Girgaon

Girgaon in full

Girgaon is the old Marathi middle of the city, inland from Girgaon Chowpatty and hung off Charni Road station on the Western Line. This is chawl and wadi country: Kandewadi, Gaiwadi, Khotachiwadi, Thakurdwar, streets of four-storey tenements with common balconies, wooden staircases and a temple at the end of nearly every lane. Rents here still house schoolteachers and shopkeepers rather than expats, and the difference in how the neighbourhood behaves at 7am — milk, flowers, hawkers, temple bells — is the reason to stay.

Khotachiwadi is the set piece: a 19th-century East Indian and Portuguese-style village of pitched-roof bungalows with external wooden staircases, tucked off Jagannath Shankarsheth Marg. Around 25 of the original 65 houses survive, painted in blues and ochres, and the designer James Ferreira's house is the best known. It is a residential lane, not an attraction — walk it slowly, do not photograph through windows, and buy something from the little shops if you want to be welcome. Christmas week is when it is at its most decorated.

By 9pm Girgaon has largely put its shutters down. The eating is early and cheap: Vinay Health Home near Thakurdwar does misal, sabudana vada and piyush for ₹80 to ₹150 and closes well before the city's late crowd starts; the Chowpatty stalls run until about 11pm; Sardar Pav Bhaji up at Tardeo goes later with a ₹250 plate swimming in butter. The Royal Opera House on Mama Parmanand Marg, restored in 2016 after decades dark, sells tickets around ₹500 to ₹4,000 for concerts and screenings, and its interior alone justifies the price.

Where to stay, and what it costs

Look at the streets between Charni Road station and Girgaon Chowpatty — Sandhurst Road, Jagannath Shankarsheth Marg, the blocks off Prarthana Samaj — where small business hotels and family-run lodges run ₹3,000 to ₹6,500 a night and a sea-view room at the Chowpatty end can be had for ₹7,000 to ₹9,000. Serviced apartments around Opera House are the smart long-stay option at roughly ₹65,000 to ₹1,10,000 a month. Standards are patchy: insist on seeing the room, check the water pressure and whether the air conditioning is a window unit, and confirm the lift exists. Avoid ground-floor rooms on the main roads, where traffic starts at 6am and Ganpati loudspeakers can run past midnight in season. Avoid the very cheapest lodges near the station touting hourly rates. Book anything for September and for Diwali week at least a month ahead.

Getting in and out

Charni Road station on the Western Line is the anchor: Churchgate in six minutes, Bandra in 20, Andheri in 32, tickets ₹10 to ₹15 second class. From the airport, 24 km and 55 to 95 minutes by road for ₹600 to ₹900; cheaper and greener is a cab to Andheri station and a fast train down for under ₹150 all in. Metro Line 3 serves the Girgaon and Grant Road side of the district. Inside Girgaon, walk — the lanes are single-file and taxis cannot use most of them. Autorickshaws are not permitted in the island city south of Mahim, so it is taxis or feet. Street parking is effectively nonexistent.

One more thing

This is the value base of south Mumbai — rooms at half the Marine Drive rate, the promenade an eight-minute walk away, Charni Road station on the doorstep for a ₹15 train to Bandra. It suits budget-conscious business travellers on long stays and anyone who prefers a working neighbourhood to a hotel district. Skip it in the second week of September, when Ganeshotsav processions close the lanes for days: Girgaon is the birthplace of the public festival, Keshavji Naik Chawl having started it in 1893, and the crowds are immense.

Yes if you want a real neighbourhood at half the price of the seafront and do not need international hotel standards. Rooms run ₹3,000 to ₹6,500, English is widely understood, and Marine Drive is an eight-minute walk. Inspect the room before paying, and expect early nights and early mornings.

1 hotel in Girgaon

The Sahil Hotel