Kerala Hill Stations Tour

Welcome to Kerala. Your Kochi host stands in the arrivals area of Cochin International Airport, easy to spot by the card bearing your name; that sedan or SUV, and its driver, will stay yours for every hill road this week. Reaching Fort Kochi needs about ninety minutes, over the bridges of Ernakulam and across Willingdon Island to the old peninsula. During that ride your host goes over the week, confirms the time of your homebound flight and covers small practical points like buying a local SIM, paying by card or UPI, and keeping some small rupee notes for tips. Standard check-in in Kerala is at 2 pm; for a pre-dawn landing, paying for the previous night secures a bed the moment you walk in.

At about four, rested and showered, you meet a local guide who leads an easy stroll around the old quarter, a compact area that suits jet-lagged legs. Fort Kochi was a Portuguese, then Dutch, then British trading post, and the grid of narrow streets still carries all three layers. You pass the walled grounds of St. Francis Church, a walled Dutch-era burial ground usually viewed through its gate, and several colonial-era houses that now hold galleries, bakeries and small guesthouses. The guide points out how the town drew merchants from Arabia, China and Europe long before the colonial powers arrived, mainly for black pepper from the same hills you will see later this week.

The walk ends on the seafront, where a line of cantilevered Chinese fishing nets stands against the evening sky at the mouth of the harbor. Watch a crew lower one of the big frames into the water and pull it up again with the weight of a few round stones, and notice how the catch, usually small mullet or prawns, is sold within minutes from tables on the promenade. Across the channel, cranes at the Vallarpadam container port remind you that Kochi is still a working harbor. For dinner, ask your guide for a recommendation; the choice runs from plain fish-curry canteens to courtyard restaurants in restored merchant houses. Overnight in Kochi.

Leave Kochi after an unhurried breakfast, because the climb into the hills is best started once the city traffic has thinned. The first hour runs through flat farmland and rubber plantations around Kothamangalam, where tapped trees stand in neat rows with small cups tied to their trunks to collect latex. Beyond Neriamangalam you cross Kerala's longest river, the Periyar, and the gradient starts in earnest as forest closes over the road. Two cascades, Cheeyappara and Valara, drop almost onto the tarmac here, and your driver pulls in so you can walk to the viewing spots; they carry most water from June to November. Monkeys gather near the parking area, so keep snacks inside the car.

Above Adimali the vegetation changes again. Cardamom grows under tall shade trees, pepper vines climb the trunks, and small family spice gardens sell fresh cloves and nutmeg from roadside counters. Many visitors like to stop at one of these farms for a short look around, though the full plantation walk is saved for Thekkady. The last stretch climbs through the first Munnar tea gardens, where the bushes are clipped to waist height and spread over every slope like a green carpet. Munnar comes into sight soon after lunchtime, and your tea estate resort greets you with a pot brewed from leaf picked on the slope outside.

Late in the day, a walk on an estate lane lets you meet the pickers heading home, sacks of green leaf on their heads, toward the collection point where every load is weighed and recorded. British and Scottish planters started felling forest here late in the nineteenth century, and Munnar grew around their offices, churches and club; large tea companies still run most of the surrounding land today. Evenings here are cool from November to February, sometimes dropping close to 10°C, so bring a warm layer and a light rain jacket. Dinner is at the resort, where kitchens often serve Kerala dishes alongside simple continental options. Overnight in Munnar.

Head out to Eravikulam National Park early, before the day visitors from Kochi; the park guards montane grassland and pockets of shola woodland below Anamudi, a 2,695-meter peak that no summit further south in India can match. Cars are left below at the ticket office, and a park shuttle carries everyone up the slope to Rajamala, where a single tarred walkway runs along the hill. Its star resident, the Nilgiri tahr, wears short curved horns and survives only on cliffs and grass of these southern ranges; small herds frequently feed close to the path, but nature keeps its own schedule. When the tahr give birth, normally in February and March, the park stays shut for some weeks, and during that window we swap in a longer guided walk through the tea estates.

Back near town, the KDHP Tea Museum at Nallathanni gives a clear picture of how leaf becomes tea. Inside you find hand-cranked rollers, sepia portraits of early planters and a documentary screening, followed by a small processing line where you can follow the leaf from withering troughs to the drying chamber. It is a good place to learn why leaf grown at this height brews paler and more fragrant than lowland tea, and what separates orthodox leaf from the granular CTC grade used in most teabags. At the tasting counter you can try several grades, and packed tea is sold at factory prices. The museum normally closes on Mondays, so on that day the visit moves to the next morning before your departure.

Post-lunch, the road east leads to Mattupetty Dam, whose long reservoir sits among cattle pastures run by an Indo-Swiss dairy project; speedboats operate when the level is high enough. A little further on lies Echo Point, a lakeside spot where visitors shout across the water for fun, and the Kundala lake with its small pedal boats. On a cloudless afternoon you can push on to Top Station at the Tamil Nadu border, where the ridge falls sharply toward the Theni plains; allow roughly two extra hours for the round trip. The day ends back at your resort with tea and the sound of crickets from the slopes. Overnight in Munnar.

Few foreign visitors drive the inner road from Munnar to Vagamon, and that is reason enough to take it. You head south through Rajakkad and the cardamom country around Idukki, where the hills grow steeper and the villages smaller. The route skirts the Idukki reservoir, one of Kerala's largest, held back by a tall concrete arch dam built across a narrow gorge in the 1970s. The authorities only open the dam crest to visitors at certain times of year, though a roadside lookout over the reservoir is reachable any day. Expect slow progress on the curves and plan a tea break at a roadside shop serving banana fritters and sweet milky chai.

Lunch is waiting at your Vagamon stay, a small hill resort or family-run homestay, once you arrive around midday. The afternoon belongs to the Vagamon meadows, wide rolling slopes of short grass with almost no trees, where the wind blows steadily and local families come to walk and fly kites. Nearby is the Vagamon pine forest, planted decades ago, where straight rows of tall pines grow on a steep hillside and the ground is soft with fallen needles. Film crews from Kerala often shoot scenes here, and on a misty day the forest has an almost northern European feel, which surprises most guests who expected palm trees everywhere in this state.

Toward evening, drive to the base of Kurisumala, a hill topped by a cross and a small chapel, where Christian pilgrims climb on foot during Lent. Nearby sits a Cistercian monastery known for its dairy farm, and the view from the slopes takes in tea estates, meadows and distant ridges fading into blue. Paragliding is offered at Vagamon by licensed operators in the dry months, and we can arrange a tandem flight as an optional extra if conditions permit. Vagamon has few restaurants, so dinner is usually at your resort, often a home-style Kerala meal with appam and vegetable stew. Overnight in Vagamon.

Rise early if you want to see Vagamon at its best, when fog lies in the valleys and the meadows are still wet with dew. After breakfast, a short stop at Thangal Para, a large rocky outcrop with a Sufi shrine on top, rounds off your time in this quiet hill town. The drive to Thekkady is short by Kerala standards, running along a ridge through small tea gardens and down toward the Tamil Nadu border at Kumily. By late morning your bags are in your room on the fringe of the Periyar Tiger Reserve, close to 925 square kilometers of protected hill forest wrapped around a man-made lake.

Before lunch, a local guide leads you through a working Thekkady spice plantation. Pepper climbs the trunks of silver oak, cardamom grows in leafy clumps with its pods sprouting at the base, and a torn cinnamon leaf rubbed between your fingers smells like a bakery. Your guide also shows you nutmeg, cloves, vanilla orchids, turmeric and coffee, and explains how many of these crops shaped the trade routes that drew Europeans to Kerala. Most farms finish with a stall selling their own produce, and buying cardamom and pepper here is cheaper and fresher than in airport shops. Lunch is at a nearby restaurant in Kumily town.

Later you board the official Periyar boat ride, a forest department launch on a reservoir born in 1895 when the Mullaperiyar dam blocked the river. Dead tree trunks still rise from the water, and the banks are often visited by deer, wild boar, gaur and sometimes elephants, though wildlife is never guaranteed. Seats on each sailing are capped, so your driver or guide lines up for tickets on your behalf. In the evening you watch a Kalaripayattu show in Kumily, where performers demonstrate Kerala's ancient martial art with sticks, swords, shields and acrobatic leaps across a sunken arena. Afterward, take a stroll along the Kumily spice shops before dinner. Overnight in Thekkady.

Today is mainly about covering ground, because the hills of the north sit far from the southern ranges. You leave Thekkady soon after breakfast and descend through Kuttikanam and Mundakayam, where rubber estates replace the tea and the air turns warmer. The road then follows the plains past Kottayam to Ernakulam, the busy mainland half of Kochi. You are at the station well before departure, and a licensed porter in a red shirt carries the luggage to your coach. We reserve reclining seats in an air-conditioned coach weeks ahead and email the e-ticket to you.

The train runs north along the coast through Thrissur, Shoranur and Tirur, crossing wide rivers and passing village churches, mosques and temple ponds that show how mixed Malabar society has always been. Vendors walk the aisles with coffee, cutlets and vadas. On arrival at Kozhikode, a colleague from our Malabar office waits by your coach door, and the hotel is only a few minutes by road. If you arrive before dark, walk along Kozhikode beach, where families gather on the sand and vendors sell grilled corn and lime soda. Overnight in Kozhikode.

Spend the first hours of the day in old Kozhikode, known to early European traders as Calicut and once the seat of the Zamorin rulers. Your guide takes you to the Kuttichira quarter, where the Mishkal Mosque, a tall wooden structure from the 14th century, stands beside a large pond and shows how Kerala builders adapted local temple carpentry to Islamic worship. Visitors may view it from outside and enter respectfully at suitable times with modest clothing. Nearby SM Street earned its English name, Sweet Meat Street, from the trays of jelly-like Kozhikode halwa sold here in deep reds, greens and near-black shades, flavored with coconut, dates or cashew.

Before noon the car turns inland, and the coconut palms of the coast thin out as the mountains come into view. The highlight of the drive is the Thamarassery ghat road, which climbs about 700 meters through nine hairpin bends with forest on both sides. Your driver will take it slowly, especially on weekends when traffic builds. From the crest at the Lakkidi viewpoint, the hairpins you just climbed coil below, and on a dry winter day the haze lifts enough to make out the coastal plain. Shortly after comes Pookode Lake, a small natural lake whose outline some say resembles India itself, with rowboats for hire and a shaded footpath circling the water.

Wayanad is a district of coffee, pepper and tea plantations mixed with paddy fields and forest, and many of its farms still belong to families who have worked the land for generations. Tonight's room is on a working plantation, and before sunset the hosts usually lead guests between the coffee rows to show how robusta cherries ripen and are spread out on concrete yards to dry. After dark the estate goes quiet apart from crickets and the occasional call of a nightjar. Dinner is often a Wayanad meal of rice, fish or chicken curry and bamboo shoot dishes prepared in the local style. Overnight in Wayanad.

Evening departures leave the morning open for the Edakkal Caves above Ambalavayal, where a stiff climb of up to half an hour on ramps and iron steps leads to the entrance. The cave is really a fissure under a fallen boulder, and its walls are scratched with prehistoric figures wearing headdresses, along with animals, wheels and later inscriptions in early scripts. Sturdy shoes help, and the site is closed on Mondays, in which case we go to the Banasura Sagar dam instead. Afterward a shower and lunch at the plantation set you up for the road.

Coming down the ghat and across Malappuram district to Calicut International Airport at Karipur needs roughly three and a half hours, and we leave extra time for the hairpins and for long security lines. Karipur is well served by Gulf carriers, so reaching North America, Europe or Australia means one change, and Indian airlines add routes via Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. Your Kerala hill stations tour has linked a spice port, four sets of mountains and a medieval trading city in eight days; if the backwaters or beaches call you back, we would be glad to build the next trip. Safe travels home.