BEST Double-Decker Bus Upper-Deck Ride

Mumbai is the last Indian city where double-decker buses still work an everyday timetable, and climbing the stairs to the upper deck remains one of the cheapest and least hurried ways to read the city.

• BEST — the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport undertaking, the municipal operator that also gives the buses their name — put its first double-deckers on the road in the late 1930s, and for roughly eight decades the red two-storey bus was as much a Mumbai shorthand as the black-and-yellow taxi.
• The last of the old diesel double-deckers were withdrawn in 2023 to considerable public affection; air-conditioned electric double-deckers have since taken over the duty on selected routes, so the two-storey ride continues even though the silhouette and the colour have changed. The ride is unstructured sightseeing.
• There is no commentary, no fixed tourist circuit and no guide — only a working public bus doing its job while you sit at roughly first-floor height above the traffic.
• From the front bench the eye runs along the colonnaded stone arcades of the Fort district, over the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco frontages that together make up the UNESCO-listed ensemble of central Mumbai, past the maidans with their perpetual cricket, and, if the route turns west along the bay, alongside the long grey curve of Marine Drive.
• Junctions that feel merely chaotic at street level resolve from above into legible geometry: tram-era street widths, deep shaded verandahs, ornamented parapets and dated nameplates that nobody ever notices from the footpath.
• Catching one takes patience rather than planning.
• Double-decker workings are assigned to a handful of routes at a time and the allocation changes, so the practical method is to wait at a busy South Mumbai stop — the Colaba terminus, Regal Circle, the Churchgate stands or the CSMT-side kerb — and board whichever two-storey bus is heading roughly your way.
• Fares are municipal-cheap, a few rupees for a short hop; the conductor issues a paper ticket on board, so carry small change.
• The staircase is steep, standing upstairs is not permitted, and buses brake hard in traffic, so hold the rail.
• Eat before or after rather than on board.
• South Mumbai is unusually well supplied with vegetarian-only kitchens: the Fort and Kala Ghoda lanes hold long-established Gujarati and Rajasthani thali halls where an unlimited plate arrives in a dozen small bowls; Udupi-style cafes around CSMT and Ballard Estate serve idli, medu vada, upma and filter coffee from early morning; and the snack counters along Colaba Causeway run to chaat, ragda pattice, pav bhaji and Sindhi-style tikki.
• Mumbai is also a major seafood city, so never assume — look for a clear pure-vegetarian board at the door and confirm with the counter before ordering, particularly in mixed-menu cafes.