Munnar, Thekkady & Alleppey — Four Nights, the Classic Short Circuit

Met at Kochi airport or Ernakulam station and driven east without a night in the city — the point of a four-night version is to spend the nights 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 on the way up when there is water behind them. Munnar sits near 1,600 m and the evening is cold enough to want a layer; nothing is scheduled beyond arriving.

Eravikulam at opening, entry by the timed shuttle from Rajamala, where the Nilgiri tahr graze close enough to the path that no telephoto is needed — the park closes for calving for around two months in late winter and the dates are confirmed rather than assumed. Then Mattupetty dam and the Kundala valley, and Top Station on the Tamil Nadu border while the cloud still allows the view, which it usually stops doing by late morning. The tea museum at Nallathanni fills the late afternoon.

Down out of the tea and south along the ridge, around three and a half hours through cardamom country, to Kumily on the Tamil Nadu border. The afternoon is a working plantation walk — cardamom under shade, pepper on the trunks, clove, nutmeg and vanilla in among them — and the evening has the Kathakali and kalaripayattu performances in town, bought at the door. Periyar boat tickets for the morning are booked on the reserve's own system in advance rather than through the package.

The first boat slot on Periyar lake, when elephant, gaur and sambar are still at the water and the drowned trunks of the 1895 reservoir stand out of the mist; later departures see materially less. Then west and down to Alappuzha, about four hours, to board the houseboat around midday. The boat works through the narrow canals and out onto open Vembanad water, moors before dark — none may move at night — and every meal is cooked aboard, karimeen in banana leaf if you ask.

Off the boat mid-morning and driven to Kochi airport, about two and a half hours. If your flight is late there is time for Fort Kochi on the way — the Chinese fishing nets on the point and the Paradesi synagogue in Mattancherry are a short walk apart — which is the one piece of the city this route otherwise skips.