Wayanad

Wayanad is the plateau where Kerala runs out and the Deccan begins, 700 to 2,100 metres up, historically a country of the Paniya and Kurichiya communities, later of Jain settlers from Karnataka, then of coffee, pepper and cardamom. Its oldest sight is also its strangest: the Edakkal caves on Ambukuthi hill, a cleft roofed by a fallen boulder, with walls of petroglyphs of human figures, wheels and animals attributed to the Neolithic and a later Brahmi inscription, among the earliest human marks in South India. A day can go up or out.

Up means Chembra Peak at 2,100 metres, with a heart-shaped tarn about two-thirds of the way and a permit from the forest office; or Neelimala for the view down onto Meenmutty falls. Out means the Kuruva island cluster on the Kabini, 950 acres of evergreen forest split by channels crossed on bamboo rafts, or Thirunelli, an old Vishnu temple below Brahmagiri where families come to perform last rites in the Papanasini stream. Muthanga and Tholpetty, the two ranges of the wildlife sanctuary, adjoin Bandipur and Nagarhole across the border and share their elephants.

Sultan Bathery's thirteenth-century Jain temple, used by Tipu Sultan as an ammunition store, gave the town its name. Evenings smell of drying coffee and woodsmoke.