Women-only passenger cars!

Not hard to see why they have these in India. Not sure I’d have felt comfortable travelling without them otherwise.

Trains in Mumbai are very busy and it’s a case of jumping on and grabbing whatever you can to stay on. Luckily the women carriages are far less busy than the men’s ones. I’d have felt incredibly uncomfortable having to hang on for life out of a train door otherwise!

What I noticed about the women of Mumbai is that they have an interesting way of communicating. The carriages are very quiet and rather than speaking to each other, ladies poke and prod each other which signals them to move or make space. It wasn’t uncommon to see everybody practically sitting on top of each other either.

I don’t think personal space is a known term here.

Whilst I can only comment on what it feels like to be a female tourist in Mumbai, I did notice that women seem to stick together in Mumbai.

The ratio of men to women walking the streets is like nothing I’ve ever seen before but perhaps more noticeable to me as every single persons eyes were on me as I wandered around the city. Women would offer help to me in situations where men would take advantage or pretend I was invisible.

There were hours of the day where I didn’t notice a single tourist in Mumbai and that is a strange feeling. But don’t let that put you off if you’re thinking about visiting. Despite the constant staring, I did manage to enjoy exploring part of India!