TRAVEL to India and be surprised by what you find in Mumbai, the city which made Slumdog Millionaire an Oscar winning movie.

THE  PROSPECT of stepping foot inside a slum used to hold as much appeal as swimming in a pool of piranhas. Two things changed my mind. I read Vikas Swarup's Q&A, the fictional rags-to-riches tale of a slumdwelling tea-boy and inspiration for the hugely successful Danny Boyle film Slumdog Millionaire; and I heard of a tour that promises to show there is more to slum life than poverty and deprivation.

Mumbai is said to have more billionaires than Dallas, San Francisco and Tokyo but more than half its 21million people live in the 200-plus slums spread across the city. The biggest one, and the largest in Asia, in fact, is Dharavi. Its seeds were planted by migrants from rural areas in the 19th century and today it spans a mind-boggling 425 acres (212 football pitches). This sprawl is home to a million men, women and children, not to mention scores of cows, goats, stray cats and dogs.

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On my walking tour, which was led by a polite young Indian called Girish, Dharavi compounded many slum clichés: mazes of flimsy shacks cobbled together from wood, corrugated iron and plastic sheets; wretched souls dressed in rags; filthy streams that doubled up as outdoor toilets. The stench in some spots was unbearable.

Yet the slum seemed normal in other ways. Electricity was widespread and well-constructed roads buzzed with auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, bicycles and Mumbai's iconic "Bumblebee" black and yellow taxis. Sturdy brick homes and half-a-dozen high-rises rubbed shoulders with mosques, Hindu temples, food stalls and markets.

An internet café, a bank and a few cinemas were among the more surprising elements.

We stepped inside a ramshackle picture-house to find the patrons sitting on a wooden floor watching the latest Bollywood hit. "As you can see, they don't do seats in Dharavi cinemas, " whispered Girish. I pondered whether they would soon be watching Slumdog Millionaire and comparing its depiction of their lives with their own experience.

Elsewhere, toddlers fluttered kites while their sari-clad mothers looked on, and happy-go-lucky teenagers played cricket on a rubbish dump using a lump of wood for a bat, a box for a wicket.

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Leisure time in Dharavi is sacred. I saw people milling around, reading newspapers, smoking and drinking milky chai.

There is a fierce work ethic as well, however. The slum has thousands of manual labour industries that yield an estimated annual turnover of £450million.

We visited tanners, potters, welders, bakers, carpenters and people recycling tons of plastic, cardboard and aluminium. Most of the work looked torturous; our zealous health and safety officials would be aghast. To add insult to (fairly common) injury, men earn no more than 250 rupees (around £3) per day; women get half that.

Dharavi's days are numbered.

Maharashtra's state government has vowed to demolish the slum and replace it with new homes, roads, parks, hospitals and schools. It sounds good on paper but Girish said residents worried whether there would be room for everyone in the "new" Dharavi.

As the tour ended, I was almost sad to leave the relative sanctuary for mainstream Mumbai and its swarming beggars and tricksters.

In Dharavi, no one approached me for anything more than a chat or a handshake. The people I met were inquisitive, friendly and genuine and I felt completely safe.

While I emerged even more grateful that I don't have to live in a slum, visiting one for a day was surprisingly rewarding.

GETTING THERE:

Dharavi slum tours (www.realitytoursandtravel.com) are available from 400 Rupees (£5.70), and take place twice daily.

BA Holidays (0844 493 0758/ www.ba.com) offers four nights' B&B at the Kohinoor Continental in Mumbai from £654pp (two sharing), including return BA flights from Heathrow.

India Tourism: 020 7437 3677/ www.incredibleindia.org