Day 9 - Mumbai, Maharashtra

We arrived at our last city on our Indian adventure. I found it interesting that Mumbai is the second largest city in the world with approximately 14 million people! We started off our morning by going to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. We wanted to go to the park early before it got too hot in the afternoon. The park was about 40 minutes from Mumbai’s city center. We took the train which left the Churchgate station and it only cost us 102 Rupees for a one way ticket. The Churchgate station was packed with people. We were nervous that we wouldn’t be able to actually get a spot on the train. When we finally got to the Borivli station, we took an auto rickshaw (a small three wheeled taxi) to the entrance of the park. It cost 20 rupees to enter the park! The park was so peaceful, relaxing, and full of luscious green trees. We saw quite a few people mediating and just taking in the nature.

Sanjay Gandhi National Park

The Kanheri Caves were one of the highlights at the park. The caves are monuments cut out of the rock on the hills of the park which were created over 2400 years ago by Buddhist residents. It was quite the climb to arrive at the caves!

Kanheri Caves1

Kanheri Caves2

After an adventurous morning, we decided to head back to the city center. We grabbed a train and decided that our next stop would be to see the Gateway to India. The Gateway of India is a monument located on the waterfront in the Southern part of the city. It was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Bombay in 1911. The monument is the most famous in Mumbai and it is the first thing ships will see when sailing into the city. We decided after getting a few good photographs of Gateway of India, we would go for an authentic Indian dinner. After dinner, we took a horse drawn glided carriage that took us around the city to see some more architecture of the city.

Gateway to India