Kerala Honeymoon Escape

Met at Kochi airport or Ernakulam station and driven east without a night in the city, so the nights go where the landscape is. Coconut and paddy give way to rubber, then cardamom and pepper as the road climbs past Adimali, and finally tea. Around four hours, with the Cheeyappara and Valara falls beside the road on the way up — worth the stop when there is water behind them, which means the monsoon and the months after it. Munnar sits near 1,600 m and the evening is cold enough to want a layer; nothing is scheduled beyond arriving.

Eravikulam at opening, then nothing scheduled. Estate walks, a plantation lunch and an afternoon that belongs to you rather than to an itinerary.

Down out of the tea and south along the ridge, around three and a half hours, to Kumily on the Tamil Nadu border. The afternoon is a plantation walk at your own pace — cardamom under shade, pepper on the trunks — and the evening is the Kathakali show in town, which is included. The dawn boat on Periyar lake the next morning is there for couples who want the wildlife; it is optional, and the day works without it.

Leave after breakfast, or after the first boat slot if you took it, and drop west out of the hills to Kumarakom, about three and a half hours: open Vembanad water rather than canals, and the night is aboard your own private houseboat rather than a shared one. Sunset on open water from your own deck, and the bird sanctuary at dawn the next morning if you are here between November and February.

A last morning on the water, then the transfer to Kochi airport, about two and a half hours, which makes a flight after about one in the afternoon comfortable. Extend by two nights here if your flights allow — most couples wish they had.