A morning in Colaba before Mumbai wakes up properly

I got to Colaba just after six, mostly by accident. My flight had landed early, and my hotel room was not ready, so I decided to walk instead of waiting around. That accidental early start turned out to be the best decision of the trip. Colaba before eight in the morning is a completely different neighbourhood from the one most people experience.

Colaba sits at the southern tip of Mumbai, right where the city meets the Arabian Sea. It holds some of the city’s oldest colonial buildings, the Gateway of India among them, along with narrow lanes that later in the day fill with shoppers, vendors and traffic moving in every direction at once. Mumbai has a reputation for constant motion, and Colaba usually lives up to that. But mornings here work on a different rhythm entirely.

Walking toward Mumbai’s Gateway of India before the crowds

The streets near the Gateway of India were nearly empty when I arrived, which is not something I expected from photographs I had seen before the trip. A few joggers moved along the promenade. A person was clearing the sidewalk in front of a store that was not open. The Arabian Sea seemed to be more peaceful than I had thought it would be, with the sunlight catching the water. 

I sat still on the steps next to the Gateway for a while, and I was not doing anything in particular. At nine o’clock, I knew that this same place would be crowded with vendors selling balloons and other things that tourists use for clicking pictures. At six thirty in the morning, it was mostly occupied by people like me, who had come out early to enjoy the calm surroundings.

The old buildings of Mumbai’s Colaba in early light

As I started walking northward from the Gateway, I crossed many colonial buildings in Colaba. The Taj Mahal Palace is located directly opposite the Gateway, which seemed like a silver object against the backdrop of a blue sky losing its daylight. I noticed many things from the gaze of these buildings that I would not see later on, as after a while, the place would be crowded with tourists.

Colaba Causeway, usually one of the busiest shopping stretches in this part of Mumbai, was still mostly shuttered. A few shopkeepers were setting up, pulling shutters open, arranging goods on tables. It gave me an odd sense of watching the neighbourhood get ready, so to speak, before the day started.

Small routines that shape a Colaba morning in Mumbai

I stopped at a small stall for tea, more out of habit than actual planning. The vendor was setting up for the day and seemed mildly surprised to have a customer this early. We did not talk much, but something was grounding about that small routine of a warm cup in hand while the street slowly filled in around me.

By 7:30 a.m., things had changed considerably. More people were walking on the sidewalks, and taxis were lining up at the Gateway. In Colaba, movement increases bit by bit, just like the tide coming in.

Choosing hotels in Mumbai for an early start

If seeing Colaba this way matters to you, hotels in Mumbai near the Gateway make the early start far easier. Staying further out means factoring in traffic, which in this city can undo even a well-planned morning. Several hotels in Mumbai in this stretch offer sea-facing rooms, and waking up already close to the water removes any excuse to sleep through the best hours here.

Why the early hours in Colaba stayed with me in Mumbai

Looking back at that early morning, Colaba gave me a part of itself that very few people experience, peaceful enough to notice the details rather than pass through them. Soon there were crowds, as always in Mumbai, but for the first hours, the area was full of only the liveliest people.