Our journey started in the bustling port city of Mumbai (Bombay), home to Asia’s oldest stock exchange. Then we moved on to visit high-tech campuses in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The latter is only miles from the ancient city of Golconda, once renowned for its diamonds. From there, we were off to green Kochi on the Malabar Coast, with its many coconut trees, rice paddies and slow-moving rivers. We wound up the trip in the north – traveling to Jaipur, in hot and dry Rajasthan, then to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and, finally, to the dusty capital city of Delhi

In Delhi, I walked through the old market of Chandni Chowk, which I had read so much about. Once it was a destination for camel trains from Kashgar, traders carrying jasper and sardonyx, cinnamon logs from Madagascar and much more. Today, it’s still a busy market, lined with shops where you can buy just about anything.