There is a huge botanical garden, Bombay Port Trust (or Sagar Upvan), hidden away in Colaba, with a view of the sea, a glass-covered cactus garden and huge trees with butterflies hovering around. This is a 12-acre park, with huge green lawns, and beautiful trees and through it a wide running track covering a distance of 650 metres all the way around. We began our expedition into this with awe and wonderment that such a huge green space exists in Mumbai and walked our way through. To our side, there were rolling hills and slopes in the landscape that reminded us of the tumble-down games that we played as children.
We liked that the park understood our non-athleticism so well, and kept ready benches and single-seats to collapse on (or sit and admire the view from) every few metres. There are also quite a few gazebos which we could sit inside. It was a bit like an enchanted forest, there was just rustling of the leaves, a soft sound of the waves and the loud chatter of the birds are what you would hear here. Tree trunks were horizontally placed on the grass to sit on, huge trees under which to have a picnic and stone walls to walk past with big pink flowers on creepers were hanging down.
Our favourite bit? The view of the Arabian Sea. We sat on the beautiful benches facing the sea and could see the fishermen at bay with their colourful boats. While the view was calming, we would happily like to report, that the stench of fish is absent here. We also loved the massive trees reminding us of the whomping willow, adding to the own-worldness of it all. There was also a structure with a winding staircase to go stand atop and look down upon the whole garden, and the butterflies that would touch and disappear into the leaves. Lastly, as we were about to make an exit out of the garden we came across a greenhouse with a covered roof and inside it were cacti of all shapes and sizes, with less thorny, succulent leaves, and baby cacti too.
Timings: Morning: 6:30 AM to 12:00 noon and Evening: 3:30 PM to 6:30 PM