MUMBAI IS INDIA´S MANHATTAN

Red. Yellow. Blue. Green. Orange. Skyscrapers, corrugated iron roofs, black and yellow taxis. In a land of ancient culture, Mumbai is a youngster barely two centuries old. Squeezed on to a peninsula, this lively, cheerful city is like Manhattan, the New York of India, where Bollywood glitter and glamour live side by side with slums.

Four hundred years ago Mumbai was palm trees, fishermen and seven tropical islands, which were incorporated into the British Empire as the dowry of a Portuguese princess. This natural harbour on the Arabian Gulf grew, driven by the cotton industry, into India's most modern and Western city. It's said that Mumbai never sleeps. And you can also buy and eat the whole of India there.

Once, the city was the jewel in the crown of a colonial state, but it is also the location of the home of Mahatma Gandhi, who brought the colonial masters to their knees. Some 200 languages are spoken daily in this metropolis of 18 million inhabitants. The city has many vibrant cultures and religions. Its residents are helpful, amiable cosmopolitans and passionate readers. Paperbacks are sold amid the congested traffic and the soft drinks machines are full of books.

The Mumbai landscape is reminiscent of a 19th-century English industrial town. Slums and affluent areas live side by side, but even so the city is safe for travellers. Mumbai has India's best night life, its busiest airport and international-standard restaurants.

Black and yellow bumblebee taxis, an India copy of a 1950s Fiat, dart in and out of Mumbai's heaving traffic. The city's street names were changed a decade ago and non-one seems to know the new addresses, so directions are given with the aid of landmarks.

The winter season from autumn to April is the best for visiting the city. May is suffocatingly hot. The people of the city like to say that the Monsoon rains begin on 11th June at 4 p.m. August is characterised by magnificent thunderstorms. By October the rains begin to abate.