South India Journey: Temples, Backwaters & Coastal Kerala

You land in Chennai and are met by your driver, who takes you down the coast to Mahabalipuram, a UNESCO-listed Pallava port that dates to the seventh century. The Shore Temple, Arjuna’s Penance and the Panch Rathas are the headline sites; a guided tour the following day covers them in the order that makes sense and includes the local ashram-run paper factory if it is open.

A second drive south brings you to Pondicherry, the former French enclave still divided into Ville Blanche and Ville Noire, separated by a canal. The town is small enough to cover slowly, on foot, by bicycle or by tuk-tuk. Your guide is built into the afternoon and starts with lunch at a South Indian restaurant the locals actually use.

A visit to a working paper-making and weaving workshop follows. The base for both nights is Maison Perumal, a Tamil heritage house in the Indian quarter.

A morning drive inland brings you to Tanjore, the former capital of the Chola empire and home to the eleventh-century Brihadeeswara Temple, a Unesco-listed granite tower that is still in active worship. The afternoon also covers the old palace and the Saraswati Mahal library, one of the oldest in Asia. You stay at Svatma, a restored merchant residence run as a quiet heritage property.

The next morning continues south to Chettinad by way of Trichy, where a local guide takes you through the Rockfort Temple complex. Chettinad itself is unlike anywhere else in India: a cluster of villages built by a Tamil merchant-banking community in the nineteenth century, full of vast mansions decorated with Burmese teak, Belgian glass and Italian marble. Two nights at The Bangala, the family-run heritage hotel that effectively defines the region, gives you time for the antique bazaars at Karaikudi and the working goldsmiths and weavers.

The fifth temple stop is Madurai, where the evening ritual at the Meenakshi Sundareshwarar Temple, the closing of the deity for the night, is the single most affecting religious experience on the trip.

A dawn walk through Madurai, watching the city set up its tea stalls and flower markets, is the right way to leave Tamil Nadu. The drive into the Western Ghats takes you across the state line into Kerala and up to Periyar, a 925-square-kilometer wildlife reserve known for elephant and the occasional tiger. The afternoon of day eleven is given over to a 4×4 expedition through the buffer-zone villages and a family-run spice farm at Kumily.

The following day is the trip’s pivot. A three to four-hour drive after brunch brings you to the Alleppey backwaters, where you board a private rice barge for a single night. The boat moves slowly through paddy fields and waterfront villages, with a chef on board and the afternoon and evening entirely your own. By any measure, this is the most distinctive night of the trip.

You disembark after breakfast and your driver takes you to Fort Kochi, the historic peninsula where the city’s Portuguese, Dutch and British layers are still visible, and where the cantilevered Chinese fishing nets along the waterfront have been worked the same way for six centuries. Forte Kochi, set in a heritage property in the old quarter, is the base for two nights.

The first evening is given to a cooking class at the hotel, where you learn a handful of traditional Cochin recipes (fish moilee, appam, beef ularthiyathu) and eat what you cook. The full second day is for the city itself: the Jewish quarter at Mattancherry and its sixteenth-century synagogue, the Dutch Palace, St Francis’ Church, and the spice markets. The afternoon is left at leisure.

On day fifteen the drive to Cochin Airport is short and the return flight is same-day.

Speak with Do Not Disturb to plan your time in South India.