10 Best Things About Bombay
The other side of Bombay
The neighborhood of choice for fashionistas, film idols, and the just plain rich, Bandra is an hour from downtown by car, give or take five hours in Bombay's notorious traffic. Seaside condo towers and trendy taquerías as give Bandra a vaguely Californian vibe, and Regent recently opened a hotel on a swath of oceanfront. It's not as polished as it sounds—the streets are lined with rubble and filled with fume-sputtering auto rickshaws—but it's a welcome escape from the urban core.
Bandra's nightlife and shopping are also big with the young middle class, who flock from the city center on weekends. Their parents may have been happy to drink tea from roadside chai wallahs, but this generation goes for icy "Brrr-ista" coffee shakes at Barista, one of a chain of espresso bars. Bandra's branches are packed with teenagers playing Scrabble—and, yes, the word chaiwallah (21 points) is acceptable.
