Executive Club will drive down the numbers, and drive up the experience.
Our stopover in Mumbai was driven by three reasons. Firstly, Mumbai to Singapore is one of the routes that Singapore Airlines flies its A380s, which feature their First Class Suites. The route is fairly easy to snag a miles ticket and, even if you can’t, it’s one of the cheapest Suites tickets you can buy with cash. A second driver was the fact that Business and First award seats to India on BA are widely available and not too expensive in miles terms. Thirdly, Mumbai is just an incredible foodie city.
We arranged to meet an old friend of ours who runs Greaves, a luxury India tours business. She flew up from Goa, meeting us with a driver at the airport. Our first stop was Soho House Mumbai for a shower, change of clothes, and a bite of lunch. Soho House Mumbai is in an incredible townhouse building, with a sea view gym, a small but beautiful rooftop pool, and a cinema. We had coffee and a light lunch before setting out on our tour.
We had decided to stay in the western suburb of Bandra for the day as it’s close to the airport and we had limited time before our next flight that evening. Our walking tour took us through Ranwar Village, a tiny enclave of charming colonial bungalows and Art Deco townhouses.
From there it was on to second lunch at around five in the afternoon. We headed to Elco Panipuri, stopping outside first to indulge in the their street food puri, which were filled with crushed pistachios and then dunked in tamarind water: a delicious start!
Inside we moved on to Dahi Puri, Pav Bhaji, and finished off with an excellent Kulfi. I especially enjoyed the sweet buttered buns dipped in the rich veggie curry.
After our second lunch we headed to Pali Bhavan, a dimly lit, stylish restaurant. We had a brace of espresso martini’s before tucking in to an early supper. Of special note was the Avocado Bhel which was both creamy and crunchy and uncommon but most welcome combination.
By 9pm it was time to leave for the airport and our overnight flight in Singapore Airlines Suites.