The Quiet End of Kerala

Fort Kochi on foot and by tuktuk, which is the right way through the spice market — lanes stacked with pepper, ginger and cardamom, and warehouses that have been doing the same trade for four hundred years. St Francis Church, where Vasco da Gama was first buried; Santa Cruz Basilica; the Dutch cemetery; Jew Town and the synagogue; the Dutch Palace. The Chinese fishing nets work the waterfront exactly as they have since the fourteenth century. In the evening, a KathakaliKathakaliThe classical dance-theatre of Kerala, in which heavily painted and costumed performers enact episodes from the epics through codified gesture and eye movement.Read in the glossary performance — arrive early for the makeup, which is the better half.

The drive inland to Athirappilly, where the Chalakudy river comes off an eighty-foot ledge and is the largest waterfall in Kerala. Arrive and check in; the rest of the day is free, and the sound of the falls carries a long way before you see them.

A half-hour walk brings you close enough to the falls to feel small, and most people stay far longer than they planned. Then a forest walk through the rainforest around them. If it can be arranged, the day also includes watching a cook from the Kadar tribe work — tapioca and fish cooked in charred bamboo over wood smoke, a method no modern technique improves on. This needs at least five days' notice and depends on whether a cook from the community is free; it is a genuine privilege rather than a scheduled item, and we will tell you honestly in advance whether it is happening.

East out of Kerala and up into the Nilgiris via Coimbatore. Coonoor sits at 6,000 feet and is the second town of the hills after Ooty — quieter, greener, and better for it, with wildflowers and birds that do not occur anywhere lower. Arrive and check in; the afternoon is yours.

To Coonoor station for the 10:40 to Ooty on the Nilgiri Mountain Railway — a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the only rack railway of its kind still running in India. It takes eighty minutes to cover the distance and is worth every one of them: forested hillsides, tea estates, and the small towns of the hills passing at walking pace. Met at Ooty by your driver for the Rose Garden and Doddabetta, the highest point in the Nilgiris, then back down to Coonoor by road.

Down out of the Nilgiris and north to the Kabini river. This was the private hunting reserve of the Wodeyar kings of Mysore, and later a favourite shikarShikarThe princely hunt of old India, and the whole apparatus of lodges, camps and elephant-back shooting that surrounded it.Read in the glossary ground of British viceroys and Indian royalty — the same forest, put to a considerably better use now. Arrive and settle in; the afternoon is free.

Two safaris today, morning and afternoon. Kabini holds tiger, leopard, elephant and — the reason a good many people come — one of the most reliable black panther sightings anywhere in India. The reservoir draws elephant herds down to the water in numbers that are hard to believe until you are sitting in front of them. Nothing is guaranteed, which is the point.

West into Wayanad, which holds some of the oldest coffee, tea and cardamom plantations in India and, between them, valleys of paddy. This is one of the richest biodiversity hotspots on earth, and also a district of ancient ruins, mountain caves, tribal communities and a startling amount of legend. Arrive and check in.

A day out into the district — the waterfalls, Chembra Peak with its heart-shaped tarn near the summit, and Pookot Lake. How much you do is up to you; the resort is the kind of place where doing rather less is a defensible choice, and the afternoon is deliberately left free for exactly that.

A free morning, then down to the backwaters and onto the houseboat — a traditional Keralan rice barge converted, spacious, and slow by design. The channels feed the paddy fields and eventually open to the sea. What you watch all afternoon is ordinary life along the banks: washing, water carried home, gardens, men fishing with the same nets their fathers used, people walking to the temple. Towards evening the birds come in to roost in flocks and the sky does something remarkable. Dinner is on board, under the stars.

Breakfast on board, then ashore and on to Nileshwar. Neeleshwar Hermitage is built to the principles of Kerala Vastu across twelve landscaped acres — thatched bungalows, an infinity pool, and a palm-lined beach directly in front. There is a serious AyurvedicAyurvedaA traditional Indian system of medicine that treats health as a balance between three bodily humours, or doshas.Read in the glossary practice here rather than a spa menu, and three nights is enough for it to start working.

A village day, and the best one of the fortnight. You meet people, and you watch the areca harvest — men going up palms forty feet tall with nothing but a foot loop, then swinging the whole tree across to the next one rather than climbing down. A ferry across the river, and fresh toddyToddyThe fermented sap of a palm tree, drunk fresh as a mild, sour, cloudy beer.Read in the glossary if you want it. In the afternoon a plantation walk through coconut and areca, rubber and pepper vines on the hillside, which gives you a clear picture of how the living here has always been made.

A full day with no fixed plan. What is on offer, if you want it: cycling, the sixteenth-century Bekal fort on its headland, birdwatching, a yoga session, or a consultation with the resident Ayurvedic doctor. Equally defensible is the beach and the pool and none of the above.

After breakfast, the 76km drive to Kannur airport for the connection to Kochi and onward flights home.