Kavaratti

Kavaratti is the seat of the Lakshadweep administration, which gives it something the other islands lack: offices, a hospital, a college, a tuna canning unit and a population of about 11,000 who are not there for tourism. It is also strikingly beautiful, a strip of coconut palm nearly six kilometres long with a broad lagoon on the west that stays glass-flat while the open Arabian Sea breaks on the reef a kilometre out. Of the island's fifty-odd mosques, the Ujra Masjid is the one to see: its ceiling is carved from driftwood said to have washed ashore, and its well is believed by islanders to hold curative water.

Around it, lanes of coral-stone houses lead to yards where coir is beaten from coconut husk and dried, an industry that predates the tourists by centuries. The Marine Aquarium near the lagoon is small but useful, naming the fish and corals you are about to swim over. The government dive centre takes beginners into the lagoon and certified divers out to the drop-off, where the wall falls away past gorgonians and turtles.

In the evening, sit on the western beach as the fishing boats come in with skipjack and yellowfin and the light goes copper across the water.