Mangalore has thousands of years of it - enough to fill volumes. But don't let the city's prodigious history get in your way of enjoying the place. Despite this depth and complexity of history, Mangalore is pretty much below most travelers' radar, being mostly a way station along India's west coast. The Portuguese knew enough about it, though, to occupy it two hundred years before the British relieved them of the city. Although it's a fairly busy town commercially, you get a curiously rural impression of the place when you arrive, due to the coconut plantations that thickly speckle the landscape. It's active as a manufacturing center as well, producing (among other things) ceramic tiles and coir (coconut fiber). In fact, the tile and coir factories should be on your list of sights to see.