Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), the capital of Karnataka, sits at the southern tip of the Deccan, an area of undulating plains in southern India 500km (300 miles) southeast of Goa. The state has 250km (150 miles) of coastline on the west coast but the city of Bengaluru itself is 330km (200 miles) from the sea.

The area was the setting for EM Foster's A Passage to India. Its history mirrors that of India as a whole, in that the old Hindu rulers, like Kempegowda, gave way to the Moghuls, like Tipu Sultan, in the 1700s, to the British in the 1800s, followed by the period of independence since 1947.

Bengaluru's original broad, quiet streets and ample greenery, which gave it the title ‘The Garden City', have been replaced by the tower blocks, traffic jams and pollution of ‘Silicon Valley'.

The transformation began in the 1960s when the government located defence and telecoms research establishments there and it has gone on from there to be the centre of software development (over half of the country's software exports come from there), home to many multinational companies, and the focus of European and American outsourcing.

The population has doubled in the past five years and is now racing towards 8 million. The modern developments have tended to overwhelm the historic elements but there are some relics, such as Tipu's Palace, in the old town to the south. The plus side of things is that there is a huge choice of restaurants, pubs, clubs and cinemas in Bengaluru.