Coorg to Wayanad by Road — Two Hill Districts, Mysuru to Kozhikode in Four Nights

Your driver meets you in Mysuru — at the railway station, the airport or in the city — and heads west. The one stop is Bylakuppe, the Tibetan settlement in Mysuru district, for Namdroling Monastery, known as the Golden Temple; it is a working monastery, so dress and behave accordingly. Kushalnagar, in Kodagu, is a few kilometres on. We plan on about three hours of driving in all, more if your stay lies beyond Madikeri. The evening is free, and after a travel day it should be.

Start with a walk through a coffee estate, arranged at or near where you are staying: coffee under shade trees, pepper climbing the trunks. Then Abbey Falls, about 9 km from Madikeri, reached through estate land and worth it only when there is water behind it. The afternoon is Madikeri: the Omkareshwara temple of 1820, then Raja’s Seat, the garden viewpoint west of the bus stand, for sunset. Talacauvery, where the Kaveri rises, is a little under 50 km out; it can replace the falls and the town, but not join them.

The road day, and the reason this trip exists as a route. Leave after breakfast and drive down through Kodagu, then into Kerala on the forest road that passes Tholpetty, the northern range of the Wayanad sanctuary. We plan on four to five hours, depending on where your two stays are. Tholpetty runs jeep safaris in a morning and an afternoon session; if your timing and the day’s slots allow, the afternoon one can be added, and we never promise it. Otherwise continue by Mananthavady to your stay.

Edakkal first, and early: entry is capped at 1,920 people a day and the gate can close to latecomers. The caves are high on Ambukuthi hill, and the way up is a steep climb on foot to rock walls covered in old engravings of figures and signs. After lunch the car crosses the plateau to Banasura Sagar, 21 km from Kalpetta, for the dam and a boat on the reservoir if you want one. Edakkal is closed on Mondays; when day 4 is a Monday, the caves move to the morning of day 5.

Pookode Lake is on the way out, about 12 km from Kalpetta: a freshwater lake ringed by forest, with a path round it and boats from nine. An hour is enough. From there the road drops off the plateau by the Thamarassery ghat to the coast. Kozhikode’s airport is about 71 km from the lake and its railway station about 62 km; we allow about three hours to either, since the ghat is slow behind lorries. Book a departure from mid-afternoon onward — later if Edakkal has moved to this morning.