Kerala Tour with Kanyakumari

Most overseas guests fly into Kochi via Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi and touch down somewhere between midnight and breakfast, which is why Day 1 asks very little of you. Look for our host and a printed name card right after customs; bags go straight into the boot. The ride across the islands to Fort Kochi, where you stay, follows the backwater channels for much of the way and lasts around ninety minutes when roads are clear. Landing at 3 or 4 am? Tell us, and we reserve your room starting the previous evening, so sleep comes first and paperwork later.

By late afternoon the sea breeze picks up and Fort Kochi becomes pleasant for walking. Your guide then picks you up for a short loop on foot through sleepy back lanes, where homes from the Dutch period, with clay-tiled roofs and shuttered windows, share walls with chapels and family homestays. Vasco da Gama Square and a walled Dutch burial ground with mossy 18th-century headstones come next, and then the sea opens up in front of you. Fishing crews there are working the large nets that hang over the channel on teak poles, lowering them into the water and lifting them a few minutes later.

Ships and tankers slide past surprisingly close to shore on their way into Kochi port, one of the busiest on India's west coast, and the light at sunset turns the harbor water a soft orange. Food stalls along the promenade sell fresh coconut water, roasted peanuts and chili-dusted mango slices, all good for a first taste of street snacks. Supper might be prawn curry and rice at a no-frills seafood place a few minutes away on foot, for very little money. A welcome folder waiting in your room holds the day plan, emergency numbers and tips for buying a local SIM. Overnight in Kochi.

Five centuries of foreign trade have left layers in this city, and a guided morning walk peels them back one at a time. Inside St. Francis Church, raised by Portuguese settlers around 1503 and later used by the Dutch and British, a marked slab shows where Vasco da Gama lay for fourteen years before his bones were taken back to Portugal. Walk on and the twin white towers of the Santa Cruz Basilica appear, its interior bright with pastel ceilings and Passion scenes. Princess Street, laid out in colonial times, now mixes old balconied houses with cafés, bookshops and small galleries.

Mattancherry, a short drive east, was the commercial side of town, and the scent of pepper and dried ginger still drifts from its warehouses. Inside the Mattancherry Palace, a two-story building gifted by the Portuguese to the local Raja around 1555, the royal bedchamber glows with Ramayana murals in deep reds, ochres and greens. Strolling on into the old Jewish quarter, you reach the Paradesi Synagogue, consecrated in 1568, its floor laid with blue Canton tiles, each painted by hand and each slightly different. Friday locks both doors, while Saturday and Jewish holy days also keep the synagogue shut; your Kochi days are swapped where needed to fit around that.

Afternoon hours are yours for antique shops, a spice merchant or a nap. As dusk falls you take your seat in a compact Fort Kochi playhouse for Kathakali, the masked-face storytelling dance of Kerala, getting there an hour ahead to watch the performers mix rice paste and natural colors and paint their faces in layers. The show itself runs for about an hour and is introduced by a short explanation of the hand gestures, so the story of gods and demons is easy to follow. Dinner afterwards could be a plate of Kerala parotta with beef or vegetable stew at a busy local eatery. Overnight in Kochi

The road to Munnar leaves the coastal plain near Kothamangalam and starts climbing into the Western Ghats, and the change from humid lowlands to cool hills happens within a couple of hours. Rubber and pineapple plantations give way to cardamom and then to tea, while the bends grow tighter and the views wider. Two waterfalls beside the road, Cheeyappara and Valara, are at their fullest from June to December, and your driver will pull over at both so you can take photos. Small shops near the falls sell hot tea, banana fritters and bags of homemade chocolate.

Lunchtime finds you checking in at a hillside resort or a former planter's bungalow looking across the valleys. Perched roughly 1,600 m above sea level at a meeting point of three streams, Munnar took shape in the 1870s and 1880s once British planters began felling forest for tea. Today the slopes around it are covered in neatly clipped tea bushes, cut into terraces and crossed by narrow paths used by pickers. After lunch, a short walk around the resort or the nearest estate road is the best way to adjust to the altitude and cooler air.

Around four o'clock the guide drives you to Nallathanni, just outside town, where the Kanan Devan company keeps its Tea Museum. Inside, a documentary screening recounts how the High Range estates began, while glass cases hold old rolling machines, planters' photographs and a sundial carved in the early 1900s. A working section lets you follow the process from green leaf to withering, rolling, fermenting and drying, and the tasting counter offers a cup of fresh Munnar tea at the end. Bring a fleece or shawl to dinner, as the temperature after dark often surprises visitors from the coast. Overnight in Munnar.

Mist usually hangs over Munnar until mid-morning, and that cool window is ideal for Eravikulam National Park, an upland expanse of grass and shola woods roughly 15 km north. Private cars stop at the park gate, and an official shuttle climbs the last stretch to Rajamala, where a walking trail follows the hillside and Anamudi, South India's tallest summit at 2,695 m, rises behind. Rangers here guard the Nilgiri tahr, a stocky goat of steep rock faces, confined to these southern ranges, and small groups often wander close to walkers, although an encounter is never certain. Expect the gates to shut for several weeks each year, roughly February into March, while the young are born.

After lunch you drive east along a scenic road that passes Mattupetty Dam, a lake ringed by eucalyptus and tea, and the Echo Point, where people call out across the reservoir and wait for the hills to answer. Paddle boats and speedboats are for rent at the shore if you fancy time on the water. The road then climbs to Top Station, about 32 km from Munnar and right on the border with Tamil Nadu. When cloud allows, the ground plunges away toward Tamil Nadu's lowlands, and long ago a ropeway from here lowered chests of tea down the slope.

Your guide can stop at a tea estate on the way back so you can walk along the rows with a local supervisor and see how the pickers work. Women do nearly all the plucking, and they carry large bags on their heads or backs, nipping off only the newest growth at the top of each bush. The afternoon light is soft at this hour, and the hills turn from bright green to dark shades as the clouds move in. Dinner tonight can include Kerala-style chicken fry or a vegetarian thali, and on cold nights some resorts set up a campfire on the lawn. Overnight in Munnar.

Leaving the tea country after breakfast, the road south runs along the crest of the hills through Devikulam and Poopara, with tea giving way slowly to cardamom estates under tall shade trees. Scenery on this stretch rates highly among Kerala's hill roads, and with time to spare so your driver will stop at viewpoints along the Kallar or near the Anayirangal reservoir if the light is good. Cardamom growers cure their pods in little smoke-blackened drying sheds near the road, and during harvest the sweet, resinous smell drifts in through the car windows. The last stretch drops down to the town of Kumily, the base for visits to Thekkady.

Thekkady is the name of the area around Periyar Lake and the Periyar Tiger Reserve, a protected forest that spreads over the Cardamom Hills on the border with Tamil Nadu. The lake itself was formed in the 1890s when a British engineer built a dam across the Periyar River, flooding the valley. Grey, branchless stumps from the old valley woods stand up through the surface even now, an odd sight on a calm morning. After checking in to your hotel, which is likely to sit at the forest edge, lunch is served on a veranda with views of the trees.

Around four, a stroll with your guide through Kumily shows a border town where cardamom dealers, chai counters and eateries cooking both Malayali and Tamil dishes crowd one main road. After dark, Kalaripayattu performed in a Kumily hall is worth seeing for its fast, acrobatic moves with sticks and swords. Performances last roughly an hour, and you pay at the door if you decide to go. Afterwards, dinner can be a plate of soft appam with chicken stew, a hill-town favorite that most local cafés serve until late. Overnight in Thekkady.

An early start pays off on the first Periyar Lake boat trip, which leaves from the jetty inside the reserve soon after dawn. The forest department runs these trips, and the morning departure is usually the calmest, with mist still sitting on the water and birds such as cormorants and darters drying their wings on the dead tree trunks. Wild elephants, gaur and sambar deer sometimes come down to drink along the shore, although every trip is different and no animal can be promised. Seats on each boat are capped, and your guide stands in line early so you do not have to.

Breakfast over, a short ride brings you to a family-run spice garden on the Kumily outskirts, where the owner shows you black pepper vines growing up silver oak trees, cardamom plants with flowers near their roots and nutmeg fruit splitting open to show the red mace inside. You also see coffee bushes, vanilla orchids and clove trees, and learn how families sun-dry, sort and sell their harvest through local traders. A small shop at the end sells spices packed on the farm, and prices are usually fair compared with the tourist shops in town.

Later in the afternoon a short drive of about 15 km takes you to the Chellarkovil viewpoint, a quiet spot on the edge of the Kerala hills where the land falls away to the flat farmland of Tamil Nadu. Under clear skies the view takes in coconut groves, rice paddies and scattered villages running to the horizon, and a waterfall near the viewpoint flows strongly after the rains. It is a fine place to watch the sunset before returning to Kumily. Optional activities such as bamboo rafting or a guided forest walk can be added, booked through the reserve. Overnight in Thekkady.

An early departure gets you down from the hills and onto the plains by late morning, ready for the noon boarding time at the Alleppey jetty. The route passes through Kottayam district, where rubber plantations, church spires and old trading towns line the road. Your houseboat, built in the style of the traditional kettuvallam, is waiting at the dock, with a crew who greet you with a welcome drink. The boat has a sitting deck at the front, one or more air-conditioned bedrooms with bathrooms and a galley in the stern where the cook works.

Once the open expanse of Vembanad Lake spreads ahead, lunch arrives: fish curry, vegetables cooked with coconut, a thick lentil dal and red rice, followed by sweet bananas. Afterwards the captain steers into slim side channels lined with homes. Schoolchildren in uniforms stroll the mud embankments, women washing pots at their doorsteps, and small shops selling everything from soap to fresh toddy from boats tied at the water's edge. Large rice fields lie below the water level on one side, a feature of the Kuttanad region that has been farmed this way for generations.

By sunset the boat moors for the night, as rules on the Alleppey backwaters require all houseboats to stop moving in the evening. This is a good time for a walk along the bank with one of the crew, who can introduce you to a local family or show you a duck farm. Fritters and sweet milky tea appear around dusk, and dinner might include chicken curry, a vegetable stew and chapatis. Little disturbs the dark except croaking frogs and a fish jumping now and then. Overnight on the houseboat.

Breakfast comes to the deck while the captain motors gently back to the dock, and you are ashore by about nine. Today's drive heads south along the coast road toward Kovalam, a lengthy run broken up nicely by lunch in Varkala, roughly 150 minutes down the road. The route passes through Kayamkulam and Kollam, the old trading port once known as Quilon, where Chinese, Arab and later European ships came for pepper. Lagoons and lakes flash by left and right, and near Kollam colorful fishing craft are pulled up on the sand.

Rust-colored laterite cliffs are Varkala's signature, dropping sheer to the sand, with a narrow walkway along the top crowded by cafés, yoga studios and little shops. Your driver drops you near the north end of the cliff so you can walk along the edge and choose a café for lunch, where fresh grilled fish and coconut curries are local favorites. At the foot of the cliff lies Papanasam, a shoreline Hindus regard as purifying, where mourners come to say prayers for the departed. Above it stands the Janardhana Swamy Temple, which locals believe to be two millennia old.

The last hour and a half of driving takes you past Trivandrum to Kovalam, where your hotel sits above or near one of the town's three crescent-shaped beaches. Spend the evening strolling Lighthouse Beach, the liveliest stretch, where a red and white striped lighthouse stands on a rocky headland. Small restaurants along the sand put out displays of the day's catch on ice, and you can choose a fish or a lobster to be grilled for dinner. Currents off Kovalam get strong, so stay between the lifeguard flags if you swim. Overnight in Kovalam.

Kerala's state capital, Trivandrum (officially Thiruvananthapuram), sits some 16 km up the road from Kovalam, so a morning city tour leaves the afternoon free for the beach. Its name comes from the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, home to an image of Vishnu lying on the coils of the snake Ananta, which became famous in 2011 when vaults full of gold were found beneath it. Entry is for Hindus only, and the temple insists on traditional unstitched clothing, a mundu for men and a sari for women, so other visitors admire the seven-story tower and the tank beside it from the street as your guide tells how the Travancore royal family ruled in the god's name.

Nearby you visit the Napier Museum, set in gardens and housed in a building from the 1880s that mixes Kerala, Mughal and Gothic styles, with a collection of bronzes, carvings and old ornaments. In the same park, the Sree Chitra Art Gallery shows works by Raja Ravi Varma, a Travancore-born artist of the 1800s whose oil paintings of deities still appear on calendars in homes across India. Monday is closing day for most Trivandrum museums, which we keep in mind when fixing dates. The busy Chalai market, near the temple, is a good place to see daily life if you have time.

Back in Kovalam after lunch, the afternoon is yours. You can climb the lighthouse for wide views over the bay, swim at Hawa Beach, or book an Ayurvedic massage, which Kovalam is well known for, at one of the licensed centers near the beach. Late in the day, a short drive to the Vizhinjam fishing harbor, a few minutes south, shows a busy scene of colored boats and fish auctions, with a mosque and a small rock-cut cave temple nearby. Evening is free to enjoy dinner by the sea. Overnight in Kovalam.

Today you cross the state border into Tamil Nadu, though the first stop still belongs to Kerala's history. About 60 km south of Kovalam stands Padmanabhapuram Palace, the old seat of the Travancore kings before they moved their capital to Trivandrum in the late eighteenth century. Its teak and rosewood halls rank among the best surviving wooden palaces in South India, with carved ceilings, glossy dark floors said to be made from burnt coconut shell, egg white and lime, and murals in the private chapel. Since the palace shuts each Monday, this drive never falls on one.

From the palace it is about an hour to Kanyakumari, the last town on the Indian mainland before open water, where the Arabian Sea on the west meets the Bay of Bengal on the east and the open ocean to the south. On the way you can stop briefly at the Suchindram temple, known for its musical pillars and a tall statue of Hanuman. After checking in at your hotel, which ideally has a sea view, your guide shows you around the town's main sights, including the Gandhi Memorial, whose design lets a beam of sunlight fall on one spot each year on his birthday, 2 October, and the Kumari Amman Temple on the shore, dedicated to the virgin goddess.

Toward evening everyone heads for the sunset, best watched from the sunset point near the beach, a short drive from town. In April and October, at the time of the full moon, it is sometimes possible to see the sun set and the moon rise at the same moment over the sea, a rare sight. The beach and seafront road are busy with pilgrims and families, and stalls sell shells, snacks and colored sand collected from the local beaches. Get an early night, since the sunrise is tomorrow's highlight. Overnight in Kanyakumari.

Crowds gather on the shore well before dawn, and seeing the sun climb out of the sea at Kanyakumari is a moving start to your last day. Once you have eaten, your guide steers you to the ferry pier for a ten-minute crossing to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, the island shrine marking where the monk sat in meditation in December 1892. A glass-floored footbridge now links it with the 133-foot Thiruvalluvar Statue on the next rock, honoring the Tamil poet-saint. Lines for the ferry can be long, so going on the first sailings makes sense.

Back on the mainland, you set off for Trivandrum International Airport, around 90 km north, with the timing worked out around your flight. Trivandrum's terminal offers direct services to several Gulf cities plus Indian hubs for onward international flights. An afternoon or evening departure leaves time to stop for lunch en route. We hope your eleven days, from Kochi's harbor to the tip of India, have given you a full picture of the south, and we would welcome the chance to plan a future trip with you.