Thekkady & Periyar

Thekkady is the gateway to Periyar, a 925-square-kilometre tiger reserve wrapped around a lake that should not exist. In 1895 the British engineer John Pennycuick completed the Mullaperiyar dam to send water east to the parched Tamil districts, drowning a forested valley; the dead trunks still stand in the shallows, and the reservoir now draws elephants, gaur, sambar and smooth-coated otters to open banks where they can actually be seen. The Maharaja of Travancore declared a game reserve here in 1934 and it became a tiger reserve in 1978.

The double-decker government boat cruise is the easy option, but the reserve's better idea is employing former poachers as guides: the Tiger Trail and the border hike take small groups on foot through cardamom-scented forest, and bamboo rafting begins at dawn with a silent paddle across the water. Kumily, the town at the gate, is a spice trading centre where cardamom is auctioned, pepper vines climb every compound wall and nutmeg, clove and vanilla dry on tarpaulins, so a plantation walk here is genuinely instructive rather than decorative. Evenings mean an hour of Kathakali with a make-up demonstration, then Kalaripayattu, where fighters spin the urumi, a flexible sword that sounds like tearing metal.

At around 900 metres the nights are cool enough for a blanket.