Southern Sojourn: Palaces, Plantations & Stillness

A crossing of the southern uplands, from Bengaluru’s plane trees to the harbour at Kochi. There is Mysuru’s palace under Sunday lights, the drive through Bandipur where the road belongs to elephants, tea gardens…

Length: 12 days, 11 nights
From: ₹3,22,000 per person
Pace: Balanced
Stops: 6
Best months: October to April

The route

6 stops over 12 days

Bengaluru
Mysuru
Ooty
Coimbatore
Munnar
Kochi

Mysuru’s Amba Vilas palace before the mid-morning coaches arrive
Bandipur crossing at first light, elephants in the lantana
Nilgiri Mountain Railway from Coonoor, rack-and-pinion since 1908
Sunrise at Kolukkumalai, the highest tea estate anywhere
Kathakali make-up applied in front of you at Fort Kochi

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 12 days
Stops: 6
Pace: Balanced
From: ₹3,22,000

1

Bengaluru

Arrive Bengaluru

Arrival at Kempegowda International; we meet you in the arrivals hall and drive twenty-five kilometres into the city. Bengaluru sits at 920 metres, so evenings are cool even in April. Settle in, sleep off the flight, and meet your guide at six for a short orientation walk and a beer at a brewery on Church Street.

Night: ITC Windsor, Bengaluru
2B L

Bengaluru

Gardens, Granite and Filter Coffee

Start at Bangalore Fort and the Tipu Sultan summer palace, teak-pillared and painted in fading vegetable dyes. Then Lalbagh, where the Kempegowda tower stands on rock 3,000 million years old. Lunch at MTR — rava idli, invented there during wartime rationing. The afternoon covers the Bull Temple and Gandhi Bazaar; end with filter coffee and a walk down Cunningham Road.

Night: ITC Windsor, Bengaluru
3B

Mysuru

South to Mysuru via Srirangapatna

Three hours down the highway, stopping at Srirangapatna where Tipu Sultan fell in 1799: the Ranganathaswamy temple, the Daria Daulat Bagh with its mural of the Battle of Pollilur, and the mausoleum at Gumbaz. Reach Mysuru for lunch. Late afternoon, the Devaraja Market — jasmine by the metre, sandalwood oil, rose-apple heaps — and sunset from Chamundi Hill.

Night: Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel, Mysore
4B

Mysuru

Amba Vilas and the Hoysala Temple

The palace opens at ten and the crowds arrive at eleven, so you go first, barefoot through the Kalyana Mantapa with its peacock-tiled floor and cast-iron columns from Glasgow. In the afternoon, Somnathpur: a Hoysala temple from 1268, soapstone worked to the density of ivory, and usually almost empty. Back in time for a yoga session or the pool.

Night: Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel, Mysore
5B L

Ooty

Bandipur, Mudumalai, Thirty-six Hairpins

Leave by eight to cross Bandipur and Mudumalai in the morning window; langurs on the tarmac, dhole if you are lucky, and elephants in the lantana. Lunch at Masinagudi, then the climb to Ooty — thirty-six numbered hairpins, sambar at the roadside, and a smell of eucalyptus that arrives before the view does. Tea and cake on arrival at 2,240 metres.

Night: Fernhills Palace, Ooty
6B D

Ooty

Coonoor Tea and the Toy Train

Down to Coonoor by half past eight for the blue-carriage climb back up on the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, a UNESCO line built in 1908 that still uses a rack. Afterwards, a tea factory at Kotagiri: withering, rolling, oxidation, firing, then a tasting of first and second flush. Sim’s Park before dark, and dinner beside a fire — it drops to eight degrees.

Night: Fernhills Palace, Ooty
7B

Coimbatore

Descent to the Kongu Plains

The Kallar road drops you 1,800 metres in ninety minutes and delivers you to a different climate. Coimbatore is a mill town with good food and a serious temple culture: Perur Patteeswarar, whose carved horses are 1,200 years old, and the Adiyogi bust at Isha, 34 metres of steel that you will see from the road. Evening at leisure.

Night: Vivanta Coimbatore
8B D

Munnar

Into the Cardamom Hills

Four and a half hours south-west, crossing into Kerala at Marayoor where the sandalwood forest is state property and the dolmens are three thousand years old. The last hour is tea: Kannan Devan slopes clipped like a haircut, silver oaks for shade, women picking with shears. Check in above Chithirapuram. Dinner includes karimeen and a black pepper rasam.

Night: Windermere Estate, Munnar
9B L D

Munnar

Eravikulam and a 4am Ridge

An optional pre-dawn jeep to Kolukkumalai, the highest tea estate in the world at 2,160 metres, to watch the sun come up over the Western Ghats — leave at four, take a blanket. Later, Eravikulam National Park, where Nilgiri tahr graze within a few metres of the path. Afternoon in a cardamom and vanilla plantation with the estate’s manager.

Night: Windermere Estate, Munnar
10B

Kochi

Down to the Harbour

Four hours down through Neriamangalam, following the Periyar as the air thickens and rubber replaces tea. Fort Kochi by mid-afternoon. A walk before dusk takes in the Chinese cheena vala, St Francis Church where Vasco da Gama was first buried, and the Dutch cemetery. Dinner of meen pollichathu, pearl spot wrapped in banana leaf, at a godown on Bazaar Road.

Night: Brunton Boatyard, Fort Kochi
11B

Kochi

Jew Town, Kathakali, Spice Market

Morning in Mattancherry: the Paradesi Synagogue with its Cantonese floor tiles, no two alike, and the Dutch Palace murals of the Ramayana. Then Bazaar Road, where cardamom and ginger are still auctioned by hand. At five, Kathakali make-up begins in the open — chutti paper built up in ridges — before an hour of performance with drums and vocal narration.

Night: Brunton Boatyard, Fort Kochi
12B

Kochi

Departure from Kochi

A slow last morning: coffee on the sea wall while the ferries cross to Vypin and the dredger works the channel. Transfer to Cochin International, forty-five minutes north, for your onward flight. Our representative sees you through check-in and stays until you are airside. Most Gulf and Singapore connections leave in the early hours.

Night: -