Mumbai

In the evening, all of Mumbai drifts down to Marine Drive, a long concrete curve along the Arabian Sea whose string of street lamps earned it the name Queen's Necklace. At one end of the bay, the stone arch of the Gateway of India is where boats leave for the Elephanta Caves and their temples cut into rock. The British left behind Gothic palaces and railway stations, above all Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, a Victorian station on the World Heritage list. This is also the capital of Indian cinema, and the Bollywood studios film without a pause. People eat standing up for next to nothing: soft buns stuffed with a spiced potato patty, crisp puffed rice, Alphonso mangoes sold by the crate. And a dense forest holds out inside the city itself at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, where Buddhist caves were carved two thousand years ago.