Wayanad — Three Nights in the Malabar Hills

Met at Kozhikode airport or station and driven inland — the flat coconut country lasts an hour, and then the road climbs the Thamarassery ghat through nine numbered hairpin bends into cool air. Lakkidi at the top is the viewpoint, and the chain tree beside the road has a story the driver will tell. Around two and a half hours to Kalpetta or Vythiri, where the stays are estate bungalows and homestays rather than hotels. An estate walk in the late afternoon once you have arrived.

Edakkal Caves first, at opening, before heat and crowds: the climb is around 45 minutes of steep steps to a rock shelter whose walls carry petroglyphs several thousand years old, and the last stretch is a ladder. Entry is capped at around 1,900 a day and the caves are closed on Mondays, so a Monday swaps this day with the Chembra day. The heritage museum at Ambalavayal below it puts the carvings in context. Banasura Sagar in the afternoon — the dam is India's largest built of earth, and the boat ride among the drowned hilltops of its reservoir is the reason to go — with the drive back through coffee and areca.

The climb to the heart-shaped lake on Chembra, starting at opening: entry is capped daily, a guide from the forest department is compulsory, and the trail closes in dry months on fire risk, decided locally at short notice. The day is built with a fallback — Soochipara falls, with its rock pool, or Meenmutty — so it holds either way. Pookode lake on the way back if there is light left, which there usually is; the climb takes the morning, not the day.

An early jeep safari into Muthanga, the Wayanad wildlife sanctuary, which joins the Bandipur and Nagarhole forests across the state line — elephant and deer are usual, and the sanctuary sets the timings and the number of vehicles, so it is confirmed rather than assumed. Then back through Kalpetta and down the ghat to Kozhikode, about three and a half hours with traffic, for an afternoon flight, or with time for Kappad beach, where Vasco da Gama landed in 1498, if the departure is later.