Temple Coast to Kovalam — Madurai, Rameswaram, Kanyakumari & the Sea

Into the old city and to the temple it is built around. Meenakshi Amman occupies the afternoon — the painted gopurams, the golden lotus tank, the Thousand Pillar Hall with each column carved differently — and the evening the closing ceremony, when Sundareswarar is carried in procession to the goddess's chamber and the doors are shut. Two thousand years of continuous settlement is an abstraction until you watch a ritual that has not been interrupted.

East across dry cotton and palmyra country, then over two kilometres of open channel onto the island, the road bridge running beside the rail crossing. Ramanathaswamy in the afternoon — the third corridor is about twelve hundred metres long and the longest of any Indian temple, its piers individually carved and its ceilings painted. The bathing at the twenty-two wells can be done now or tomorrow; either way, bring a change of clothes.

The full length of the spit in the morning, nineteen kilometres to the point where the land gives out between the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Mannar. Dhanushkodi was destroyed by the cyclone of December 1964 and left as it fell — the church walls and the railway remnants are still in the sand, and Kothandaramaswamy temple back along the road is the one thing standing. The afternoon takes the island's hill, its shore sites and the Kalam memorial at an unhurried pace.

The long leg down the coast, around six hours, broken at Suchindram — the Thanumalayan temple there has a forty-metre gopuram and columns that ring at different pitches when struck, which is a genuine curiosity rather than a marketed one. Into Kanyakumari in the late afternoon and out to the point on foot, where three seas meet and the two rocks stand offshore. The sunset from the shore is the warm-up for tomorrow.

The sunrise first, which is what the town is for and which is at its most reliable between October and March. The ferry to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the forty-one-metre Thiruvalluvar statue afterwards, sea conditions allowing. Then north-west across the state line into Kerala and down to the Kovalam headland — under three hours, and an entirely different coast when you arrive: coconut, laterite cliff, and three curved beaches below a lighthouse.

The only day on this itinerary with nothing scheduled, and it is deliberate after five days of driving and temples. The lighthouse on the point, built in 1972, is worth the climb for the view north along the coast. Beyond that the day is the beach, or an Ayurvedic treatment at one of the centres behind it, or the fishing harbour at Vizhinjam a short way south where the catch comes in during the afternoon. Your specialist arranges a treatment in advance if you want one.

The airport is around twenty minutes from the beach, so the morning is genuinely usable. With time, the Padmanabhaswamy temple in the city has a strict dress code and admits only Hindu worshippers to the sanctum, while the Napier Museum and the Kuthiramalika palace beside it are open to everyone and hold the Travancore collections. Otherwise it is a slow breakfast and a short transfer.